g and inexperienced
legislators was entirely out of order.[21] The forceful argument of
Professor Dew was met by one from Jesse Burton Harrison, whose essay
was entitled: "A Review of the Speech of Thomas Marshall in the
Virginia Assembly of 1831-32." Mr. Harrison's arguments to prove that
Negro slavery in Virginia was an economic evil appeared to be merely a
reiteration of the arguments of Marshall.[22] Former President
Madison also replied briefly to Dew. His essay set forth that Dew had
held too cheaply the presence of Negro slavery and emigration and
ascribed too much importance to the influence of the tariff laws.[23]

By far the most important sectional issue in Virginia during the
period 1834 to 1850 was that arising out of a movement for a united
slave-holding South. The Virginia Congressmen had voted as a body
against the "Wilmot Proviso," the abolition of the domestic slave
trade and the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. In
spite of these facts, leading citizens of Western Virginia were trying
to devise ways and means whereby to rid that portion of the State of
Negro slavery. Dr. Henry Ruffner, Henry McDowell Moore and John
Letcher were prominent among those who proposed a plan whereby the
gradual emancipation of all slaves in the State west of the Blue Ridge
Mountains would be effected. The plan was first debated in the
Franklin Society at Lexington in 1847. Later it appeared as a pamphlet
entitled _An Address to the People of West Virginia by a Slaveholder
of West Virginia_. This pamphlet proposed to show that slavery was
opposed to the public welfare and that it might be gradually abolished
without results detrimental to the rights and interests of the slave
holders. It contained elaborate comparisons between the slave-holding
States and those not holding slaves, to the disadvantage of the
former, in tending to prove that slavery was an economic evil.[24]

Dr. Ruffner, later speaking of the movement, said: "No one so far as I
can remember took the abolitionist ground that slave holding was a sin
and ought to be abolished. With us, it was merely a question of
expediency and was argued with special reference to the interests of
West Virginia." Speaking of the reception of the pamphlet in Western
Virginia, he said that the editors in the Valley, doubting the
success of the scheme, hesitated to endorse his efforts; but that west
of the Alleghenies it met with a most encouraging reception.[25]