In tracing the formation of West Virginia the historian finds it necessary to go behind the printed histories, most of which follow a definite pattern and justify every step of the new-state movement as a triumph of Unionism and a vindication of popular rule. The subject is still to be fully explored; but the masses of archival and manuscript material that have come down to us reveal irregularities and extra-legal processes of such a nature that traditional conclusions will have to be abandoned.
       Since only a bare summary can be attempted here, the clearest method will be an enumeration, one by one, of the steps taken in state-making.
        1. Union mass meetings were held directly after the secession of Virginia (April 17, 1861); and a mass meeting of special importance at Clarksburg on April 22 summoned a preliminary convention of delegates to meet at Wheeling to consider what emergency steps should be taken to uphold the Union in Virginia and strike down the heresy of secession.
        2. This "May convention" assembled at Wheeling. It passed resolutions denouncing secession and summoning a general convention to meet on June 11, also at Wheeling, to take fundamental political action for Virginia as a whole. In order to be fully representative of the entire state for which it presumed to act, the convention should have had delegates from all the 150 counties; instead it included delegates from only twenty-six of the fifty counties that became West Virginia. It was in reality a mass convention of delegates chosen by local Union mass meetings. That there was vital Union sentiment and indignant opposition to secession back of these meetings is clear; in the Richmond convention the members from the northwest had vigorously combated secession. What is not so clear is that the governmental measures taken in detail for the formation of a new state, as distinguished from the upholding of Unionism within the state, were backed up by majority opinion in the area concerned. Leaving aside the fact that many of those within the West-Virginia area were pro-Confederate, many of the Unionists were doubtful of the legality and wisdom of any action that would defy the authorities at Richmond, and many more were distrustful of any permanent disruption of the commonwealth. In view of the partial and one-sided nature of the May convention, it cannot be regarded as fully representative of the West-Virginia area.
        3. After the ordinance for the secession of Virginia was ratified by popular vote there met at Wheeling (June-August, 1861) the convention which cast the die for separate statehood. It performed two principal functions: first, it passed an ordinance "reorganizing" the government of Virginia — i.e. Virginia as a whole — making loyalty to the Union the sine qua non of state office-holding, thus setting up a government rivaling that at Richmond; second, it adopted (August 20) another ordinance which decreed that "a new State, to be called the State of Kanawha, be formed and erected," to consist of forty-eight designated counties. This ordinance was in reality the work of an active but limited group of separationists in the counties near Pennsylvania and Maryland. The whole atmosphere at Wheeling, which was within the Union lines, was favorable to the work of this group, just as the atmosphere at Richmond was favorable to the secessionists. A few of the leaders, with a map before them, drew the boundaries of the new state. The people of the area concerned had no opportunity, county by county, to determine whether they would adhere to Virginia or join the new commonwealth. Their fate was determined by the whole vote cast some months later within the boundaries indicated by the convention. It is stated by J.C. McGregor that this plan was adopted to avoid "certain rejection in at least two thirds of the counties."⁽¹⁾ It is significant that half the area of the state-to-be was entirely unrepresented in the June convention which passed the ordinance for the new commonwealth and fixed its boundaries.
       Those who were managing the secession movement at Wheeling at first assigned forty-eight counties to the new state: later the counties of Jefferson and Berkeley (in the region of Shephardstown, Charles Town, and Harpers Ferry) were added in a manner whose irregularity was challenged by Virginia but upheld by the United States Supreme Court. So strong, however, is the Virginian tradition in these two counties that they may be appropriately termed "Virginia Irredenta."
        4. A body of men called the "reorganized legislature" of Virginia, constituted according to a pattern devised by the June convention, elected W.T. Willey and J.S. Carlile United States Senators from Virginia (not West Virginia) in place of J.M. Mason and R.M.T. Hunter, adherents of the Confederacy, whose seats had been vacated.
        5. A Unionist government for Virginia was put into operation at Wheeling. This was done by developing in detail the reorganization plan promulgated by the June convention, disqualifying existing office-holders who would not take the Unionist oath and holding new elections in which only Unionists could qualify. The details of what went on in the launching of this "restored" government are extremely complex; if told in full they would reveal a condition of anarchy, uncertainty, and turbulence which has been almost lost from view in the war histories that hardly touch the surface of this political and social movement. The lacunae in civil government in the period of this awkward and puzzling transition brought bewilderment and distress to the honest-minded, at the same time opening the way to bandits, guerrillas, and desperate men who roamed the country, lurked in the woods, shot citizens, ravaged the fields, broke into houses, and easily evaded the home guards and impromptu military forces which in the absence of adequate government were summoned to disperse them. In these circumstances, and in view of the coercion and social intolerance which accompanied the elections and the administering of oaths, many found life intolerable and took to flight, some of them finding their way within Confederate lines, other fleeing to Kentucky or Ohio. It was amid such conditions that Francis H. Pierpoint,⁽²⁾ elect of the June convention, became "Governor of Virginia" at Wheeling.
        6. On October 24, 1861, there was held, in accordance with the ordinance of the Wheeling convention, an election for a constitutional convention to frame an instrument of government for the new commonwealth. At the same election the people within the pre-determined boundaries of the proposed new state voted (but not by counties) in a sort of referendum on the question whether the new state should be created. The vote was scattering and one-sided. It did not compare to the normal vote of the region, being virtually limited to Unionists, for Confederate sympathizers and anti-new-state men, speaking generally, did not vote at all. The result as announced was 18,408 yeas and 781 nays.
        7. This convention met at Wheeling in November and after considerable labor formed a constitution for "West Virginia," dropping the picturesque name "Kanawha." On April 3, 1862, the people of the designated region voted (18,862 to 514) to ratify the constitution, which, incidentally, did not abolish slavery. In this election the anti-separationists, regarding all these proceedings as invalid and the election as unauthorized, did not vote. In contrast to a normal vote of 47,000 for the region, only 19,000 votes were cast in this election. In one county only 76 votes were cast, though there were 800 voters. McGregor has pointed out that the records of the West-Virginian constitutional convention were not printed because "the discussion had revealed so plainly the opposition of the people of West Virginia both to the North and to the new state that the publication of the debates might interfere with the administration of the state."
        8. On May 13, 1862, the "restored" state legislature at Wheeling, acting for all Virginia, gave its "consent" to the formation of the new state. This legislature consisted of about thirty-five members in the lower house and ten in the upper, though the full membership according to the Virginia constitution should have been 152 delegates and fifty senators. Except for the "eastern shore" and a limited area opposite Washington, the constituencies represented were entirely of the northwest. Even in the northwest many of the counties were unrepresented; obviously Confederate Virginia was totally unrepresented. It was by this legal fiction that the "consent of Virginia" was obtained in nominal compliance with that provision of the Constitution of the United States which provides that no state shall be created within the limits of an existing commonwealth without the consent of the latter's legislature.
        9. The matter now came up to the Federal Congress, which passed the bill admitting West Virginia to the Union, though many Virginia Unionists opposed such admission. Lincoln really disapproved of the bill and it was feared that he would veto it, though this fact has been generally overlooked. His reluctant consent was, however, obtained; and on December 31, 1862, the bill became law, its provisions being so framed as to require the gradual abolition of slavery. From the wordy debates on the measure one bit may be selected for quotation here. Thaddeus Stevens spoke as follows: "...we may admit West Virginia... under our absolute power which the laws of war give us in the circumstances in which we are placed. I shall vote for this bill upon that theory, and upon that alone; for I will not stultify myself by supposing that we have any warrant in the Constitution for this proceeding."⁽³⁾ It took some months to complete the conditions of statehood; and on April 20, 1863, President Lincoln issued a proclamation declaring the state of West Virginia admitted to the Union, setting the effective date of such admission at June 20.
        10. The admission of the new state, whose capital was at Wheeling, left the Pierpoint government high and dry. It continued, however, to exist, and, transferring its seat to Alexandria across from Washington, sought bravely to carry on as the government of Virginia.
       As for the war-born state of West Virginia, it was the offspring of a species of legal fiction. By assuming the consent of Virginia, which could only be asserted as a technical fact, the makers of the new state offered a kind of sophistry to excuse the non-fulfillment of a constitutional obligation. The whole proceeding presented an example of a measure which even its supporters did not wish to be emulated elsewhere or used as a precedent. The case is not fully covered by any statement of grievances or sectional considerations; for the question is not merely the need for a new state (which itself is seriously disputed), but the justification of the irregular process by which the new state was formed. Any normal and regular process of separation should have involved negotiation and agreement between the parent state and the new commonwealth as to the details, such as the boundary, the division of the state debt, and the like. In these matters, however, Virginia's interests were cavalierly treated, as a result of which Berkeley and Jefferson counties were included in West Virginia contrary to the almost universal sentiment of the people of those counties, while as for the debt, it became a matter of long drawn out controversy owing to the refusal of the new state to assume its equitable share. Indeed it was not until 1920 that the new state gave satisfaction on this point, and then merely by way of reluctant and tardy compliance with the peremptory decree of the United States Supreme Court.

Endnotes

1. J.C. McGregor, Disruption of Virginia (New York: MacMillan Company, 1922), pages 235-236.

2. The name later appears as Pierpont.

3. Cong. Globe, 37th Cong., 3d sess., pages 50-51.

This article was extracted from James G. Randall, The Civil War and Reconstruction (Boston: D.C. Heath and Company, 1937).