Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 / From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860

by James Gillespie Blaine

Notwithstanding the compliance with all the outward forms and requirements, notwithstanding the recognition by Congress of the new government, it was seen to be essentially and really the Government of West Virginia. It was only nominally and by construction the Government of the State of Virginia. It did not represent the political power or the majority of the people of the entire State. That power was wielded in aid of the rebellion. The senators and representatives of Virginia were in the Confederate Congress. The strength of her people was in the Confederate Army, of which a distinguished Virginian was the commander. The situation was anomalous, though the friends of the Union justified the irregularity of recognizing the framework of government in the hands of loyal men as the actual civil administration of the State of Virginia.

CHARACTER OF WEST VIRGINIA.

The people of the Western section of Virginia realized that the position was unnatural,—one which they could not sustain by popular power within the limits of the State they assumed to govern, except for the protection afforded by the military power of the National Government. Between the two sections of the State there had long been serious antagonisms. Indeed from the very origin of the settlement of West Virginia, which had made but little progress when the Federal Constitution was adopted, its citizens were in large degree alienated from the Eastern and older section of the State. The men of the West were hardy frontiersmen, a majority of them soldiers of the Revolution and their immediate descendants, without estates, with little but the honorable record of patriotic service and their own strong arms, for their fortunes. They had few slaves. They had their land patents, which were certificates of patriotic service in the Revolutionary war, and they depended upon their own labor for a new home in the wilderness. A population thus originating, a community thus founded, were naturally uncongenial to the aristocratic element of the Old Dominion. They had no trade relations, no social intercourse, with the tide-water section of the State. Formidable mountain ranges separated the two sections, and the inhabitants saw little of each other. The business interests of the Western region led the people to the Valley of the Ohio and not to the shores of the Chesapeake. The waters of the Monongahela connected them with Pennsylvania and carried them to Pittsburg. All the rivers of the western slope flowed into the Ohio and gave to the people the markets of Cincinnati and Louisville. Their commercial intercourse depended on the navigation of Western waters, and a far larger number had visited St. Louis and New Orleans than had ever seen Richmond or Norfolk. The West-Virginians were aware of the splendid resources of their section and were constantly irritated by the neglect of the parent State to aid in their development. They enjoyed a climate as genial as that of the Italians who dwell on the slopes of the Apennines; they had forests more valuable than those that skirt the upper Rhine; they had mineral wealth as great as that which has given England her precedence in the manufacturing progress of the world. They were anxious for self-government. Their trustworthy senator, Waitman T. Willey, declared that the people west of the Alleghany range had for sixty years "desired separation." The two sections, he said, had been time and again on the eve of an outbreak and the Western people could with difficulty be held back from insurrection. Criminations and recriminations had been exchanged at every session of the Legislature for forty years and threats of violence had been hurled by one section at the other.

The opportunity for a new State had now come. Its organization and admission to the Union would complete the chain of loyal Commonwealths on the south side of Mason and Dixon's line, and would drive back the jurisdiction of rebellious Virginia beyond the chain of mountains and interpose that barrier to the progress of the insurrectionary forces Westward and Northward. The provision in the Federal Constitution that no new State shall be formed within the jurisdiction of any other State without the consent of the Legislature of the State as well as of Congress, had always been the stumbling-block in the way of West Virginia's independence. Despite the hostilities and antagonisms of the two populations, Virginia would insist on retaining this valuable section of country within her own jurisdiction. But now, by the chances of war, the same men who desired to create the new State were wielding the entire political power of Virginia, and they would naturally grant permission to themselves to erect a State that would be entirely free from the objectionable jurisdiction which for the time they represented. They were not slow to avail themselves of their opportunity.

ADMISSION OF WEST VIRGINIA TO THE UNION.

The Pierpont Government, as it was now popularly termed, adopted an Ordinance on the 20th of August, 1861, providing "for the formation of a new State out of a portion of the territory of this State." The Ordinance was approved by a vote of the people on the fourth Thursday of October, and on the 26th of November the Convention assembled in Wheeling to frame a constitution for the new government. The work was satisfactorily performed, and on the first Thursday of April, 1862, the people approved the constitution by a vote fo 18,862 in favor of it with only 514 against it. The work of the representatives of the projected new State being thus ratified, the Governor called the Legislature of Virginia together on the sixth day of May, and on the 13th of the same moth that body gave its consent, with due regularity, to "the formation of a new State within the jurisdiction of the said State of Virginia." A fortnight later, on the 28th of May, Senator Willey introduced the subject in Congress by presenting a memorial from the Legislature of Virginia together with a certified copy of the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention and the vote of the people.

The constitution was referred to the Committee on Territories and a bill favorable to admission was promptly reported by Senator Wade of Ohio. The measure was discussed at different periods, largely with reference to the effect it would have upon the institution of slavery, and Congress insisted upon inserting a provision that "the children of slaves, born in the State after the fourth day of July, 1863, shall be free; all slaves within the said State who shall at that time be under the age of ten years shall be free when they arrive at the age of twenty-one years; all slaves over ten and under twenty-one shall be free at the age of twenty-five years; and no slave shall be permitted to come into the State for permanent residence therein." This condition was to be ratified by the Convention which framed the constitution, and by the people at an election held for the purpose, and, upon due certification of the approval of the condition to the President of the United States, he was authorized to issue his proclamation declaring West Virginia to be a State of the Union.

Mr. Sumner was not satisfied with a condition which left West Virginia with any form of slavery whatever. He said there were "twelve thousand human beings now held in bondage in that State, and all who are over a certain age are to be kept so for their natural lives." He desired to strike out the provision which permitted this and to insert on in lieu thereof, declaring that "within the limits of the said State there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude otherwise than in the punishment of crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." Mr. Sumner's amendment was opposed by some of the most radical anti-slavery men in the Senate, notably by Collamer and Foot of Vermont, by Wade of Ohio, and by Howe of Wisconsin. They believed that the convictions of the people of West Virginia had developed to the point embodied in the bill, and that to attempt the immediate extirpation of slavery might lead to re-action and possibly to the rejection of the constitution. Mr. Sumner's amendment was therefore defeated by 24 votes against 11. Of the 24 votes 17 were given by Republican senators.

Mr. Powell of Kentucky vigorously opposed the bill in all its parts. He contended that "if the cities of New York and Brooklyn, with the counties in which they are located, were to get up a little bogus Legislature and say they were the State of New York, and ask to be admitted and cut off from the rest of the State, I would just as soon vote for their admission as to vote for the pending bill." No senator, he said, could pretend to claim that "even a third part of the people of Virginia have ever had any thing to do with rendering their assent to the making of this new State within the territorial limits of that ancient Commonwealth." He declared this to be "a dangerous precedent which overthrows the Constitution and may be fraught with direful consequences." "Out of the one hundred and sixty counties that compose the State of Virginia," he continued, "less than one-fourth have assumed to act for the entire State; and even within the boundaries of the new State more than half the voters have declined to take part in the elections."

Mr. Willey argued that the Legislature represented the almost unanimous will of all the loyal people of West Virginia. He said that "besides the 19,000 votes cast, there were 10,100 men absent in the Union army, and that, the conclusion being foregone, the people had not been careful to come out to vote, knowing that the constitution would be overwhelmingly adopted." On the 14th of July, three days before Congress adjourned, the bill passed the Senate by a vote of 23 to 17. Mr. Rice of Minnesota was the only Democrat who favored the admission of the new State. The other Democratic senators voted against it. Mr. Chandler and Mr. Howard of Michigan voted in the negative because the State had voluntarily done nothing towards providing for the emancipation of slaves; Mr. Sumner and Mr. Wilson, because the State had rejected the anti- slavery amendment; Mr. Trumbull and Mr. Cowan, because of the irregularity of the whole proceeding.