Virginia

"The decision came from what seemed to many white Virginians the unavoidable logic of the situation. Virginia was a slave state; the Republicans had announced their intention of limiting slavery. Slavery was protected by the sovereignty of the state."

"When we think about all the history that has occurred in Virginia, we become so overwhelmed that we have to lie down on the sofa and yell for somebody to bring us a cold beer. Virginia was the site of North America's first permanent English colonist, James Town, as well as the first House of Burgesses, which was a house where they kept female burges. Tobacco was invented in Virginia, as well as George Washington and seven other U.S. presidents: Jefferson, Monroe, Jefferson, Madison, Park, Lexington, and Third Avenue. The Civil War also occurred in Virginia in a number of national parks. Visitors may witness authentic demonstrations of all these events, as well as a reenactment of the discovery of the radial tire, at Colonial Williamsburg, where each day men and women wearing authentic eighteenth-century costumes attempt to scratch themselves without anybody noticing. "Dynamic" is a word we would like to include in this sentence."

"They could be thinking: 'This is perhaps the second time in a month that people associated with the Tea Party have really hurt us and we need to rethink things'. At some point, the national Republican party needs to decide: 'Are we going to be a majority party or go to the right, stake out that ground and maybe never hold national office again."

"“Virginia?” he said, as if I had asked him if there was anywhere local we could get a dose of syphilis."

"Our nation is shocked and saddened by the news of the shootings at Virginia Tech today...Schools should be places of safety, and sanctuary, and learning. When that sanctuary is violated, the impact is felt in every American classroom and every American community. Today our nation grieves with those who have lost loved ones at Virginia Tech. We hold the victims in our hearts; we lift them up in our prayers; and we ask a loving God to comfort those who are suffering today...Laura and I have come to Blacksburg today with hearts full of sorrow. This is a day of mourning for the Virginia Tech community -- and it is a day of sadness for our entire nation. We've come to express our sympathy. In this time of anguish, I hope you know that people all over this country are thinking about you, and asking God to provide comfort for all who have been affected.Yesterday began like any other day. Students woke up, and they grabbed their backpacks and they headed for class. And soon the day took a dark turn, with students and faculty barricading themselves in classrooms and dormitories -- confused, terrified, and deeply worried. By the end of the morning, it was the worst day of violence on a college campus in American history -- and for many of you here today, it was the worst day of your lives.It's impossible to make sense of such violence and suffering. Those whose lives were taken did nothing to deserve their fate. They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now they're gone -- and they leave behind grieving families, and grieving classmates, and a grieving nation."

"Carry me back to old Virginia; there let me live 'till I wither and decay."

"The prevailing Notion now is to Continue the most abject State of Slavery in this Common-Wealth..."

"H to the izz-o, v to the izz-a. For shizzle my nizzle, used to dribble down in VA."

"Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia: 1. That the Code of Virginia is amended by adding in Article 1 of Chapter 4 of Title 18.2 a section numbered 18.2-37.1 and by adding in Article 4 of Chapter 4 of Title 18.2 a section numbered 18.2-57.5 as follows: §18.2-37.1. Certain matters not to constitute defenses. A. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the discovery of, perception of, or belief about another person's actual or perceived sex, gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation, whether or not accurate, is not a defense to any charge of capital murder, murder in the first degree, murder in the second degree, or voluntary manslaughter and is not provocation negating or excluding malice as an element of murder. B. Nothing in this section shall be construed to prevent a defendant from exercising his constitutionally protected rights, including his right to call for evidence in his favor that is relevant and otherwise admissible in a criminal prosecution. §18.2-57.5. Certain matters not to constitute defenses. A. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the discovery of, perception of, or belief about another person's actual or perceived sex, gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation, whether or not accurate, is not a defense to any charge brought under this article. B. Nothing in this section shall be construed to prevent a defendant from exercising his constitutionally protected rights, including his right to call for evidence in his favor that is relevant and otherwise admissible in a criminal prosecution."

"That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety."

"In 1640, the very first gun control law ever enacted on these shores was passed in Virginia. It provided that blacks, even freemen, could not own guns."

"I am no more a child, but a man; no longer a confederacy, but a nation. I am no more Virginia, New York, Carolina, or Massachusetts, but the United States of America."

"The true purpose of all government is to promote the welfare and provide for the protection and security of the governed, and when any form or organization of government proves inadequate for, or subversive of this purpose, it is the right, it is the duty of the latter to alter or abolish it. The Bill of Rights of Virginia, framed in 1776, reaffirmed in 1860, and again in 1851, expressly reserves this right to the majority of her people, and the existing constitution does not confer upon the General Assembly the power to call a Convention to alter its provisions, or to change the relations of the Commonwealth, without the previously expressed consent of such majority. The act of the General Assembly, calling the Convention which assembled at Richmond in February last, was therefore a usurpation; and the Convention thus called has not only abused the powers nominally entrusted to it, but, with the connivance and active aid of the executive, has usurped and exercised other powers, to the manifest injury of the people, which, if permitted, will inevitably subject them to a military despotism."

"We, therefore the delegates here assembled in Convention to devise such measures and take such action as the safety and welfare of the loyal citizens of Virginia may demand, having mutually considered the premises, and viewing with great concern, the deplorable condition to which this once happy Commonwealth must be reduced, unless some regular adequate remedy is speedily adopted, and appealing to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe for the rectitude of our intentions, do hereby, in the name and on the behalf of the good people of Virginia, solemnly declare, that the preservation of their dearest rights and liberties and their security in person and property, imperatively demand the reorganization of the government of the Commonwealth, and that all acts of said Convention and Executive, tending to separate this Commonwealth from the United States, or to levy and carry on war against them, are without authority and void; and the offices of all who adhere to the said Convention and Executive, whether legislative, executive or judicial, are vacated."

"The State of Virginia is famous in American annals for the multitudinous array of her statesmen and heroes. She has been dignified by some the mother of statesmen. History has not been sparing in recording their names, or in blazoning their deeds. Her high position in this respect, has given her an enviable distinction among her sister States. With Virginia for his birth-place, even a man of ordinary parts, on account of the general partiality for her sons, easily rises to eminent stations. Men, not great enough to attract special attention in their native States, have, like a certain distinguished citizen in the State of New York, sighed and repined that they were not born in Virginia."

"Douthat State Park was the first Virginia state park my family ever visited. The year was 1986 and our boys were two and five years old. We camped in a small tent in a beautiful lakeside site with a panoramic view of Douthat Lake. That first visit was a fun and inspiration one and we were camped next to an older couple from Christiansburg. They took an interest in our boys and shared with us homemade jam and local honey. We remember thinking that Virginians were very hospitable; we imagined it was the world-famous southern hospitality at work. It wasn't exactly what we had encountered growing up in northeast Ohio, where the pace of life seemed much faster and people were less considerate."

"Douthat was also one of the first parks to offer electricity to its customers. The first cabins had a coin-activated system: put in a dime, turn the knob and the power was on, and the lights showcased the beautiful timber-and-stone craftsmanship. This would have been a pretty amazing experience for many people in the 1930s. Some areas of the Commonwealth didn't get electric power until after World War II. Originally the power came from a local hydroelectric project, one of the first in the region."

"Hungry Mother State Park was officially announced as Southwest Virginia State Park, but somehow the original name stuck, despite the protests of the local citizenry. Author Mack H. Sturgill has painstakingly detailed the history and development of Hungry Mother State Park. After considerable research, Mr. Sturgill is of the belief that the park name was a publicity stunt created by slightly inebriated men who devised a public relations campaign to enhance the local economy. In Sturgill's words, "The naming of the park and the accompanying legend seems to be a case of putting an old tale in a new bottle with a provocative label." Marketing ploy or not, the famed name (and its corresponding legend) lives on today."

"The spirit of liberty that had been so invigorated by the events of the 1770s did manifest itself in a number of important measures affecting the status of America's slaves. In 1777 the constitution for the new state of Vermont completely abolished slavery, and Massachusetts soon followed suit. Many other Northern states, such as Pennsylvania in 1780, adopted legislation aimed at gradual emancipation during this period, although it was not until 1804 that New Jersey finally enacted a similar law. Not surprisingly, in the South anti-slavery gains were much more modest. But three Southern states, including Virginia in 1782, passed laws that made it possible for owners to manumit their slaves. It was the provisions of this law that Washington had to respect in formulating the manumission plan outlined in his will."

"Sir, the great question which is now uprooting this Government to its foundation, the great question which underlies all our deliberations here, is the question of African slavery."

"April 7, 1865. General R. E. Lee, the result of the last week must convince you of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia in this struggle. I feel that it is so, and regard it as my duty to shift from myself the responsibility of any further effusion of blood, by asking of you the surrender of that portion of the C.S. Army known as the Army of Northern Virginia. U.S. Grant, Lieutenant-General."

"Incontestably what runs Virginia is the Byrd machine, the most urbane and genteel dictatorship in America. A real machine it is, though Senator Harry Flood Byrd himself faced more opposition in 1946 than at any time in his long, suave, and distinguished public career. Virginia is, of course, "the mother of states"; it is one of four in the union to call itself a commonwealth, and it has produced eight presidents, more than any other state. Its history goes back to Jamestown, the first Anglo-Saxon settlement in America, in 1607; the colony was named for Elizabeth, the virgin queen, and its citizens established an effective representative government several years before the Puritans in New England. Ever since it has prided itself on aristocratic tradition, a seasoned attitude toward public life, administrative decency, and firm attachment to the regime of law. Virginia breeds no Huey Longs or Talmadges; its respect for the forms of order is deeply engrained. One subsidiary point is that Virginians, it seems, were not so philoprogenitive as their New England counterparts. Boston, as we know, choked with Cabots, Adamses, and Lowells. But there are no Washingtons in Richmond; George Washington, as a matter of fact, left no children. Jefferson had direct descendants, but none with the name Jefferson play any consequential role in Virginia life today. There are no Madisons, Monroes, descendants of John Marshall or Patrick Henry, or even Lees, in the contemporary political arena."

"Virginia puts on her prettiest colors to greet the seasons. In the fall, the colors of the leaves are lemon yellow, pumpkin gold, watermelon red, rusty oak, vermillion maple, burnt orange, and dusty green, and no two trees are the same."

"Started in Atlanta, then I spread out with it. South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi. On to North Carolina, Philadelphia, and Virginia. From down in Miami where it's warm in the winter. On up to Minnesota where it storms in the winter."

"Red-Cloud Owen grew up in New York, but he spent his summers in Virginia with his cousins and other members of the tribe. At 15, he moved to Virginia so that he could attend an all-Indian school. He decided to stay for good, but his mother would never return to live in Virginia again. She died in 1974. Before she died, however, she made a request, Red-Cloud Owen says. She wanted to be buried in the Chickahominy tribal cemetery, next to the tribal center and near the small town where she grew up and knew the name of everyone and every tree. Buried in Virginia. Buried as an Indian."

"The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American."

"Virginia is a beautiful state, with almost one-third of its area protected in state or national forests or parks. Virginia has barrier islands, seacost, coastal plains, piedmont, mountains, and valleys. Throughout the state are historic buildings and battlefields. The first settlers encountered Powhatan Indians, members of the Algonquin Nation. As settlers moved westward and northward, they met other tribes as well. Some of the most beautiful place-names in Virginia, such as Shenandoah and Chesapeake, come from Native American words. Today, two tribes still own reservations in King William County, the Mattaponi and the Pamunkey. In King James I's original land grant to the London Company in 1609, the territory of Virginia stretched north and south of Point Comfort on the Atlantic Ocean for 200 miles, then west and northwest to the Pacific Ocean, encompassing three-quarters of the present United States and much of what is now Canada. After England relinquished the area west of the Mississippi in 1763, Virginia still included territory northwest to the Great Lakes. Virginia gave up claims to this vast Northwest Territory when it joined the other former colonies to establish the United States of America."

"Geologically, Virginia has some unusual formations- the Natural Bridge, Natural Tunnel, and Natural Chimneys- where ancient seas once washed and shaped the limestone. In Fairystone State Park in Henry County, crystals in petrified wood have produced small crosses that are used as jewelry. Virginia has iron ore at Ferrum, bauxite at various locations, and huge deposits of coal in its western mountains. Until the California gold strike in 1849, Virginia's Goochland and Buckingham Counties were America's leading producers of gold. Both the Revolutionary War and the Civil War were fought extensively in Virginia, and the surrenders that ended both these wars took place here. Although Virginia is considered a conservative state and was the capital of the Confederacy, Virginia voters in 1989 elected the first African-American governor, L. Douglas Wilder. The history of Old Dominion is colorful and dramatic."

"Yorktown, Virginia is a small, quiet town today. The only indications of its past importance are the Victory Monument, the visitors' center, and the cannons by the river pointing at the earthworks where an empire was lost and won."

"VA? Now, that sounds great."

"On the whole, I find nothing anywhere else... which Virginia need envy."

"These people were of all races, colors, and creeds. French were in the north and in the Carolinas. Dutch had built the town on Manhattan island, and their patroons' estates in the Hudson valley; now they were building their own cabins in the Mohawk Indian country that is now New York State. Germans had settled in the Jerseys and in the far west, beyond Philadelphia. Germans and Scotch-Irish were climbing the Carolina mountains; Swedes were in Delaware, English and French and Dutch and Irish were settled in Massachusetts, the New Hampshire Grants, Connecticut, and Virginia. Mingled with all these were Italians, Portuguese, Finns, Arabs, Armenians, Russians, Greeks, and Africans from a dozen very different African peoples and cultures. Black, brown, yellow and white, all these peoples were some of them free and some of them slaves. Also they were intermarried with the American Indians."

"Save for defense of my native state, I never desire again to draw my sword."

"I, Robert E. Lee of Lexington, Virginia do solemn, in the presence of Almighty God, that I will henceforth faithfully support, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, the Union of the States thereafter, and that I will, in like manner, abide by and faithful support all laws and proclamations which have been made during the existing rebellion with reference to the emancipation of slaves, so help me God."

"I think it would be better for Virginia if she could get rid of them... I think it would be for the benefit of Virginia."

"I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished. I believe it will be greatly for the interests of the south. So fully am I satisfied of this, as regards Virginia especially, that I would cheerfully have lost all I have lost by the war, and have suffered all I have suffered, to have this object attained."

"In 2021, Virginia became the first and only Southern state to pass a law amending the Code of Virginia to curtail the use and effectiveness of the LGBTQ+ "panic" defense. The law defines circumstances that do not mitigate a homicide. Specifically, it states that "notwithstanding any other provision of law, the discovery of, perception of, or belief about another person's actual or perceived sex, gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation, whether or not accurate, is not a defense to any charge of capital murder, murder in the first degree, murder in the second degree, or voluntary manslaughter and is not provocation negating malice as an element of murder.""

"The people of Virginia have thus allowed this giant insurrection to make its nest within her borders, and this Government has no choice left but to deal with it where it finds it; and it has the less regret, as the loyal citizens have in due form claimed its protection. Those loyal citizens this Government is bound to recognize and protect, as being Virginia."

"On a view of all circumstances I have judged it most prudent not to force Billey back to Virginia even if it could be done; and have accordingly taken measures for his final separation from me. I am persuaded his mind is too thoroughly tainted to be a fit companion for fellow slaves in Virginia. The laws here do not admit of his being sold for more than 7 years. I do not expect to get near the worth of him; but cannot think of punishing him by transportation merely for coveting that liberty for which we have paid the prices of so much blood, and have proclaimed so often to be the right, and worthy the pursuit of every human being."

"Virginia is for lovers."

"I have never doubted what Virginia would do when the alternatives present themselves to her intelligent and gallant people, to choose between an association with her sisters and the dominion of a people, who have chosen their leader upon the single idea that the African is equal to the Anglo-Saxon, and with the purpose of placing our slaves on equality with ourselves and our friends of every condition! and if we of South Carolina have aided in your deliverance from tyranny and degradation, as you suppose, it will only the more assure us that we have performed our duty to ourselves and our sisters in taking the first decided step to preserve an inheritance left us by an ancestry whose spirit would forbid its being tarnished by assassins. We, of South Carolina, hope soon to greet you in a Southern Confederacy, where white men shall rule our destinies, and from which we may transmit to our posterity the rights, privileges, and honor left us by our ancestors."

"What was the origin of our slave population? The evil commenced when we were in our Colonial state, but acts were passed by our Colonial Legislature, prohibiting the importation, of more slaves, into the Colony. These were rejected by the Crown. We declared our independence, and the prohibition of a further importation was among the first acts of state sovereignty. Virginia was the first state which instructed her delegates to declare the colonies independent. She braved all dangers. From Quebec to Boston, and from Boston to Savannah, Virginia shed the blood of her sons. No imputation then can be cast upon her in this matter. She did all that was in her power to do, to prevent the extension of slavery, and to mitigate its evils."

"Virginia, hail, all hail! Virginia, hail, all hail!"

"There was more vindictiveness shown to me by the Virginia people for my voting for Grant than the North showed to me for fighting four years against him."

"I wrote you about my disgust at reading the Reunion speeches. It has since been increased by reading Christian's report. I am certainly glad I wasn't there. According to Christian, the Virginia people were the abolitionists and the Northern people were pro-slavery. He says slavery was 'a patriarchal' institution. So were polygamy and circumcision. Ask Hugh if he has been circumcised. Christian quotes what the Old Virginians said against slavery. True; but why didn't he quote what the modern Virginians said in favor of it? Mason, Hunter, Wise, etc. Why didn't he state that a Virginia senator, Mason, was the author of the Fugitive Slave Law, and why didn't he quote The Virginia Code that made it a crime to speak against slavery?"

"The South went to war on account of slavery. South Carolina went to war, as she said in her secession proclamation, because slavery would not be secure under Lincoln. South Carolina ought to know what was the cause for her seceding. The truth is the modern Virginians departed from the teachings of the Fathers."

"He captured Harper's Ferry, with his nineteen men so few, and frightened 'Old Virginny' till she trembled through and through. They hung him for a traitor, they themselves the traitor crew. But, his soul is marching on."

"The Korean people and I were horribly shocked and deeply saddened at the tragic incident two days ago at Virginia Tech in the United States. I pray for the repose of the souls of the victims and express my wholehearted sympathy to the wounded, the bereaved families and the American people. In addition, I hope that Americans will overcome this great sorrow and difficulties and will regain peace of mind as soon as possible."

"Three centuries have passed since, with the settlements on the coasts of Virginia and Massachusetts, the real history of what is now the United States began. All this we ultimately owe to the action of an Italian seaman in the service of a Spanish King and a Spanish Queen. It is eminently fitting that one of the largest and most influential social organizations of this great Republic, a republic in which the tongue is English, and the blood derived from many sources, should, in its name, commemorate the great Italian. It is eminently fitting to make an address on Americanism."

"Even though the [Virginian] state had slaves, the Founders proclaimed all men had equal rights."