Once Lincoln was inaugurated in March, many in Virginia felt that the Union had become unbearable, especially after hearing his inaugural address in which he declared, "The power confided to me, will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property, and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts" from the South.
One editorial from The Richmond Dispatch stressed the gravity of Lincoln's inaugural: "The Inaugural Address of Lincoln inaugurates civil war, as we have predicted it would from the beginning." Only the Border States could stop Lincoln from undertaking his policy and that, therefore, "…every Border State ought to go out of the Union within twenty-four hours." A final example of this fear of Lincoln in Virginia is demonstrated by another editorial:
“Mr. Lincoln's Inaugural Address is before our readers - couched in the cool, unimpassioned, deliberate language of the fanatic, with the purpose of pursuing the promptings of fanaticism even to the dismemberment of the Government with the horrors of civil war. Virginia…has the denial of all hope of peace. Civil war must now come. Sectional war, declared by Mr. Lincoln, awaits only the signal gun from the insulted Southern Confederacy to light its horrid fires all along the borders of Virginia. No action of our Convention can now maintain the peace. She must fight!”
Photo: This is the flag carried by Company F of the 17th Virginia Cavalry the Nighthawk Rangers
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