From the formation of the earliest communities, a sectionalism
developed between western and eastern Virginia. The Virginia State
Constitution, adopted in 1776, granted voting rights only to white
males owning at least 25 acres of improved or 50 acres of
unimproved land. This reflected the interest of eastern Virginia,
discriminating against the emerging class of small land owners in
western Virginia. Furthermore, the constitution delegated a
disproportionate representation in the state General Assembly to
eastern Virginia by allowing only two delegates per county,
regardless of population. In a letter to the Richmond
Examiner in 1803, under the pseudonym "A Mountaineer," Harrison
County delegate John G. Jackson condemned both the property
qualifications and the unbalanced representation. In Virginia at
this time, only white men who owned land were allowed to vote.
Since many western Virginians did not own the land on which they
lived, they did not have the right to vote.
Delegates from the Shenandoah Valley and regions westward attended
conventions held in Staunton in 1816 and 1825. In general, these
failed to produce any long-term answers to the problems. In
response to the earlier convention, the Virginia General Assembly
passed a number of acts for the benefit of western Virginia. The
reapportionment of the Senate based upon white population gave
western regions greater representation. Previously, representation
was based on the total population, including slaves. Due to the
large slave population of eastern Virginia and the general absence
of slaves in western Virginia, representation in the General
Assembly favored the East. The creation of a Board of Public Works
to legislate internal improvements provided hope of developing more
roads and canals in the West. The General Assembly also established
the first state banks in western Virginia at Wheeling and
Winchester.
In response to a referendum, a convention gathered in Richmond on
October 5, 1829, attended by such prominent Virginians as James
Madison, James Monroe, John Marshall, and John Tyler, to develop a
new constitution. Eastern Virginian conservatives defeated
virtually every major reform, including the most significant issue
of granting the vote to all white men regardless of whether they
owned land, and the election of the governor and judges by the
people.
Statewide, the new constitution was approved by a margin of 26,055
to 15,566, although voters in present-day West Virginia rejected it
8,365 to 1,383. Calls for secession began immediately, led by
newspapers such as the Kanawha Republican. Over the next
twenty years, the General Assembly eased some of this sectional
tension. Nineteen new western counties were organized, granting
greater representation. A number of internal improvements were made
in the West, including the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike and the
Northwestern Turnpike.
In 1831, the issue of African Americans came to the forefront
following Nat Turner's raid, which killed sixty-one whites in
Southhampton County, Virginia. That same year, William Lloyd
Garrison first printed his newspaper, The Liberator, marking
the beginning of an organized national movement to end slavery,
called abolitionism. Some abolitionists disapproved of slavery on a
moral basis. Others, including prominent western Virginia political
leaders, supported abolitionism because they felt slaves were
performing jobs which white laborers should be paid to do.
Washington College President Henry Ruffner, the son of Kanawha
Valley salt industry pioneer David Ruffner and a slaveholder
himself, wanted to end slavery in trans-Allegheny Virginia in order
to provide more paying jobs for white workers. He outlined this
theory in an address delivered to the Franklin Society in
Lexington, Virginia, in 1847. His speech, later printed in
pamphlets and distributed nationally, stated that slavery kept
white laborers from moving into the Kanawha Valley. To prove this
theory, Massachusetts abolitionist Eli Thayer established an
industrial town at Ceredo in Wayne County, beginning in 1857. The
laborers, white New England emigrants, were all paid for their
work. The experiment failed when some of the investors were unable
to contribute and a national economic depression restricted the
availability of additional money.
In 1850, the year in which Congress adopted extensive compromises
to ease the growing tensions between North and South in the
country, Virginia delegates once again met in Richmond to settle
problems between East and West in its own state. Eastern Virginian
conservatives reached agreement with the West on the major issues
remaining from the 1829 convention. All white males over the age of
twenty-one were given the right to vote regardless of whether they
owned property. The convention also approved the election of the
governor and judges by the people. Delegates, including many from
western Virginia, agreed to a provision allowing for property to be
taxed at its total value, except for slaves, who would be valued at
rates well below their actual worth. Many eastern Virginia
slaveholders now paid less in property taxes than before, placing a
greater burden on the western counties. At this Reform Convention,
the West was represented by entirely new delegates, who had not
participated in the 1829 convention. Several of these delegates to
the Reform Convention rose to political prominence, including
Joseph Johnson (the first Virginia governor from trans-Allegheny
Virginia), Charles J. Faulkner, Gideon D. Camden, John Janney, John
S. Carlile, Waitman T. Willey, Benjamin Smith, and George W.
Summers.
Over the next few years, the state government tried to gain support
from western Virginia by completing various internal improvements.
However, the 1857 national depression defeated these efforts to
improve the western Virginia economy. The salt industry in the
Kanawha Valley gradually collapsed. Mills and factories throughout
all of present-day West Virginia were forced to close. Yet, due to
the new 1850 Constitution, eastern and western Virginians seemed
closer politically than they had been at any time in history.
Everything changed with the approach of the Civil War. In November
1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected president, with virtually no
support from the South. His election resulted in the country's
southernmost states leaving the Union. On April 17, 1861, days
after Lincoln's order to seize Fort Sumter in South Carolina, a
convention of Virginians voted to submit a secession bill to the
people. Led by Clarksburg's John S. Carlile, many western delegates
marched out of the Secession Convention, vowing to form a state
government loyal to the Union. Many of these delegates gathered in
Clarksburg on April 22, calling for a pro-Union convention, which
met in Wheeling from May 13 to 15. On May 23, a majority of
Virginia voters approved the Ordinance of Secession. It is not
possible to determine accurately the vote total from present-day
West Virginia due to vote tampering and the destruction of records.
Some argue that secessionists were in the majority in western
Virginia, while others feel Unionists had greater support.
Following a Union victory at the Battle of Philippi and the
subsequent occupation of northwestern Virginia by General George B.
McClellan, the Second Wheeling Convention met between June 11 and
June 25, 1861. Delegates formed the Restored, or Reorganized,
Government of Virginia, and chose Francis H. Pierpont as governor.
President Lincoln recognized the Restored Government as the
legitimate government of Virginia. John Carlile and Waitman T.
Willey became United States Senators and Jacob B. Blair, William G.
Brown, and Kellian V. Whaley became Congressmen representing
pro-Union Virginia.
On October 24, 1861, residents of thirty-nine counties in western
Virginia approved the formation of a new Unionist state. The
accuracy of these election results have been questioned, since
Union troops were stationed at many of the polls to prevent
Confederate sympathizers from voting. At the Constitutional
Convention, which met in Wheeling from November 1861 to February
1862, delegates selected the counties for inclusion in the new
state of West Virginia. From the initial list, most of the counties
in the Shenandoah Valley were excluded due to their control by
Confederate troops and a large number of local Confederate
sympathizers. In the end, fifty counties were selected (all of
present-day West Virginia's counties except Mineral, Grant,
Lincoln, Summers, and Mingo, which were formed after statehood).
Most of the eastern and southern counties did not support
statehood, but were included for political, economic, and military
purposes. The mountain range west of the Blue Ridge became the
eastern border of West Virginia to provide a defense against
Confederate invasion. One of the most controversial decisions
involved the Eastern Panhandle counties, which supported the
Confederacy. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which ran through the
Eastern Panhandle, was extremely important for the economy and
troop movements. Inclusion of these counties removed all of the
railroad from the Confederacy.
In terms of the constitution itself, the subject of slavery
produced the most controversy. Delegate Gordon Battelle proposed
the gradual emancipation of slaves already in the state and freedom
to all children born to slaves after July 4, 1865. Although some
delegates opposed Battelle's position, they knew they could not
create a pro-slavery document and gain approval from Congress.
Following much debate and compromise, the provision written into
the constitution banned the introduction of slaves or free African
Americans into the state of West Virginia, but did not address the
issue of immediate or gradual emancipation.
The United States Constitution says a new state must gain approval
from the original state, which never occurred in the case of West
Virginia. Since the Restored Government was considered the legal
government of Virginia, it granted permission to itself on May 13,
1862, to form the state of West Virginia.
When Congress addressed the West Virginia statehood bill,
Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner demanded an emancipation
clause to prevent the creation of another slave state. Restored
Government Senator Carlile wanted a statewide election to decide
the issue. Finally, a compromise between Senator Willey and
Committee on Territories Chairman Benjamin Wade of Ohio resulted in the Willey Amendment, which read: "The children of slaves born within the limits of this State after the fourth day of July, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, shall be free; and all slaves within the said State who shall, at the time aforesaid, be under the age of ten years, shall be free when they arrive at the age of twenty-one years; and all slaves over ten and under twenty-one years, shall be free when they arrive at the age of twenty-five years; and no slave shall be permitted to come into the State for permanent residence therein."
The United States Senate rejected a statehood bill proposed by
Carlile which did not contain the Willey Amendment and then, on
July 14, 1862, approved a statehood proposal which included the
Willey Amendment. Carlile's vote against the latter bill made him a
traitor in the eyes of many West Virginians and he was never again
elected to political office. On December 10, 1862, the House of
Representatives passed the act. On December 31, President Lincoln
signed the bill into law, approving the creation of West Virginia
as a state loyal to the Union without abolishing slavery. The next
step was to put the statehood issue to a vote by West Virginia's
citizens. Lincoln may have had his own reasons for creating the new
state, knowing he could count on West Virginia's support in the
1864 presidential election. On March 26, 1863, the majority of citizens who voted approved the statehood bill, including the Willey
Amendment, and on June 20, the state of West Virginia was
officially created.
In May 1863, the Constitutional Union party nominated Arthur I.
Boreman to run for governor. Boreman ran unopposed, winning the
election to become the first governor of West Virginia. The
Restored Government of Virginia, with Pierpont continuing as
governor, moved to Alexandria, Virginia and eventually to Richmond
following the war. Pierpont ordered an election to allow the
residents of Jefferson and Berkeley counties to determine whether
their counties should be located in West Virginia or Virginia.
Union troops were stationed outside polling places to intimidate
those who might vote for Virginia. Despite local support for
Virginia, residents who actually filled out ballots voted
overwhelmingly to place both counties in West Virginia. In 1865,
Pierpont's government challenged the legality of West Virginia
statehood. In 1871, the United States Supreme Court awarded the
counties of Jefferson and Berkeley to West Virginia.
The new state of West Virginia had sectional divisions of its own.
While there was widespread support for statehood, public demands
for the separation from Virginia came primarily from cities, namely
Wheeling and Parkersburg. As a growing industrial region with
improved transportation, northwestern Virginia businesses desired a
more independent role in government. With the extension of the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad to Wheeling in 1853 and Parkersburg in
1857, the northwest depended much less on Richmond and eastern
Virginia markets.