CHAPTER VIII.

RECONSTRUCTION IN VIRGINIA.

T is fitting the story should begin where the original con

Virginia suffered more than any other state during the war, because larger armies subsisted and contended upon her soil for longer periods, than upon the soil of any other state; and she suffered more from Reconstruction, because in its course her ancient domain was rent asunder, and she lost onethird of her territory. But the story of Virginia, at Richmond, being inside the Confederate lines, is outside the of this article, and we begin therefore with

VIRGINIA AT WHEELING.

scope

Prior to 1861, various causes had conspired to develope, in certain counties of north-western Virginia, a public sentiment touching the issues between North and South, less strongly southern than the average sentiment of the State; and upon the passage of the ordinance of Secession by the Richmond convention, on the 17th of April of that year, many delegates from these counties returned home, and immediately began a vigorous campaign against Secession. Two conventions met in quick succession at Wheeling, the first of which, representing 26 counties, on May 13th, before the date fixed

for the popular vote upon the ordinance, denounced the secession proceedings of the Richmond convention as "manifest usurpations of power," " null and void," and called a second convention for June 11th.

Meanwhile the Federal government had promised its aid, General McClellan had crossed the Ohio with Union troops, and the series of his brilliant successes, which soon after drove the Confederate forces out of the region, had begun.

The convention of June 11th, representing at first 31 counties, afterwards received delegations from 8 others. It exacted from its members an oath to support the constitution and laws of the United States (omitting all mention of those of Virginia) "anything in the ordinance of the Richmond convention to the contrary notwithstanding." It annulled all the acts and proceedings of the Richmond government, and vacated the offices of all officers who adhered to it. On June 20th, in total disregard of the constitution of the state, this convention elected Francis H. Pierpoint, Governor, and filled other offices some of them not even authorized by that constitution. It declared the members of the Assembly chosen at the regular spring elections, and of course then destined for Richmond, and those elected to fill the places of such as would not take the required oath to support the government it had set up, to be the true and lawful Legislature of the state, and called it together at Wheeling on the first day of July. Upon the recommendation of the first Wheeling convention, the congressmen to which the three north-western districts were entitled had been elected in May, and on July 9th, this legislature elected two United States

senators.

Both houses of Congress admitted these members, as from the "State of Virginia," and both the convention and the governor were distinct and emphatic in declaring that the entire movement was one for the restoration of the entire commonwealth to her place in the Union-that the true and lawful government of Virginia was at Wheeling and not at Richmond-albeit the Wheeling government then represented but 39 out of the 140 counties, and 3 cities, of Virginia entitled to representation, and these 39 counties contained but

282,000 out of the 1,600,000 inhabitants of the state.*

All this in a free republic, based upon "the consent of the governed," and embodying "the rule of the majority ”—there being at the time, in existence and in full operation, another government of Virginia, having its seat at the ancient capital of the commonwealth and supported by the overwhelming majority of her citizens.

It may have been due in part to such reflections as these, that there was a sudden shifting of the scenes. After a brief recess, this same convention, on the 20th of August, passed an ordinance providing for the formation of a new state to be called "Kanawha," out of the territory of Virginia, and embracing the very counties then represented in the Wheeling convention and legislature, and certain other counties, Berkeley and Jefferson among them, if they should vote to annex themselves to the new state.

Against this proposed action, Attorney-General Bates, the law officer of President Lincoln's cabinet, entered a vigorous protest embodied in a letter to a member of the Wheeling convention, saying, among other things: "The formation of a new state out of Western Virginia is an original, independent act of revolution. Any attempt to carry it out involves a plain breach of both the constitutions of Virginia and of the nation. And hence it is plain that you cannot take such course without weakening, if not destroying, your claims upon the sympathy and support of the general government, and without disconcerting the plan already adopted both by Virginia and the general government, for the reorganization of the revolted states and the restoration of the integrity of the Union. Your new governor formally demanded of the President the fulfillment of the constitutional guarantee in favor of Virginia-Virginia as known to our fathers and to us. The President admitted the obligation, and promised his best efforts to fulfill it. And the Senate admitted your senators, not as representing a new and nameless state, now for the first time heard of in history, but as representing the good old commonwealth."

*All statements as to population based upon the Census of 1860.

Notwithstanding this protest, the convention not only passed the ordinance in August, but the people in October ratified this action at the polls, and elected a convention to frame a constitution for the new state. This convention met in November and adjourned in February, putting its constitution to popular vote in April, 1862. At the latter date, 48 counties in all adhered to the new movement, their white population aggregating some 335,000, and yet there were not 20,000 votes cast at either election, that which created the new state in October, '61, or that which ratified its constitution in April, '62. Thousands of voters were presumably disfranchised by the oaths required, other thousands were in both armies, and others still refugees within the Confederate lines. Of course the overwhelming majority of the votes cast was in favor of both propositions, and the legislature, meeting in extra session on the 6th of May, on the 13th gave its consent, as the legislature of "Virginia," to the formation of the new state, making provisions also as the constitution had done, for the subsequent admission of Berkeley, Jefferson and other counties.

The bill for the admission of West Virginia passed the Senate of the United States in July, 1862, but there being some delay in the House of Representatives, the Wheeling Legislature, still as the Legislature of "Virginia," not only memorialized the House to pass the bill dismembering the Commonwealth and alienating part of her territory, but also requested the resignation of the Hon. John S. Carlisle, who, as senator from Virginia, had resisted the dismemberment of his native state.* On the 31st of December, 1862, the President signed the bill previously passed by both houses, requiring, however, an amendment to the constitution of the state, which was made; and on the 20th of April, 1863, he issued his proclamation that, at the expiration of sixty days, West Virginia would be one of the sovereign and co-equal states of the American Union. Although the constitution of the state required the election of state officers upon the fourth Thursday in October, yet, upon the fourth Thursday in May, the Union (or Republican) state ticket previously

*Virginia Acts of Assembly, 1861-1865, Wheeling.

nominated was elected without opposition, and, upon the 20th day of June, 1863, the very day her statehood and position in the Union became complete, the government of West Virginia was formally inaugurated.

One of the most remarkable features of this strange story is the complacency with which conventions, legislatures and governors, purporting to represent the commonwealth of Virginia, proposed and consented to repeated partitions and transfers of her territory-one sovereignty acting for every party and interest concerned in the transaction-in turn promoter of the scheme, donor of the territory, and recipient also, Wheeling Virginia, being but the alter ego of West Virginia. And there seems to have been no limit, either to the desire to have or the willingness to give. The Wheeling convention suggested the creation of a new state, to embrace thirty-nine counties of Virginia, but provided for the annexation of additional counties; the West Virginia constitution framed by a Virginia convention, organized a state of forty-four counties, but made like provision for further expansion; the act of Congress, urgently clamored for by Wheeling Virginia, admitted West Virginia with forty-eight counties, and a subsequent act ratified the annexation of two others-in each case a Virginia convention proposing, a Virginia legislature ratifying, and a Virginia governor certifying the result of the popular vote and the transfer of Virginia's territory to another state. The character of the "popular vote" which, in those days, and in restored Virginia, and by the government of the United States, was considered adequate to set the great seal of ratification by the people, is well illustrated in a statement made by Mr. Bingham, of Ohio, upon the floor of the House of Representatives, in 1862, that Mr. Segar, of Virginia, then occupying a seat in that body as the representative of the Accomack District, claimed it upon the basis of twenty-five votes cast in the entire district, all of which he, Mr. Segar, had received, the district having cast nearly two thousand (2000) votes in the last preceding election.

The extent of the spoliation of Virginia contemplated and actually proposed by the Wheeling government, while still