In a message dated 8/30/2001 2:00:37 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<<  But, to
 repeat myself, by 1860, the overwhelming majority of Americans,
 including Virginians, were loyal to the United States and not to a
 state. >>

 Virginia did not join the cotton states in the formation of the Confederacy,
but the General Assembly did pass a "non-coercive" resolution that a state
had the right to withdraw from the Union. Former President John Tyler of
Virginia organized a "peace conference," which was unsuccessful and when Fort
Sumter was fired on, Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 troops to put down the
rebellion. At that point, Virginia's secession convention voted to withdraw,
almost all the "no" votes coming from the western counties. The popular
election also split along the line of the Allegheny and with federal troops
holding those counties, a separate convention split off the new state of West
Virginia. The four slave states which did not join the Union were also held
by federal troops and two, Kentucky and Missouri are sometimes argued to have
been a part of the Confederacy. Some states, such as North Carolina and
Arkansas were taken out of the Union by conventions, but without exception,
the citizens of the Confederate states supported the right to withdraw.

 _____________________________________________________________________

                                          Richard E. Dixon
                                  12106 Beaver Creek Road
                                     Clifton, VA 12104-2115
                                             703-830-8177
______________________________________________________________________

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