On the twenty-third of June Senate Bill No. 365 providing for "the admission of the State of West Virginia into the Union" was reported, read and passed to a second reading.[79] On the twenty-sixth day of June, on motion of Mr. Wade, the bill was taken up for immediate consideration in a committee of the whole. The bill proposed to admit West Virginia into the Union on equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever, subject, among other conditions, to the following: "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 said State shall be free."[80]
Following the action noted, Mr. Sumner, Senator from Massachusetts, quoted that provision of the bill relating to the emancipation of slaves and raised the following objections, namely: (1) that by the passage of the bill a new slave State would be admitted into the Union and (2) that the existing generation of slaves would remain such throughout the course of their lives. He was unalterably opposed to the measure so long as it contained these features; and he, therefore, sought to remove them by means of the same policy that Jefferson applied to the territories of the Northwest. Accordingly, he offered an amendment to the effect "that the convention hereinafter provided for, in the Constitution to be framed by it, make provision that from and after the fourth day of July, 1863, within the limits of said State, there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude otherwise than in the punishment of crime, whereof the party shall be duly convicted."[81] A vote on the amendment was requested and ordered but not then taken.
Dissatisfied with the purport of the proposed amendment, Senator Willey expressed his intention to amend the same; whereupon the presiding officer of the Senate proposed that he offer an amendment to the bill rather than to the proposed amendment of Senator Sumner. In the meanwhile, Mr. Hale, of New Hampshire, a member of the committee that framed the bill, affirmed his intention to sustain it. His remarks were suspended by order of the chair for the purpose of considering another matter which had priority to the one then being discussed.
On the motion of Senator Willey the bill was again considered on the first day of July, the question pending being the amendment of Mr. Sumner.[82] In support thereof, Mr. Sumner asserted that from statistics of Mr. Willey it appeared that twelve thousand bondsmen in Western Virginia were doomed to continue as such for the remainder of their lives, and that consequently the Senate must, for a generation, be afflicted with two additional slave-holding members. He quoted from Webster's speech of December 22, 1845, on the admission of Texas into the Union and rested his case on its arguments. Briefly stated, Mr. Webster opposed the admission of other States into the Union as slave States, and at the same time granting to them the inequalities arising from the mode of apportioning representation to Congress, as granted by the Constitution to the original slave-holding States. He held that the free States have the right to demand the abolition of slavery by a commonwealth seeking admission with a slave-holding constitution.[83]
During the continuation of the debate, Mr. Hale asserted that Mr. Webster abandoned the position just attributed to him when in 1850 he voted against any restrictions upon any territory coming into the Union with a slave-holding constitution and when he voted exclusively against applying the "Wilmot Proviso" to these States. Mr. Hale added tersely that since Congress had consistently admitted States with slave-holding constitutions providing for perpetual slavery, it would be the merest folly to refuse to admit the first State whose constitution provided for gradual emancipation.[84]
A new issue was injected into the debate when Mr. Collamer, of Vermont, while reviewing what is implied in being a sovereign State and a State in the Union, argued that the imposition by Congress of any condition precedent to the entrance, whether or not that condition be the abolition of slavery, is an unwarranted interference with the internal affairs of that State. Under such circumstances the proposed new State would not come into the Union on equal footing with other States. He did not wish, however, to be understood as saying that he would not vote against a State desiring to come in as a perpetual slave-holding State; but he failed to see the wisdom or justice in making the abolition of slavery a condition precedent to entrance. On the other hand, he saw no difference, in principle, between the provision in the bill as reported and the amendment offered by Mr. Sumner, since both of them failed to reflect the will of the Convention that framed the State's constitution.[85]
Thereupon Mr. Willey announced that he would offer the following amendment: "That after the fourth day of July, 1863, the children born of slave mothers within the limits of the said State shall be free, and that no law shall be passed by the said State by which any citizen of either of the States of this Union shall be excluded from the enjoyment of the privileges and immunities to which such citizen is entitled under the Constitution of the United States; provided that the convention that ordained the constitution aforesaid, to be reconvened in the manner prescribed in the schedule thereto annexed, shall by a solemn public ordinance declare the assent of the said State to the said fundamental condition, and shall transmit to the President of the United States on or before the 15th of November, 1862, an authentic copy of the said ordinance; upon receipt whereof the President by proclamation shall announce the fact; whereupon and without any further procedure on the part of Congress the admission of the said State into the Union shall be considered as complete."[86]
Throughout the debate that followed there were found many supporters of the program of gradual emancipation for the proposed new State. Chairman Wade, of the Committee of Territories, made thereupon the following important remarks: (1) that the proposed new State had voluntarily fixed the marks of extermination of the institution of slavery; (2) that the principal men of the commonwealth had told him that the first legislature to convene would do away with the whole institution, as fast as the nature of the case would permit; (3) that he believed the efforts of West Virginia were constitutional; (4) that it was just and expedient to admit her; (5) that he did not favor the inclusion in the commonwealth of the pro-slavery counties of the Valley; (6) that he did not want a provision saying that a person born one day should be a slave forever, and that one born the next day should be free; and finally (7) that he would like to see an amendment, providing that "all children who, at the time this constitution takes effect, are fifteen or sixteen years of age, shall be free upon arriving at the age of twenty-one or thirty-five years," i.e., a provision for gradual emancipation that will enable some of those born before as well as all of those born July fourth, 1863, to obtain their freedom.[87]