Virginia—Her Past, Present, and Future []

178 VIRGINIA-HER PAST, PRESENT, ETC.
TOTAL EXPORT IN 1861,1862, 1863, 1864, 1865.
1861. 1862.- 1863. 1864. 1865.
NewYork...........galls. 1,112,476 6,720,273 19,547,604 21,335,784 14,332,132
Bostor................... 1,071,100 2,049,431 1,996,307 1,500,000
Philadelphia............. 2,800,978 5,395,738 7,760,148 11,500,000
Baltimore................ 174,830 915,866 929,971 971,500
Portland.................E 120,250 342,080 70,762 11,200
New Bedford............. *.I........... 50,000
Cleveland................. 80,000 81,200
Total Ex. from U. S. galls..... 10,887,431. 28,250,721 32,592,972 28,456,032
ART VI.-VIRGINIA-HER PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE.
WERE there nothing in the history of Virginia to excite attention
and elicit enquiry, except the history of her four years' war, that
has just ended, her bearing in that war would make men curious to
find out the pedigree, training, laws, habits, customs, social institutions, and all the antecedents, of her people. We do not propose,
in this essay, to gratify in full this natural and laudable curiosity,
but only to treat of some of the salient points in her history, and of
some of the most distinguished features in her laws, industrial pursuits and social institutions; which, however, we think, will of themselves suffice to account for her chivalrous bearing, her pure morality,
her religious faith, her conservative spirit, and her intellectual
superiority.
The Virginia Company, that undertook and carried out the first successful settlement of the colony, was composed, in great measure, of the
highest nobility of England-of cavaliers, Church of England men, of
men intensely conservative, and bigottedly opposed to all change and
innovation. The company consisted of more than six hundred
members, whose object was neither political nor religious liberty,
but to found a transatlantic empire, the counterpart of England, such
as they thought England should be, that is, England divested of Dissenters, Catholics, Liberals, Radicals and Rationalists. They were
careful to send to the colony none whose political or religious opinions might disturb its harmony,-none but loyalists and orthodox
Episcopalians.
Severe laws were enacted to punish dissenters, but as no dissenters
came, they finding "ample room and verge enough" in the more
northern colonies, these laws, for the most part, slept upon the statute book.
Up to, and for many years after the Protectorate, Virginia
remained loyal in politics and orthodox in religious faith. England
was, in the meantime, divided between Dissenters and Church of
England men, Radicals and Conservatives, Roundheads and Cavaliers,
who were most zealously and eagerly blowing out each others brains,
independent of God and liberty.
Virginia presented a moral spectacle never before witnessed by