Virginia's Attitude Toward Slavery and Secession

The author contends that Virginia's decision to leave the Union was prompted chiefly by opposition to federal coercion rather than by a widespread desire to extend or protect slavery, and marshals legal and political evidence to support this claim. The narrative surveys the state’s colonial and constitutional record, statutes limiting the slave trade, efforts at colonization and emancipation, expressions of anti-slavery sentiment among prominent citizens, the small share of slaveholders and soldiers, the economic and social effects of slavery, market practices in buying and selling, and the practical obstacles to abolition, concluding that coercive federal policy was the proximate cause of secession.