Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
In 1863, what is now called West Virginia was carved out of Virginia and admitted into the Union as a slave State, in spite of the clear Constitutional prohibition against such segmentation and reformation.
Senator Davis of Kentucky objected to the seating of WV senators with the following statement:
"I hold that there is, legally and constitutionally no such state in existence as the state of West Virginia and consequently no senators from such a state. My object is simply to raise a question to be put upon the record, and to have my name as a Senator recorded against the recognition of West Virginia as a state of the United States. I do not believe that the Old Dominion, like a polypus, can be separated into different segments, and each segment become a living constitutional organism in this node. The present state of West Virginia as it has been organized, and as it is seeking representation on the floor of the Senate, is a flagrant violation of the Constitution."
How does the creation of West Virginia square with Lincoln's anti-
secession rhetoric and oath to uphold the Constitution?
Dawna, I have never been able to reconcile the two.
I can come to no other conclusion than this: WV is just one more example of Lincoln's insincerity regarding secession and the Constitution. It appears to me that he was quick to cite the Constitution when he felt it supported his goals, and quick to ignore it when he felt that supported his goals.
Here's what he said in defense of creating WV out of VA:
"It is said that the admission of West Virginia is secession, and tolerated only because it is our secession. Well, if we call it by that name, there is still difference enough between secession against the constitution and secession in favor of the constitution. I believe the admission of West Virginia into the union is expedient."
Lincoln seems to have had a very curious personal definition of "the constitution."
(Taken from the book Battle Cry Of Freedom, by James McPherson, extracts from chapter 9, Facing Both Ways: The Upper South's Dilemma, section IV, pages 297 - 303.)
The thirty-five counties of Virginia west of the Shenandoah Valley and north of the Kanawha River contained a quarter of Virginia's white population in 1860. Slaves and slaveowners were rare among these narrow valley and steep mountainsides. The region's culture and economy were oriented to nearby Ohio and Pennsylvania rather than to the faraway lowlands of Virginia. The largest city, Wheeling, was only sixty miles from Pittsburgh but 330 miles from Richmond. For decades the plebeian mountaineers, underrepresented in a legislature dominated by slaveholders, had nursed grievances against the "tidewater aristocrats" who governed the state. Slaves were taxed at less than a third of their market value while other property was taxed at full value. The lion's share of state internal improvements went to the eastern counties, while the northwest cried out in vain for more roads and railroads."Western Virginia," declared a Clarksburg newspaper during the secession winter of 1860-61, "has suffered more from...her eastern brethern than ever the Cotton States all put together from the North."
The events of 1861 brought to a head the longstanding western sentiment for separate statehood. Only five of the thirty-one delegates from northwest Virginia voted for the secession ordinance on April 17. Voters in this region rejected ratification by a three to one margin. Mass meetings of unionists all over the northwest coalesced into a convention at Wheeling on June 11. The main issue confronting this convention was innediate versus delayed steps toward separate statehood for western Virginia. The stumbling block to immediate action was Article IV, Section 3, of the U.S. Constitution, which requires the consent of the legislature to form a new state from the territory of an existing one. The Confederate legislature of Virginia would not consent to a separate state, of course, so the Wheeling convention formed its own "restored government" of Virginia. Branding the Confederate legislature in Richmond illegal, the convention declared all state offices vacant and on June 20 appointed new state officials, headed by Francis Pierpoint as governor. Lincoln recognized the Pierpoint administration as the de jure government of Virginia. A rump legislature, theoretically representing the whole state but in practice representing only the northwestern counties, thereupon elected two U.S. senators from Virginia, who were seated by the Senate on July 13, 1861. Three congressmen from western Virginia also took their seats in the House..
Union military control of western Virginia was firm enough to permit the statehood referendum to take place as scheduled on October 24, 1861. The voters overwhelmingly endorsed a new state, but the turnout was small. Pro-Confederate voters in more than a dozen counties boycotted the election. Nevertheless, the constitutional convention in January 1862 established boundaries that included fifty counties, and the "restored state legislature of Virginia" sanctioned the creation of the new state of West Virginia on May 23, 1862.
(The following is taken from the book, Lincoln, by David H. Donald, chapter 11, A People's Contest, pages 300-301.)
Delegates from the strongly Unionist western counties, outraged when the state convention voted to secede, returned to their homes resolved to secede from secession. A Unionist convention held at Wheeling in effect set up a rival government to the Confederate government of Virginia in Richmond and elected Francis H. Pierpont governor. The convention also called for the creation of a new state out of the western counties of Virginia. Since the Constitution provides that no state shall be divided without its own permission, the Pierpont regime was set up as a kind of puppet government that would consent to this proposed partition. Pierpont fulfilled his function. Ostensibly speaking for the entire state of Virginia, he approved the secession of the western counties, which then applied for admission to the Union as the state of West Virginia. The Pierpont administration left Wheeling and spent the rest of the war under the shelter of federal guns at Alexandria. The whole process of partitioning Virginia was extraordinarily complicated and largely etralegal; and, at a time of great unrest when thieves, bandits, and desperate men roamed the countryside, neither the Pierpont regime nor the new government of West Virginia had the backing of more than a minority of the citizens. Lincoln could do little to shape the course of events. He extended formal recognition of Pierpont's regime as the legitimate government of all Virginia (though it controlled only a few counties behind the Union lines), and he looked with considerable skepticism on the movement for statehood for West Virginia.
Dawna, I have always found it interesting (and somewhat amusing) is how those espousing the Confederate cause can it one breath claim the US Constitution no longer applies to the States that seceded from the Union, yet they become so offended when they claim Lincoln or the Union government breaks or betrays it!
And here we have poor western Virginia, claiming the same right that all who support the South says the states have, the right of secession, and yet somehow, that manuver is wrong because this section of the state wants to remain in the Union.
No matter, from what I gather from the above, one government of Virginia claims to be in rebellion and one government claims to be loyal and grants western Virginia the right to form itself as a new state. To me, it looks as though the South shot itself it the foot again.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
But there is a huge difference here and with the states seceding. A very clear one. One was clearly forbidden by the Constitution. Not open to interpretation. I would be interested in how exactly Lincoln upheld the Constitution with creating W Virginia.
As to McPherson. He is the Government's mouthpiece. Not a single thing more.
(Message edited by aphillbilly on November 13, 2004)
It's interesting to note that the early writers viewed West Virginia's creation as a culmination of years of struggle between two opposing societies, very similar to the angst between the Northern and Southern states, but later discovered that the majority of the population of Southwest Virginia supported the Confederacy. And I apologize in advance for this posting being rather long-winded, but I am earnestly trying to understand the legal issues surrounding the creation of West Virginia.
It is not difficult to understand how Counties became dissected as a result of ethnic, economical and religious differences, but it appears that Western polictical leaders seized this opportunity to achieve their own goals by establising a new state. It launched a storm of controversy that was not settled until a Supreme Court decision in 1871. In sorting throught the legal arguments etc., it would seem that the Constitution was ignored in favour of 'political expediency.'
Article IV, section 3, clause 1 states:
New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well of the Congress.
For West Virginia to be legally created, the consent of Virginia, West Virginia, and Congress must be had. In August of 1861 a convention of western Virginians passed an ordinance to In May of 1862 the Restored Government of create a new state. Virginia gave its consent in taking its western section for the creation of West Virginia. Congress gave its formal consent to the division of Virginia in 1866.
The inclusion of the eastern counties of West Virginia provided a basis for legal challenge by Virginia after the Civil War. The counties of Jefferson, Berkeley, Morgan, Hampshire, Hardy, and Pendleton were included by popular vote in each of the counties. Three of the Eastern counties accepted inclusion in the new state in an election held on 3 April 1862. Morgan County approved inclusion on 5 May 1862. Berkeley and Jefferson Counties approved inclusion in May of 1863. The votes were certified by the Restored Virginia governor, Francis H. Pierpont.
In 1866, Virginia attempted to regain jurisdiction over all of its former counties, but was rebuffed. Refusing to drop the issue, Virginia, in December of 1866, filed a claim against West Virginia to regain its jurisdiction in the counties of Berkeley and Jefferson. In the case of Virginia v. West Virginia, the United States Supreme Court, on 6 March 1871, denied Virginia's claim. Although the constitutionality of the creation of West Virginia was not directly addressed, legal opinion assumed that the Supreme Court tacitly implied West Virginia's legitimacy.
The First Wheeling Convention met on 13 May 1861. The Convention debated the feasibility of erecting a new state. John Carlile of Harrison County led the debate in favor of the measure. Waitman T. Willey of Monongalia opposed the proposal, maintaining that there was a difference between rebellion and legal resistance. He intended to make any action at least appear legal. Willey's position carried the majority. However before adjournment, the Committee of State and Federal Relations, chaired by lawyer/industrialist Francis H. Pierpont, submitted a report to the convention. It stated:
1. The policy of state authorities was unwise and utterly subversive and destructive of our interests and efforts should be made to defeat the ordinance of secession in the special referendum.
2. If people of the state should ratify secession, a special election should be held in the northwest counties to choose delegates to meet at a second Wheeling Convention.
3. People of northwest counties might appeal to Virginia to let them leave peacefully.
The convention finished its business by calling for a second Wheeling convention to assemble on the 11th of June.
On 23 May 1861 the Virginia Ordinance of Secession was overwhelmingly ratified by the people of Virginia, 125,950 to 20,373.24 Looking back to the 1860 election, there were a total of 50,049 eligible voters in western Virginia. In the vote on the Ordinance of Secession, if one were to assume that all of the negative votes were cast in western Virginia, then less than half of the people in western Virginia could have possibly voted against secession. A slight majority of voters in western Virginia may have approved of Virginia's secession.
The delegates attending the Second Wheeling Convention do not appear to be valid representatives of their districts. The convention opened with 100 delegates attending from thirty-four counties. More than one-third of the delegates were former members of the Virginia assembly. Several were sent by military authorities and some were self-appointed. There were no delegates from the northeastern counties of Hardy, Hampshire, and Jefferson; counties that were to be incorporated later into West Virginia.
By declaration, the Second Wheeling Convention appointed itself the legitimate government of Virginia. After electing a president of the convention, Arthur I. Boreman, the assembly began its self-appointed task to reorganize the government of Virginia.
The first measure taken by the convention was the signing of a declaration of rights. It declared that "all state offices were vacant, all actions of the General Assembly in Richmond were null and void, and acts to force ". . . the people of Virginia to separate from and wage war against the government of the United States and against citizens of neighboring states . . ." were declared to be without authority. On 19 June 1861, the convention adopted "An Ordinance for the Reorganization of the State Government". The next day, it elected Francis H. Pierpont as the new governor of Virginia. The new legislature was to be composed of all loyal individuals who had been elected in the May general election. Having accomplished this "coup d'etat", the convention adjourned.
The first step to create a "legal" new state had been taken. A state government that would voluntarily give up a portion of its territory for the establishment of a new state had been organized. The next step would be to create the new state. As called for at the Second Wheeling Convention, the Restored Virginia Legislature met on 1 July 1861. Its primary task was to fill all government offices and U.S. Congressional seats. The assembly accomplished its goal in short order, electing a Secretary of the Commonwealth, an Auditor of the Public Accounts, and a Treasurer. John S. Carlile and Waitman T. Willey were elected to fill the U.S. Senate seats of Virginia left vacant after Virginia's secession. They, along with previously chosen Representatives Brown, Whaley, and Blair, left immediately for Washington. By taking their seats in Congress as representatives from Virginia, the Federal Government recognized the Restored Government as the rightful representative of the people of Virginia.
It was at this point and my understanding is, that the United States government failed in its Constitutional duty. Article IV, Section 4: "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government." The Congress of the United States seated representatives of a state, who were designated by a largely self-appointed legislature; a legislature that nominated the officers of that state. And the two Wheeling Conventions that initiated the restoration of a Unionist Virginia were composed of representatives of questionable legitimacy. Clearly, a Republican form of government for Virginians was not guaranteed.
The Convention reassembled on the 6 August 1861 to form a new state. By August 20, an ordinance to create a new state, called Kanawha (later changed to West Virginia), was adopted. The boundaries of Kanawha were to be all of Virginia west of the Allegheny Mountains. A provision to include the counties of Jefferson, Berkeley, Morgan, Hampshire, Hardy, and Pendleton by popular vote in each county was added later. The Convention adjourned after calling for a popular election to ratify the ordinance and calling for a Constitutional Convention to be held on the 26th of November, in the event of the ordinance's ratification.
The remaining steps to United States recognition of West Virginia progressed without difficulty over the next nine months. On October 24 the inhabitants of Restored Virginia ratified the ordinance to create a new state, 18,408 to 781. The work began on a Constitution for the new state in November and was completed in February 1862. The citizens ratified the Constitution in April by an overwhelming vote of 18,862 to 514. The Restored Virginia assembly met in May and gave its consent to the formation of West Virginia within its jurisdiction.
The question of admitting West Virginia as a new state came before Congress in May of 1862. The Senate voted in July for admission, 23 to 12. The House approved admission in December, 96 to 55; but not without debate.
The debate in both Houses show that Congressmen were not unaware of the doubtful constitutional grounds for admission.
Kentucky Senator Powell expressed his opinion:
Out of 160 counties that comprise the state of Virginia, less than one-fourth have assumed to act for the entire state, even within the boundaries of the new state more than half of the voters have declined to take part in the election. No Senator could pretend to claim that even a 3d part of the people of Virginia ever had a thing to do with rendering their assent to the making of this state within the territorial limits of the ancient commonwealth.
Representative John Segar of Virginia, the only member of his delegation in the House who opposed admission asserted: "...there is no evidence that the majority of people within the counties which were to compose the new state had ever given its assent to its formation." He called the statehood bill a punitive measure against Virginia. Representative James Blaine of Maine pointed out that "…essentially the government of West Virginia was giving permission to the formation of a new state of West Virginia." Even after West Virginia was admitted to the Union, Senator Davis of Kentucky refused to approve seating the new West Virginia representatives stating: "The present state of West Virginia ... is a flagrant violation of the Constitution.
Supporting the measure, Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania expressed his opinion that:
We may admit West Virginia as a new state, not by virtue of any provision of the constitution, but under an absolute power which the laws of war give us. I shall vote for this bill upon that theory, for I will not stultify myself by supposing that we have any warrant in the constitution for this proceeding.
After Congress passed the bill in early December, the bill went to President Abraham Lincoln for approval. In a memo to his Cabinet, dated 23 December 1862, Lincoln requested them to write their opinions on the admission of the new state. He requested them to respond to two queries:
Is the said Act constitutional?
Is the said Act expedient?
Cabinet members Blair, Bates and Welles urged Lincoln to veto the bill. Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles's diary entry dated December 4, 1862, is a good representation of the negative arguments:
This is not the time to divide the commonwealth. The requirements of the Constitution are not complied with, as they in good faith should be, by Virginia, by the proposed new State, nor by the United States.
Again, on December 29:
Stanton...expressed surprise that I should oppose the division, for he thought it politic and wise to plant a free State south of the Ohio. I thought our duties Constitutional, not experimental...mere expediency should not override constitutional obligations. This action was not predicated on the consent of the people of Virginia, legitimately expressed; was arbitrary and without proper authority.
In the affirmative were Chase, Stanton, and Seward. A summary of Chase's opinion provides a good representation of the main arguments for approving the bill. In his reply, he believed the Wheeling government spoke for the entire state, that in insurrection, those who remain faithful "...must be taken to constitute the State." The bill was expedient, because for the loyal men, admission was "of vital importance" for their safety and welfare. Admission would expand the emancipation process to areas not included in the Emancipation Proclamation. He may have been thinking of creating precedents for the future.
On December 31, 1862, Lincoln signed the bill for the admission of West Virginia into the Union. At the same time he gave his reasons for signing the bill:
The opposing argument that the Restored Government of Virginia was illegitimate because all qualified voters did not vote was refuted by saying that the electoral practice in elections are decided by those who do vote.
Lincoln implied that those in open rebellion should not be considered because they chose not to vote.
The consent clause in the Constitution which, in part, states, " . . . without the consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned . . ." does not refer to the consent of a new state. The plurals on "legislature" and "state" were used in contemplation of several states being sectioned for a new state.
"I believe the admission . . . is expedient." Lincoln stated that to veto the measure would mean the loss of support for the Union in West Virginia. The United States owed it to the steadfastly loyal men who said admission was ". . . a matter of life or death". By admitting West Virginia, it turned slave to free soil and was an "irrevocable encroachment upon the cause of rebellion."
On 20 June 1863, the date officially given as the birth of West Virginia, Arthur I. Boreman was inaugurated as the first governor. The 1866 court challenge initiated by Virginia came at a critical juncture in the aftermath of the Civil War. Throughout the Reconstruction period, the Congress's policies were frequently under attack, both in and out of court. There was an undercurrent of siege mentality pervasive in Congress. To bolster its policy, Congress was willing to undertake whatever measures were necessary to preserve its Reconstruction policy.
In conclusion, it is apparent that the creation of West Virginia was an illegal act and aside from being expressly forbidden in the Constitution, Congress and Lincoln failed to perform their constitutional duty to guarantee a Republican form of government, by both its recognition of the Restored Virginia government and its admission of West Virginia. It would appear that 'expedient consideration' admitted West Virginia into the Union rather than 'constitutional consideration,' or have I missed something?
Dawna,
Nope. It appears you have not missed anything. Except perhaps that the north won and it was Lincoln doing it. So therefore must be right. Other than that seems pretty clear cut to me.
The events of 1861 brought to a head the longstanding western sentiment for separate statehood.
It seems clear enough that you sympathise with the western Virginian sentiment for separate statehood. How exactly is this to be distinguished from the longstanding Southern sentiment for separate nationhood?
No, it is not clear that I sympathize with western Virginia for separate state hood. What I find amusing is what is good for the Deep South is not good for the counties of western Virginia.
If the Deep South could go along with the fiction that secession was legal and somehow found in the US Constitution, why can't anyone go along with the fiction that the Pierpoint administration represented the legal government of Virginia? One fiction cancels out another fiction. If you make up the rules you shouldn't cry foul when someone else applies them to you, at least in some form.
And why is it when a section of a state in rebellion wishes to remain loyal and part of the nation wishes to leave that state, it suddenly becomes an illegal and 'bad' thing?
And again, if the Constitution does not apply to your particular state upon secession, how in God's name can you cry foul concerning that document when you no longer follow it or that it no longer applies to you? Fish or cut bait.
It just seems as though those who use this as an example for a 'wrong' fail to 'pull the beam from thine own eye.'
Bill, are you not in sympathy with a people who have declared themselves at odds with what it considers an oppressive regime? Would you begrudge western Virginia the same right you grant to the other Southern States? Is secession only valid if you agree with the majority in secession? What about Kentucky, Delaware and Missouri? Did not the Confederacy try to impose it's way upon these states who declared themselves a part of the Union?
YMOS,
Unionblue
(Message edited by Unionblue on November 15, 2004)
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
Neil,
There is noting in the Constitution forbidding secession whereas there is indeed something very specific in the Constitution forbidding the formation of a new state illegally. Major difference. And what do the views and beliefs of the Southern states have to do with Lincoln and his administration Clearly violating the constitution? And what does it say about pretending otherwise?
Your statement of “It just seems as though those who use this as an example for a 'wrong' fail to 'pull the beam from thine own eye.'” is and excellent statement. But isn’t that what the federalists did then and supporters of it are still doing in regards to W Virginia?
Makes me wonder just how much of a deity Lincoln and his cronies have become. Just how much more of a blatant disregard for the Constitution did they have to commit before it would even be entertained as anything even remotely wrong. Personally I think it has become increasing evident no such thing could occur. I think the beam is firmly in the eye.
To me the formation of W Virginia was perfectly legal. As Virginia was no longer part of the US at the time. They had in fact seceded and joined into another separate country. But if I believed that Union was not dissolved then I would have to admit that Lincoln committed the gravest presidential sin. The usurpation of the Constitution. If for no other reason than that, a president can never be forgiven. Since Virginia had never been recognized as a Sovereign and separate state I can only find evidence that Lincoln etc were guilty.
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