e, and the friends and foes of secession were
alike represented. The delegates from Loudoun were John Janney and
John A. Carter, both of whom had represented her in the constitutional
convention of 1850,51.

Roll call was followed by the election of a permanent chairman, Mr.
Janney, of Loudoun, receiving a majority of the whole number of votes
cast. Two of the members were then designated a committee to wait upon
the president of the convention to inform him of his election and
conduct him to his seat. Whereupon he addressed the convention as
follows:[29]

[Footnote 29: The unabridged publication in this work of Mr. Janney's
speech of acceptance has seemed specially appropriate. It is the plea
of a Loudoun man for conservative action boldly put forth at a time
when men's passions were inflamed almost beyond human credulity, and
while he himself was the presiding officer of a body which had met to
decide the destiny of the Old Dominion and whose deliberations were to
be watched with breathless interest by the people of both
hemispheres.]

"_Gentlemen of the Convention_: I tender you my sincere and
cordial thanks for the honor you have bestowed upon me by
calling me to preside over the deliberations of the most
important convention that has assembled in this State since
the year 1776.

"I am without experience in the performance of the duties to
which you have assigned me, with but little knowledge of
parliamentary law and the rules which are to govern our
proceedings, and I have nothing to promise you but fidelity
and impartiality. Errors I know I shall commit, but these
will be excused by your kindness, and promptly corrected by
your wisdom.

"Gentlemen, it is now almost seventy-three years since a
convention of the people of Virginia was assembled in this
hall to ratify the Constitution of the United States, one of
the chief objects of which was to consolidate, not the
Government, but the Union of the States.

"Causes which have passed, and are daily passing, into
history, which will set its seal upon them, but which I do
not mean to review, have brought the Constitution and the
Union into imminent peril, and Virginia has come to the
rescue. It is what the whole country expected of her. Her
pride as well as her patriotism--her interest as well as her
honor, called upon her with an emphasis w