Lincoln's Plan of Reconstruction

by Charles H. McCarthy

A faction in the convention proposed to annex the Shenandoah Valley with its large negro population; the success of such a plan, it was well understood, would ensure a rejection of the new State by Congress. To anticipate somewhat the events presently to be narrated it may be remarked at this point that the adversaries of the measure in Washington employed precisely the same tactics to defeat the movement for erecting an independent State.

The new establishment under Pierpont was regarded as representing the old Commonwealth. On December 2, 1861, the reorganized Legislature again assembled. The Governor recommended a repeal of the stay laws and confiscation of the property of secessionists. He congratulated the people that they had contributed their full quota, about 6,000 men, to the Union army.

The adversaries of slavery endeavored to obtain the consent of the restored Legislature to the condition that the gradual emancipation clause should become a part of the constitution as soon as ratified by the people. If Congress at its present session would give its consent and admit the new State on the same condition, the people, they declared, could be trusted to ratify afterward.

An election held April 3, 1862, gave, including the soldiers’ vote, 28,321 for and 572 against the constitution, no returns being received from ten counties.[^[177]] The vote for gradual emancipation, where an expression was had, was almost equal to that given for the constitution, both being nearly unanimous. The former received 6,052 for and 610 against it. How far this informal expression of opinion influenced Congress will presently be noticed.

At an extra session of the Legislature, convoked by Governor Pierpont, an act, in almost the identical language of that assenting to the formation of Kentucky, was passed, May 13, 1862, giving consent to the erection within the jurisdiction of Virginia of a new State to include forty-eight named counties; the second section of this act provided that Berkeley, Jefferson and Frederic counties could be annexed whenever a majority of their votes, at an election to be held for that purpose, should ratify the constitution. The act, together with a certified original of the constitution, was to be transmitted to their Senators and Representatives in Washington, who were requested to use their endeavors to obtain the consent of Congress to the admission of West Virginia into the Union.

On June 23, 1862, Mr. Wade, from the Committee on Territories, reported to the United States Senate a bill for the admission of West Virginia into the Union, and three days later requested its consideration. It stipulated, among other things, that “the convention thereinafter provided for shall, in the constitution to be framed by it, make provision that from and after the fourth day of July, 1863, the children of all slaves born within the limits of the State shall be free”; it also allotted to the new Commonwealth as many Representatives in Congress as her population would justify under the apportionment then existing.

Charles Sumner observed that the former was the imposition of a condition which proposed to recognize the existence of slavery during that generation. “Short as life may be,” he declared, “it is too long for slavery.” By the admission of West Virginia a new slave State would be added; he moved, therefore, to substitute for this requirement the Jeffersonian interdict that “within the limits of said State there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, otherwise than in punishment of crime whereof the party shall be duly convicted.”

Mr. Hale justly remarked that after consenting to the admission of so many States with pro-slavery constitutions it would be a singular fact if the first that ever applied with a provision for prospective emancipation should be rejected.

Senator Collamer believed that if West Virginia was to enter on a footing of perfect equality with other members of the Union she should, like them, have the right to regulate domestic questions, including slavery, in her own way. The condition imposed by the bill denied her that right.

Mr. Wade disliked the proposition as it stood, because it was very objectionable to him “to say that a man born on the 4th day of July, 1863, shall be free, and one born the day before shall be forever a slave.” “I should much prefer,” he added, “to have it graduated so that all born after the adoption of this constitution shall be free, and that all between certain ages shall be free at a certain period.” At this point Sumner’s amendment was lost by a vote of 24 to 11.