Part 1173

Thus ended in failure the first attempt of Virginia to preserve the national peace; and the crisis demanded that she should promptly decide upon her course. On February 13 (1861) a Convention assembled at Richmond, and a Committee was appointed on Federal Relations. On March 10 (1861), this Committee reported fourteen resolutions protesting against all interference with slavery; declaring secession to be a right; and defining the grounds on which the Commonwealth would feel herself to be justified in exercising that right, namely: the failure to obtain guarantees; the adoption of a warlike policy by the Government of the United States; or the attempt to exact the payment of duties from the seceded States, or to reënforce or recapture the Southern forts. These resolves clearly define the attitude of Virginia at this critical moment. After prolonged discussion, all but the last had passed the Convention when intelligence came that war had begun. The thunder of cannon from Charleston harbor broke up the political discussion. … Mr. Lincoln had expressed himself in his inaugural with perfect plainness. Secession was unlawful, and the Union remained unbroken; it was his duty to execute the laws, and he should perform it. To execute the laws it was necessary to have an army; and (April 15, 1861) President Lincoln issued his proclamation calling for 75,000 troops from the States remaining in the Union. The direct issue was thus presented, and Virginia was called upon to decide the momentous question whether she would fight against the South or against the North. … As late as the first week in April the Convention had refused to secede by a vote of 89 to 45. Virginia was conscientiously following her old traditions and would not move. Now the time had come at last. … On the 17th of April, two days after the Federal proclamation, the Convention passed an ordinance of secession and adhesion to the Southern Confederacy, by a vote of 88 to 55, which was ratified by the people by a majority of 96,750 votes, out of a total of 161,018. West Virginia refused to be bound by the action of the Convention, and became a separate State, but the Virginia of the Tidewater and Valley went with the South."

_J. E. Cooke, Virginia, part 3, chapter 22._

"Of the 46 delegates from the territory now comprising West Virginia, 29 voted against [the ordinance of secession], 9 for it, 7 were absent and one excused. Those who voted against it hastened to leave the city," and, on reaching their homes, became generally the leaders of a movement to separate their section of the State from the Old Dominion. On the 13th of May a convention of delegates from the counties of Northwestern Virginia was held at Wheeling, by the action of which a more general convention was called and held at the same place on the 11th day of June. The latter convention assumed the power to reorganize the government of the State of Virginia.

_V. A. Lewis, History of West Virginia, chapter 21-23._

ALSO IN: J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay, _Abraham Lincoln, volume 3, chapter 25, and volume 4, chapter 19._

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1861 (April). Governor Letcher's reply to President Lincoln's call for troops.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (APRIL).

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1861 (April). Seizure of Harper's Ferry and Norfolk Navy Yard.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (APRIL). ACTIVITY OF REBELLION.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1861 (June-November). The loyal State government organized in West Virginia. Steps taken toward separation from the old State.

A Convention held on the 11th of June in West Virginia declared the State offices of Virginia vacant by reason of the treason of those who had been elected to hold them, and proceeded to form a regular State organization, with Francis H. Pierpont for the executive head. Maintaining that the loyal people were entitled to speak for the whole State they declared that their government was the government of Virginia. They subsequently admitted delegates from Alexandria and Fairfax Counties in Middle Virginia and from Accomac and Northampton Counties on the eastern shore. Thus organized, the government was acknowledged by Congress as the government of Virginia and senators and representatives were admitted to seats. The Pierpont Government, as it was called, then adopted an ordinance on the 20th of August, 1861, providing "for the formation of a new State out of a portion of the territory of this State." The ordinance was approved by a vote of the people, and on the 26th of November the Convention assembled in Wheeling to frame a constitution for the new government.

_J. G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, volume 1, chapter 21._

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1861 (July). Richmond made the capital of the Southern Confederacy.

"The Conspiracy had no intention originally of establishing its seat of government at Richmond. That was a part of the price exacted by Virginia for her secession, and it was not paid without reluctance. It is to be remembered that at that time every thing seemed to turn on what the Border States would do. … By establishing the seat of government at Richmond, it became certain that the most powerful of the Southern armies would always be present in Virginia. If Virginia had been abandoned, all the Border States would have gone with the North. … The Confederates having determined on the transfer of their seat of government to Richmond, the necessary preparations were completed, and their Congress opened its first session in that city on the 20th of July, 1861."

_J. W. Draper, History of the American Civil War, chapter 39 (volume 2)._

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VIRGINIA: A. D. 1861-1865. The Battleground of the Civil War.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (MAY: VIRGINIA), and after.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1862 (April-November). The separation of West Virginia consummated.

See WEST VIRGINIA: A. D. 1862 (APRIL-DECEMBER).

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1865. The last meeting of the Secession Legislature. President Lincoln's Permit.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (APRIL: VIRGINIA).

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1865. Recognition of the Pierpont State Government by President Johnson.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (MAY-JULY).

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1865-1870. Reconstruction.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (MAY-JULY), to 1868-1870.

VIRGINIA: End--------

VIRGINIA, University of.

"In 1816 the Legislature of Virginia authorized the president and directors of the Literary Fund to report a plan for a university at the next session of the Assembly. The committee made a full report as requested, but nothing was accomplished beyond bringing the subject of education prominently before the people. At the legislative session of 1817-18 that part of the bill relating to a university and the education of the poor was passed. … In the bill authorizing the establishment of the university, it was provided that the sum of $45,000 per annum should be given for the education of the poor, and $15,000 to the university. The commissioners having reported in favor of Central College as the most convenient place in Albemarle County, the Legislature decided, after much discussion, to locate the university at Charlottesville, and to assume the property and site of Central College. The commissioners embodied in their report an exhaustive plan for a university, chiefly from the pen of Thomas Jefferson."

_F. W. Blackmar, History of Federal and State Aid to Higher Education in the United States, (Bureau of Education, Circular of Information, 1890, number 1), pages 174-175._

ALSO IN: _H. B. Adams, Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia (Bureau of Education, Circular of Information, 1888, number 1)._

VIRGINIA, West.

See WEST VIRGINIA.

VIROCONIUM.

See URICONIUM.

VISCONTI, The House of the.

See MILAN: A. D. 1277-1447.

VISIGOTHS.

See GOTHS.

VITALIAN, Pope, A. D. 657-672.

VITELLIAN CIVIL WAR.

See ROME: A. D. 69.

VITELLIUS, Roman Emperor, A. D. 69.

VITEPSK, Battle of.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1812 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER).

VITTORIA, Battle of (1813).

See SPAIN: A. D. 1812-1814.

VIZIR, VIZIER.

"Like the Sassanian emperors, the Caliph was not only the divinely appointed ruler, but the embodiment of the government itself. His word was literally law, and his caprice might at any moment overturn the most careful calculations of the ministers, or deprive them of life, power, or liberty, during the performance of their most active duties, or at a most critical juncture. It was very seldom, however, that this awful personage condescended to trouble himself about the actual details of the executive government. The Vizier, as the word implies [Vizier, in Arabic Wazir, means 'One who bears a burden,'—Foot-note], was the one who bore the real burden of the State, and it was both his interest and that of the people at large to keep the Caliph himself as inactive as possible, and to reduce him, in fact, to the position of a mere puppet."

_E. H. Palmer, Haroun Alraschid, Caliph of Bagdad, chapter. 1._

See, also, SUBLIME PORTE.

VLADIMIR I. (called The Great) Duke of Kiev, A. D. 981-1015.

VLADIMIR II., Duke of Kiev, 1113-1126.

VOCATES, The.

See AQUITAINE: THE ANCIENT TRIBES.

VOCLAD, OR VOUGLÉ, Battle of.

See GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 507-509.

VOCONIAN LAW.

The object of the Voconian Law, passed at Rome about 169 B. C. under the auspices of Cato the censor, "was to limit the social influence of women, by forbidding rich citizens to make them heiresses of more than one half of their whole estate."

_W. Ihne, History of Rome, book 6, chapter 12 (volume 4)._

VODIÆ, The.

See IRELAND: TRIBES OF EARLY CELTIC INHABITANTS.

VOIVODES, WOIWODES.

See POLAND: A. D. 1578-1652; also BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: A. D. 1341-1350 (SERVIA).

VOLATERRÆ, Siege of.

Some remnants of the armies defeated by Sulla, in the civil war which ended in his mastery of Rome and the Roman state (B. C. 82), took refuge in the strong Etruscan town of Volaterræ, and only capitulated after a siege of two years.

_W. Ihne, History of Rome, book 7, chapter 19 (volume 5)._

VOLCÆ, The.

"When the Romans entered the south of France, two tribes occupied the country west of the Rhone as far at least as Tolosa (Toulouse) on the Garonne. The eastern people, named the Volcae Arecomici, possessed the part between the Cebenna or Cevenna range (Cevennes), the Rhone, and the Mediterranean, and according to Strabo extended to Narbonne. The chief town of these Volcae was Nemausus (Nismes). The Volcae Tectosages had the upper basin of the Garonne: their chief town was Tolosa."

_G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 1, chapter 21._

VOLSCIAN WARS OF ROME.

See ROME: B. C. 489-450.

VOLSCIANS, The.

See OSCANS; also ITALY, ANCIENT; and LATIUM.

VOLTA, Battle of (1848).

See ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849.

VOLTURNO, Battle of the (1860). See ITALY: A. D. 1859-1861.

VOLUNTII, The.

See BRITAIN, CELTIC TRIBES; also, IRELAND: TRIBES OF EARLY CELTIC INHABITANTS.

VRACHOPHAGOS, Battle of (1352).

See CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 1348-1355.

VROEDSCHAP, The.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1584-1585 LIMITS OF THE UNITED PROVINCES.

VULCANAL AT ROME, The.

"The Vulcanal, or, as it is called by Livy, the Area Vulcani, must have been close to the Senaculum [early meeting place of the Senate], on the slope of the Capitol. It seems to have been originally an open space of some extent, used for public meetings, especially those of the Comitia Tributa, and dedicated to Vulcan. Sacrifices of small fish were offered to Vulcan here, and a temple dedicated to that god stood also here in the earliest times, but it was afterwards, on the enlargement of the pomœrium beyond the Palatine, removed for religious reasons to the Circus Flaminius, and the Vulcanal became simply a consecrated area."

_R. Burn, Rome and the Campagna, chapter 6, part 1._

_C. I. Hemans, Historic and Monumental Rome, page 209._

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VULGAR ERA.

See ERA, CHRISTIAN.

W.

WAARTGELDERS.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1603-1619.

WABASH RIVER: Called the River St. Jerome by the French (1712).

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1698-1712.

WABENAKIES, OR ABNAKIS.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ABNAKIS.

WACOS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PAWNEE (CADDOAN) FAMILY.

WAGER OF BATTLE. TRIAL BY COMBAT. JUDICIAL COMBAT.

"Trial by combat does not seem to have established itself completely in France till ordeals went into disuse, which Charlemagne rather encouraged, and which, in his age, the clergy for the most part approved. The former species of decision may, however, be met with under the first Merovingian kings (Greg. Turon, l. vii. c. 19, l. x. c. 10), and seems to have prevailed in Burgundy. It is established by the laws of the Alemanni or Suabians. Baluz. t. i. p. 80. It was always popular in Lombardy. … Otho II. established it in al disputes concerning real property. … God, as they deemed, was the judge. The nobleman fought on horseback, with all his arms of attack and defence; the plebeian on foot, with his club and target. The same were the weapons of the champions to whom women and ecclesiastics were permitted to intrust their rights. If the combat was intended to ascertain a civil right, the vanquished party, of course, forfeited his claim and paid a fine. If he fought by proxy, the champion was liable to have his hand struck off: a regulation necessary, perhaps, to obviate the corruption of these hired defenders. In criminal cases the appellant suffered, in the event of defeat, the same punishment which the law awarded to the offence of which he accused his adversary. Even where the cause was more peaceably tried, and brought to a regular adjudication by the court, an appeal for false judgment might indeed be made to the suzerain, but it could only be tried by battle. And in this, the appellant, if he would impeach the concurrent judgment of the court below, was compelled to meet in combat everyone of its members; unless he should vanquish them all within the day, his life, if he escaped from so many hazards, was forfeited to the law. If fortune or miracle should make him conqueror in every contest, the judges were equally subject to death, and their court forfeited their jurisdiction for ever. … Such was the judicial system of France when St. Louis [A. D. 1226-1270] enacted that great code which bears the name of his Establishments. The rules of civil and criminal procedure, as well as the principles of legal decisions, are there laid down with much detail. But that incomparable prince, unable to overthrow the judicial combat, confined himself to discourage it by the example of a wiser jurisprudence. It was abolished throughout the royal domains." Trial by combat "was never abolished by any positive law, either in France [at large] or England. But instances of its occurrence are not frequent even in the fourteenth century."

_H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 2, part 2 (volume 1)._

"Nor was the wager of battle confined to races of Celtic or Teutonic origin. The Slavonic tribes, as they successively emerge into the light of history, show the same tendency to refer doubtful points of civil and criminal law to the arbitrament of the sword. The earliest records of Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, Servia, Silesia, Moravia, Pomerania, Lithuania, and Russia, present evidences of the prevalence of the system." The last recorded instance of the wager of battle in France was in 1549. "In England, the resolute conservatism, which resists innovation to the last, prolonged the existence of the wager of battle until a period unknown in other civilized nations. … It was not until the time of Elizabeth that it was even abolished in civil cases. … Even in the 17th century, instances of the battle ordeal between persons of high station are on record." As late as 1818 the right was claimed and conceded by the judges, in a criminal case which caused much excitement. "The next year the act 59 Geo. III. chap. 46, at length put an end for ever to this last remnant of the age of chivalry."

_H. C. Lea, Superstition and Force, chapter 2._

See, also, LAW, CRIMINAL: A. D. 1818.

WAGER OF LAW.

"This was the remarkable custom which was subsequently known as canonical compurgation, and which long remained a part of English jurisprudence, under the name of the Wager of Law. The defendant, when denying the allegation under oath, appeared surrounded by a number of companions—'juratores,' 'conjuratores,' 'sacramentales,' 'collaudantes,' 'compurgatores,' as they were variously termed—who swore, not to their knowledge of the facts, but as sharers and partakers in the oath of denial. This curious form of procedure derives importance from the fact that it is an expression of the character, not of an isolated sept, but of nearly all the races that have moulded the destinies of Europe. The Ostrogoths in Italy, and the Wisigoths of the South of France and Spain were the only nations in whose codes it occupies no place, and they, … at an early period, yielded themselves completely to the influence of the Roman civilization. … The church, with the tact which distinguished her dealings with her new converts, was not long in adopting a system which was admirably suited for her defence in an age of brute force."

_H. C. Lea, Superstition and Force, chapter 1._

On the abolition of the Wager of Law.

See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1833.

WAGNER, Fort, The assault on, the siege, and the final reduction of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JULY: SOUTH CAROLINA), and (AUGUST-DECEMBER: SOUTH CAROLINA).

WAGRAM, Battle of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).

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WAHABEES, The.

"The Wahabees derive their name from Abdul Wahab, the father of Sheikh Muhammad, their founder, who arose about the beginning of the last century, in the province of Najd, in Arabia. The object of the Wahabee movement was to sweep away all later innovations, and to return to the original purity of Islam, as based upon the exact teaching of the Koran and the example of Mahomet. The principles of the sect rapidly spread among the Arab tribes, and were adopted by the sovereign princes of Darayeh, in Najd. Impelled by religious zeal and political ambition, and allured by the prospect of plunder, the Wahabees soon acquired nearly the whole of Arabia, and menaced the neighbouring Pashaliks of Turkey and Egypt. Mecca and Medina soon fell into their hands, the shrine was despoiled of its rich ornaments, and the pilgrim route to the Kaaba closed for some years. Early in this century (1811), Muhammad Ali, the Pasha of Egypt, at the bidding of the Sultan, set himself to check the progress of this aggressive sect; and his son Ibrahim Pasha completed the work (1818). … The following particulars of the Wahabee reform need only be added. They reject the decisions of the 'four orthodox doctors,' and the intercessions of saints; they condemn the excessive reverence paid to Mahomet, and deny his mediation, until the last day. They also disapprove of the ornamenting of tombs, &c."

_J. W. H. Stobart, Islam and its Founder, chapter 10, with foot-note._

ALSO IN: _W. C. Taylor, History of Mohammedanism and its Sects, chapter 11._

_T. Nöldeke, Sketches from Eastern History, page 103._

WAHLSTADT, Battle of (1241).

See MONGOLS: A. D. 1229-1294; and LIEGNITZ, THE BATTLE OF.

WAHPETONS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SIOUAN FAMILY.

WAIILATPUAN FAMILY, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: WAIILATPUAN FAMILY.

WAIKAS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: CARIBS AND THEIR KINDRED.

WAITANGI, Treaty of.

See NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1642-1856.

WAITZEN, Battles of(1849).

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1848-1849.

WAIWODES, WOIWODES, VOIVODES.

See POLAND: A. D. 1578-1652; and BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: A. D. 1341-1356 (SERVIA).

WAKASHAN FAMILY, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: WAKASHAN FAMILY.

WAKEFIELD, Battle of (1460).

Queen Margaret, rallying the loyal Lancastrians of the north of England, met her enemy, the Duke of York, and the enemies of her party, on Wakefield Green, December 30, 1460, and defeated them with great slaughter, the Duke of York being found among the slain. But her fruitless victory was soon reversed by young Edward, Earl of March, eldest son of the deceased Duke of York, who deposed King Henry VI. and planted himself on the throne, before the same winter had passed.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1455-1471.

WAKEFIELD SYSTEM, The.

See AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1800-1840.

WALCHEREN EXPEDITION, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1809 (JULY-DECEMBER).

WALDEMAR.

See VALDEMAR.

WALDENSES, VAUDOIS, The.