Rogue State by Richard H. Owens Read Free Book Online Page B

regular forces. That state of affairs allowed political events leading to West Virginia statehood to proceed unimpeded by Virginian or Confederate military forces. That situation was aided by a federal troop presence that had visible effect on elections and the direction in which political events evolved in West Virginia in 1862 and 1863.
    Against that military backdrop, with Confederate forces driven from the state, convention delegates in Wheeling formed the Restored, or Re organized, Government of Virginia in 1861. In a strictly political move rationalized under his war powers as commander in chief, President Lincoln immediately recognized the Restored Government as the legitimate government of Virginia. It was a crucial decision. John Carlile and Waitman T. Willey became U.S. Senators. Jacob Blair, William Brown, and Kellan Whaley became Congressmen representing pro-Union Virginia, a.k.a. the “Restored” Government of Virginia or West Virginia, in lieu of the disenfranchised senators and representatives of the original and seceded state of Virginia. Military decisions and circumstances affirmed all those political actions.
    Without question, the Wheeling convention and subsequent “Restored” Government of Virginia represented and contained only several dozen western counties. As discussed previously, it was not necessarily representative of a significant majority of the people of those counties, let alone the entirety of Virginia.
    That point was addressed in Salmon Chase’s December 29, 1862 letter to President Lincoln on the topic of the constitutionality of admitting West Virginia to the Union (See Appendix B). The number of counties included in the separatist movement was itself subject to change. About thirty counties in the west had opposed secession. Thirty-nine counties voted to approve a new state. Composition of the new state fluctuated, ultimately comprising fifty counties of the Commonwealth of Virginia. [The present tally of fifty-five counties resulted from post-statehood county realignments].
    All this occurred with Union forces in control of, or Confederate forces absent from, the areas in question. It also occurred without sanction, approval, or recognition from the constitutionally recognized government of Virginia, which, according to President Lincoln and the U.S. Congress throughout the Civil War, never left the Union in the first place. Nor were the citizens of Virginia ever asked directly through election or plebiscite to determine this crucial issue of severing a portion of their state and agreeing to its separate statehood.
    Precedents for creating new states from existing ones already existed under the Constitution of 1787. New York and New Hampshire resolved a territorial dispute by acceding to the formation of Vermont. The people of Maine were allowed by Massachusetts to form a separate state. The people of those existing states determined and resolved those issues. Not so for Virginia.
    The basic questions remained. Did Virginia consent to the creation of West Virginia? Did the “Restored” Government of Virginia (West Virginia) represent Virginia and its citizens? All of Virginia, all of its citizens? Regarding the issue of presidential and Congressional consent to severance of the western counties, the apparent answer was yes.
    But was it? Why were Congressional seats for a “restored” Virginia [a.k.a West Virginia] not more numerous and representative of Virginia’s entire population which the “Restored Government” purported to represent? Why were there were only three new members in the House of Representatives rather than the much larger delegation that the larger population of Virginia warranted, if the “Restored Government” really represented “all” of Virginia?
    These issues were not addressed. What about the arguments against West Virginia statehood articulated in Congress and Lincoln’s own cabinet? In any