under the command of Jefferson Davis; also an invitation was given, and promptly accepted, to make Richmond the Confederate capital.  May 16 Virginia formally entered the Confederacy, and Lee became a general—­the third in rank—­in the service of the Confederate States, though the secession of his State was still only inchoate and might never become complete, since the day set for the popular vote had not arrived, and it was still a possibility that the Unionists might find courage to go to the polls.  Thus a rapid succession of events settled it that the President could save neither Virginia nor Robert E. Lee for the Union.  Yet the failure was not entire.  The northwestern counties were strongly Union in their proclivities, and soon followed to a good end an evil example; for they in turn seceded from Virginia, established a state government, sought admission into the Union, and became the State of West Virginia.

Next in order of importance came Kentucky.  The Secessionists, using here the tactics so successful in other States, endeavored to drive through by rush and whirl a formal act of secession.  But the Unionists of Kentucky were of more resolute and belligerent temper than those of Georgia and Virginia, and would not submit to be swept away by a torrent really of less volume than their own.[142] Yet in spite of the spirited head thus made by the loyalists the condition in the State long remained such as to require the most skillful treatment by the President; during several critical weeks one error of judgment, a single imprudence, upon his part might have proved fatal.  For the condition was anomalous and perplexing, and the conflict of opinion in the State had finally led to the evolution of a theory or scheme of so-called “neutrality.”  A similar notion had been imperfectly developed in Maryland, when her legislature declared that she would take no part in a war.  The idea was illogical to the point of absurdity, for by it the “neutral” State would at once stay in the Union and stand aloof from it.  Neutrality really signified a refusal to perform those obligations which nevertheless were admitted to be binding, and it made of the State a defensive barrier for the South, not to be traversed by Northern troops on an errand of hostility against Confederate Secessionists.  It was practical “non-coercion” under a name of fairer sound, and it involved the inconsequence of declaring that the dissolution of an indissoluble Union should not be prevented; it was the proverbial folly of being “for the law but ag’in the enforcement of it.”  In the words of a resolution passed by a public meeting in Louisville:  it was the “duty” of Kentucky to maintain her “independent position,” taking sides neither with the administration nor with the seceding States, “but with the Union against them both.”