God Certainly Wouldn’t Want Virginia to End Up Like Mexico

The Richmond Daily Dispatch, July 29, 1863, arguing that God would not allow the South to become like Mexico:

The convulsion which is to cause a permanent disruption of the Federal Government and its division into Governments, embracing smaller areas of territory, is a Providential event. Its purpose is to adapt this immense country to the condition of things which has been so greatly changed since the formation of the Federal Government. It cannot be defeated or much delayed in its course.

Such a vast country, inhabited by a civilized and enlightened people, cannot be controlled by one Government. It was easy, and indeed mutually advantageous to the old thirteen States in their infantile and feeble condition to join in a confederacy for limited purposes and common interests. But in their present populous condition, with conflicting and hostile sectional and social interests and feelings, which have been developed and strengthened as rapidly as the population itself, it would be impossible to hold them together by any means short of a force superior to the spirit and power which resists the union and struggles for separation. It is not probable — nay, we say possible — that so much force can be brought to resist the inevitable disintegration from these causes. Could it be, the States held by force would no longer be free States, and the Government that ruled them would of necessity be despotic. This would not be all. The subjugated States would soon degenerate, and society in them cease to be what it is. Ruined in their wealth and agriculture — ceasing to be the producers of staple exports, their people would have neither energy nor spirit, and in the scale of civilization would in time come to a level with the Mexicans.

Turns out God, if such a thing exists, might not have taken too kindly with your treason in defense of slavery ideology after all. Mexico it is! If Eric Cantor and Ken Cuccinelli aren’t wearing somberos and drinking tequila by tomorrow night, I might think Confederate newspaper editors might have been a bit full of themselves.