A meeting of the Working Men of Romney, Va.
January 29, 1861
The working men of Romney, Hampshire county, Va., held a large public meeting at that place on Saturday, the 19th inst., and adopted with marked unanimity a series of resolutions reported by a committee appointed for that purpose, and which declared, in effect, that those assembled on the occasion Cherish the Federal Union as the Palladium of our liberty, when the laws of the Constitution, and those enacted by Congress in accordance therewith, are promptly, efficiently and justly executed by all the parties concerned; and will deplore the dissolution of State Union as one of the most terrible calamities that can possibly befall us as a nation, or United States; yet, whilst they would avoid so Careful a consequence, they are unwilling to make any concession to the North inconsistent with the rights and interests of the South.--The resolutions pronounce untrue the statements of the Free-Soil press of the North, that the non-slaveholders of the South are disaffected towards the institution of slavery; and fully endorsing the Crittenden compromise, pledge the lives and fortunes of those composing the meeting to the defence of Virginia, should all peaceable measures of adjustment be exhausted.
Timeline of West Virginia: Civil War and Statehood: January 1861