7

possessions of the University. The University is not only the
principal educational establishment of Virginia, but it is ac-
knowledged to be the great leading institution of the South, to
which the West also manifests a disposition to be tributary.
If he who makes a nation's songs may be said to be its ruler,
what more personal influence may not be ascribed to the insti-
tution which educates & forms the plastic mind of its youth?
Is it not a noble mission for this venerable, and most venerated
commonwealth, to train the young men of neighboring States, a-
long with its own heroic youth, to deeds of high emprize, of un-
selfish magnanimity, of fearless truth, & of lofty principle, at the
same time that if extends to them the richest intellectual cal-
ture, & attainment? Is it not worthy of the majestic fame of Vir-
ginia, and especially now, sitting in serene & uncomplaining
dignity, amidst the ashes of her desolation, to be the nursing
mother not of her own sons only, but of there of her sister
States also, conveying to them there lessons of seek-abrogation, pa-
tience, forbearance moderation, endurance, and determined per-
sistency in right, which have made her, at least in her
children's loving eyes, the gem and the admiration of the world!

This mighty engine of usefulness, and of State-ho-
nors and influence, is now in our hands,-placed there by the
sagacious foresight of former Legislatures, and conformed to
us by the long and arduous, but the humble and unpretend-
ing this of a succession of public servants, for forty years.
Shall it be now relinquished;-now, when Virginia has lost so
much of substance, of territory, and more than all, of her glo-
rious youth, when she is as it were, "childless & crownless in her
voiceless woe", -is it a fit time to strip her of one, -and that not the least,- of her claims
to honor, influence & precedence? Will the Legislature of
1865 transmit itself to after ages as having undone the work
of her greatest and best of of her greatest and best, of Jefferson, Madison, Cabell,
Johnson, Breckenridge, Baldwin, Jaylor, Rice, and a multi=
tude besides of her most honored dead?