When Virginia’s Royal Governor, William Gooch, sailed for England in 1749, he left behind a “state of affairs in which all seemed ordered and tranquil and—to those whose opinions mattered—reasonably permanent.” It was the first such time in Virginia’s history but, writes author Louis Rubin, it would not be the last. From the beginning, Virginians have styled their government a conservative commonwealth, seeking stability amid change and often fashioning change to fit their concept of what Virginia—and America—should be like. In the eighteenth century Golden Age, Virginia was a world of broad acres and country gentlemen. To preserve the world, Virginians led a revolution and helped to found a government that they believed would secure their children’s future. In the name of old and tried principles, Virginians in 1861 seceded from the Union to defend a way of life that to them seemed worth fighting for. In the twentieth century, they “paid as they went,” convinced that debt meant the end of good government.
