By a vote of 88 to 55 the State determined to join the Confederacy.

The wonder is that in the prevailing excitement and arrogant dictation, there could have been found fifty-five men to resist so powerful a tide of public opinion.

The minority was strong enough, however, to command the submission of the ordinance to a vote of the people, -- a submission which was in form and not in substance, for in reality no freedom of opinion was conceded.
The ordinance which was passed on the 17th of April, three days after the fall of Sumter, declared that "it should take effect when ratified by a majority of the votes of the people of the State, cast at a poll to be taken thereon on the fourth Thursday in May." The Convention did not submit its work to popular review and decision in a fair and honorable way.

Eight days after the act of submission, the Convention passed another ordinance, by which Virginia agreed "to adopt and ratify the Constitution of the Provisional Government of the Confederate States." They provided that this second ordinance should have no effect if the first should be rejected by the people.
It is not difficult to see that the action was taken in order to render the rejection of the first ordinance impossible.

Under the second ordinance, the Convention at once entered into a formal alliance, offensive and defensive, with the Confederate States.
Their Vice-President, Alexander H.Stephens, appeared in Richmond as commissioner of his government, and the Convention appointed Ex- President John Tyler, William Ballard Preston, James P.Holcombe, and other leading citizens, as commissioners for Virginia.