A Defence of Virginia

There are total 9 chapters..To the conquerors of my native State and perhaps to some of her sons a large part of the following defence will appear wholly unseasonable. A discussion of a social order totally overthrown and never to be restored here will appear as completely out of date to them as the ribs of Noahs ark bleaching amidst the eternal snows of Ararat to his posterity when engaged in building the Tower of Babel. Let me distinctly premise that I do not dream of affecting the perverted judgments of the great anti-slavery party which now rules the hour. Of course a set of people who make success the test of truth as they avowedly do in this matter and who have been busily and triumphantly engaged for so many years in perfecting a plain injustice to which they had deliberately made up their minds are not within the reach of reasoning. Nothing but the hand of a retributive Providence can avail to reach them. The few among them who do not pass me by with silent neglect I am well aware will content themselves with scolding; they will not venture a rational reply. . The most fearful consequence of the despotic government to which the South is now subjected is not the plundering of our goods nor the abridgment of privileges nor the death of innocent men but the degrading and debauching of the moral sensibilities and principles of the helpless victims. The weapon of arbitrary rulers is physical force; the shield of its victims is usually evasion and duplicity. Again: few minds and consciences have that stable independence which remains erect and undebauched amidst the disappointments anguish and losses of defeat and the desertion of numbers and the obloquy of a lost cause. Hence it has usually been found in the history of subjugated nations that they receive at the hands of their conquerors this crowning woe—a depraved cringing and cowardly spirit.