Virginia had voted against Clay, Harrison, Taylor and Scott, all natives of the state, when they were candidates for the presidency, and she had cast her vote three times against Mr. Clay, and in the cases of Harrison, Taylor and Scott, her vote had been cast for Northern men against them. All of the presidents she had given had been re-elected, because there was nothing sectional or local in their policy, while no Northern president had been re-elected, though three out of the six had been candidates again. In the election of 1860, the state of Virginia cast its vote for Bell and Everett, by a plurality vote over Breckenridge and Lane, and Douglas and Johnson, showing that in this election she was not liable to the charge of sectionalism, even if that charge could be brought against the supporters of Breckenridge and Lane, which is by no means admitted. No interest of Virginia had at any time been fostered by the action of the government, in any stage of its history, and the government had not even taken steps to obtain from foreign countries a diminution of the enormous duties placed on her leading staple, tobacco, but her statesmen, when in office, had pursued a policy looking to the general welfare and prosperity. If she had furnished many statesmen to the common councils, it was because of the general confidence in their patriotism, and freedom from all selfish ambition and narrow-minded notions of policy. Her history from the beginning of the controversy with Great Britain had been one of sacrifices for the benefit of all of the states. She had promptly sent troops to Massachusetts on the commencement of the war of the Revolution in that state, all of its battlefields were red with the blood of her sons; and that war had been terminated on her own soil. With a territory larger than that of all of the other states at the conclusion of peace, she had surrendered an empire beyond the Ohio river, for the sake of Union and for the common benefit; and subsequently, she had consented to the erection of the state of Kentucky within her remaining territory. As the acknowledgement of the independence of the states had left her, she would have been amply able to take care of herself, and erect a powerful government of her own, yet she had contracted her power and narrowed her limits for what she considered the common good.[A]