USA > West Virginia > Encyclopedia of contemporary biography of West Virginia. Including reference articles on the industrial resources of the state, etc., etc. > Part 2
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1829 had been the scene of a very vigorous if not acrimonious debate, on the question of rep- resentation in the legislative branch of the State government. The western members, led by the intrepid and gigantic Doddridge, had sought
to engraft in the organic law the just principle of all true Republican government, that each and every citizen should have equal privileges in the affairs pertaining to the common wcal. They had not been successful, but an arbitrary basis had been assumed whereby property was to counterbalance, in some measure, the mantle
of citizenship in the legislature of the State. This was a source of much irritation in the trans-Alleghany counties, and the aspiring young men of that section readily took up the theme promulgated by the leading public men of the day, and it was a fertile field to till in the heat of a political contest. Another of the grave questions that agitated the people of Virginia was the extension of the elective franchise. From the first organization of the State the ex-
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF WEST VIRGINIA.
ercise of suffrage had been confined by a prop- erty qualification to the ownership of a freehold. The advancing tide of intelligence and the spirit of the people were beginning to chafe under the restraint thus imposed. The agitation which followed the action of the Convention of 1829-30 became more active until it manifested itself in the election of a legislature which submitted a vote upon the question of calling a convention to remodel the.constitution of the State. The people, by a large majority, decided in favor of the convention, and an election for delegates was held in May, 1850. For one of these dele- gates the people of the district, composed, under the call, of the counties of Monongalia, Preston, Marion, and Taylor, instinctively turned to Mr. Willey, although his political party was in a great minority in it. They knew of his talents and they relied upon his fidelity. He was a genuine son of the people, and his sym- pathies were in harmony with their interests and sentiments. As a member of the Conven- tion which followed he took a conspicuous part in its deliberations, and was one of the cham- pions of western views. His eloquence and his scholarly acquirements won the respect of his foes and the admiration of his friends. It was his first appearance in a deliberative body, and the press of the day, in speaking of his extreme modesty and unassuming character, records that after he obtained the floor the weight of re- sponsibility caused him to fairly stagger under his load. The old question of the basis of rep- resentation soon became prominent in the body. Mr. Willey made a characteristic speech upon the subject, well fitting his life and associa- tions; it breathed of the spirit of his native hills and of the freemen whose delegate he was. He denied that wealth is properly the source of political power; he asserted that wisdom, vir- tue, and intelligence are the true elements of political influence, and that wealth is often, from its corrupting tendency, a disqualification ; that there would be a preponderating majority of whites in western Virginia, and that they could not be controlled by an eastern aristoc- racy; that the materials of armies had much to do with the question; that he would not permit, however, majorities to oppress minorities, and would prescribe constitutional checks thereto; that the rights of persons were above those of
property even, and must first be provided for; and that Virginia, the first to vindicate inalien- able rights from English encroachment, ought not to refuse to acknowledge their potency in the regulation of her own domestic affairs. The effort was being made by the delegates from the eastern portion of the State to provide a system of representation in the Legislature, based upon the wealth of the State. This was largely in the ascendant in that section by rea- son of the property held in slaves. It eventu- ated in that convention in a provision that, after the year 1865, to which period arbitrary repre- sentation in the various counties and districts was provided for, two modes known as “suf- frage basis" and "mixed basis" should be sub- mitted to the people of the State. Speaking of the suffrage basis which Western members were seeking to engraft on the Constitution, Mr. Willey in conclusion said :
"For the honor of the 'Old Dominion' I pray that this mixed basis shall never darken her an- nals. Liberty, if not born on her soil, at least escaped from her bondage here, and first stood forth in all the graceful attitude of her mature proportions. Shall she be stabbed on the very arena of her original triumph? Shall she be wounded in the house of her friends? Why, what an unenviable position gentlemen are striving to place this proud old State in! Cling- ing to the relics of an exploded aristocracy, under the blazing splendor of American liberty. Star after star has been added to the glorious galaxy of American States to increase the lustre of the great doctrine of popular sovereignty, undimmed by the faintest shadow of the dark dogma of property representation. One after another of the 'Old Thirteen' have thrown off the livery of colonial vassalage, from which there was not an entire escape in the revolu- tionary struggle, till there is hardly a vestige of mixed basis remaining in the Union. A11 over North America, where our banner is un- furled, it floats, with exceptions hardly worthy of being named, over a people not only by 'nature equally free and independent,' but so in fact. Nor is this all. The moral influences of this great American doctrine of political equal- ity, and its practical development in the civil, social, moral, political, and religious condition of the American citizen, have crossed the seas. They have'reached Asia. They are recognized in Africa. They are felt and feared in Europe. Ancient dynasties and hoary thrones are crum- bling away to naught, under the spreading and potent influence of the doctrine of popular sov- ereignty. The pampered minions of moneyed
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF WEST VIRGINIA.
aristocracy - the proscriptive children of a haughty oligarchy, are trembling for the tenure of their privileges and their powers, under the influence of the doctrine of popular sovereignty. The great mighty popular heart of the world has received an impulse. The masses are mov- ing. The divine right of kings has been ex- ploded, and the millions groping in the dark labyrinth of despotism are being quickened and enlightened by the great doctrine of popular sovereignty. And yet in the midst of all this, in the middle of the nineteenth century, be- neath the noontide effulgence of this great principle of popular supremacy, a voice is heard in old Virginia, rising from almost the spot where the clarion voice of Henry awoke a na- tion to freedom when he exclaimed, 'Give me liberty or give me death!'-even here, where we should take off our shoes, for the earth on which we walk is holy, bearing in its consecrated bosom the remains of George Mason and Thomas Jefferson, the one the author of the Declaration of Independence, the other of the Virginia Bill of Rights-even here, a demand is made by honorable gentlemen to give superior political power to the property-holder, and virtually in- vest goods and chattels with the prerogative of legislating upon the rights and liberties of a vast majority of the people of this Common- wealth! I trust this can never take place."
An extract from this memorable speech is necessary to depict the issues of the times, and exhibit the sentiments held by the people of western Virginia, and voiced by their courage- ous and undaunted delegate. In the light of this language it is not difficult to discern the attitude of this people in the great events that followed in a few brief years, and the vindica- tion of the line of remark was full and complete in their conduct in the then near future. This speech attracted much attention throughout the State. In the west, it was universally applauded as a true exposition of public sentiment; in the east, it extorted much reluctant compliment. The correspondent of a Petersburg paper wrote of it: " I think I do no one injustice when I give the opinion that his is the best speech which has as yet been delivered in favor of the white basis." The Richmond Whig gave a long syn- opsis of it, and characterized it as " an animated and able speech." The Republican Advocate re- garded it as " powerful, argumentative, and elo- quent." During the same convention Mr. Willey made two other notable speeches-one upon the subject of an elective judiciary, and the other upon the abolition of the county court as
then constituted. Upon the former subject he took the broad and philosophic ground that the people being the source of all political power would always select the judiciary from those who were in harmony with themselves in the moral as well as the legal sense; and that it was as well to trust the people with this duty as it was to delegate it to the appointment of the executive branch, or submit it to the caprices of the legislative department; that in fact the true theory of government was to maintain an entire independence in the three 'departments of ad- ministration. Prior to that time the judges had been elected by the legislature or appointed by the Governor. Indeed all the offices in the State, and in the county organization also, had been filled by election by the legislature or ap- pointment, save only the legislative branch, which was the solitary department filled by popular suffrage; and the result of that conven- tion brought about, for the first time in the his-
tory of Virginia, a general exercise of the right to select State, county, and district officers by the people. The county court was composed of the justices of the peace scattered throughout the counties, appointed by the Governor; it had enlarged powers of original general juris- diction in law and equity. But it had evidently outlived its day, and was illy adapted to the times. Mr. Willey's practical eye as an at- torney had discerned its imperfections, and his still closer contact for so many years as its clerk had disclosed its unfitness for the new condition of things which he fondly hoped was dawning on Virginia. In this, however, he was not suc- cessful ; but after undergoing an eventful career, the county court, at last, by an overwhelming vote of the people in 1879, attained what is be- lieved to be its final repose. The Constitution submitted to the people as the work of this convention was not satisfactory in many as- pects, but as a whole it was a great advance. The influence of the West had been impressed upon it in many features. Property qualifica- tion for the suffragan was omitted, and suffrage was free and untrammelled in its exercise. It received the sanction of the people, by a large majority, in 1852. Mr. Willey resumed the practice of the law at the bar of Monongalia in 1852. He extended his practice into the ad- joining counties of Marion and Preston. He
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF WEST VIRGINIA.
became a candidate for Congress in the same year, with no expectation of being elected, but to bring out a full vote for Gen. Winfield Scott, the Whig candidate for the presidency. He canvassed the district thoroughly and awakened the masses, wherever he went, by his knowl- edge of the issues and his electrifying oratory. He ran largely in excess of the general ticket, but was defeated. In 1853, he delivered a series of lectures on the Spirit and Progress of Method- ism. They were highly commended by the press and his hearers. In the same year he was elected an honorary member of various so- cieties throughout the country. He delivered temperance lectures in many localities under the auspices of the Grand Division of the Sons of Temperance. He spoke at Pittsburgh in favor of extending slack-water to the State line. His journal at this period is filled with accounts of active labors in the temperance cause, in the Sunday-school, and everywhere that good could be accomplished. His records show a broad, catholic spirit, free from bigotry and intolerance. Many touching domestic scenes are committed to its pages. He speaks of his step-mother on one occasion, who had been on a visit to him, thus: "She was a step-mother only in name. She was always to me truly kind, far beyond my deserts. Heaven will reward her. She was not as a mother to an orphan. She was a mother to me in all her conduct." His mother died when he was but three years old. Of her this memory appears: "I recollect seeing her corpse and wondering why my mother had gone to sleep in so strange a place. I believe I once heard her singing with other voices in strains of no earthly melody-but this will be called superstition. I shall never forget it." Mr. Willey wrote an article which was published in the January number of the Methodist Quarterly Review, 1853, on "The Spirit and Mission of Methodism." It was much commended by the press of that church. The Christian Advocate and Journal, of New York, says of it: "It is peculiarly timely, as called for by the state of our church, and clearly pointing out the neces- sity of preserving the essential principles of Methodism. . .. We should greatly transcend the prescribed limits were we to indulge the fulness of heart which has been made to over- flow in reading the article to which we refer."
In 1854, he delivered at Uniontown, Pa., and also at Wheeling, a lecture on " The Perpetua- tion of Liberty and the Union." It was pub- lished in pamphlet form and was widely circu- lated and read. In June, 1855, he delivered the Annual Address before the Philo-Franklin Literary Society of Allegheny College, which was published by the society. In September of the same year he delivered the address before the Western Virginia Agricultural Society, and Industrial Institute, at Wheeling. It was also published. In it he drew a picture of the model farmer, appearing to forget nothing. It
was an able speech, full of suggestions. In January, 1858, he lectured at Richmond, Va., before The Young Men's Christian Associa- tion of that city, and was elected an honorary member of the same. The society voted that the lecture had afforded " more than mere grati- fication." His theme was "Christian Missions in their Secular Influences." He discussed the rationale of Christianity as the great underlying basis of all our civilization, of all our social confidence and security, and portrayed in a nar- rative manner what Christianity had done for the nations that had encouraged it. In address- ing the literary societies of Monongalia Acad- emy, he made " A Plea for Virginia," showing that her sons must develop the resources of their own State. On the 10th of February, 1859, he was nominated by the Whig State Conven- tion at Richmond as a candidate for the office of Lieutenant-Governor. During the campaign following he canvassed a large part of the State, both east and west of the mountains. He so bore himself throughout this struggle with all the dignified courtesy of the able statesman and true gentleman, that he received many compli- ments from his opponents for his ability and fairness. The ticket, of which the Hon. Wil- liam L. Goggin was the head, was defeated. In his own county, however, which the Hon. Henry A. Wise had carried four years before by over seven hundred majority, his majority was sev- enteen. The following year he was a delegate to the Whig National Convention which met at Baltimore, and nominated John Bell and Ed- ward Everett for President and Vice-President. He took an active part in the ensuing canvass, addressing the people at various points. In the intervening period between the close of the
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF WEST VIRGINIA.
year 1852 and 1860, Mr. Willey was most dili- gently busied by a large and lucrative law prac- tice. The intervals of respite from the demands of his profession were very few. But these golden hours were deemed a season of recrea- tion if he could but pursue in quietness the paths of literature which he loved so well. His desire for knowledge had abated none of its vigor. He was in the full tide of his mental powers, and his physical health was much im- proved over the earlier years of his manhood. He seemed to have given himself wholly to the pursuit of his profession as a means of advance- ment in the world, and was living happily in the enjoyment of great domestic felicity, content with the thought of a quiet existence and free- dom from the excitement and fierce struggles incident to public station. The near future was pregnant with events in which he was destined to be an actor of no mean bearing. Foreseeing the terrible disasters which must follow seces- sion, Mr. Willey exerted himself to stem the tide which, during all the autumn of 1860, seemed to be flowing in the direction of national disruption. He predicted from the hustings that if Virginia attempted to secede, one of the results would be her division. He wrote and published a long article of the date of December 26, 1860, which concluded in the following em- phatic words :
"I am for Virginia as she is and was, as our fathers created her-one and indivisible. I have deprecated recent manifestations of a de- sire for her dismemberment. Let her be in- tegral forever. But if we are to be dragged into secession or disunion; to be made a mere outside appendage to a Southern Confederacy, defenceless and exposed as we must be, by our geographical position, to all the wrong and con- tumely that may be heaped upon us, our op- pression may become intolerable; and I for one will be ready to accept the only alternative.'
The Legislature was convoked in extra ses- sion. It issued a call for a convention, fixing the time of the election of delegates thereto in February, 1861. The convention was to assem- ble in Richmond soon thereafter. Again the people of his native county turned to Mr. Willey. The action of the Gulf States in passing ordi- nances of secession, and confederating for mu- tual attack and defence; the inefficiency and hesitation of the Federal Administration; the
treachery of high officials and the general signs and sounds of the hour, filled the masses in western Virginia with alarm. Mr. Willey was known to be in harmony with the people of his section on the questions most vitally affecting their interests. He was known to be for the Union and opposed to secession. No pledges were exacted from him in the canvass. There was no canvass. He was elected without oppo- sition. The history of this convention is re- markable as an example of the coercive power of mere local surroundings. When it assembled the large majority of its members were thor- oughly opposed to any action which savored of the severance of the ties that bound Virginia to the Federal Union. They had been selected by constituencies equally loyal to the government established by Washington, and who by an over- whelming vote had declared that any action taken by the convention should be returned to them for their approval. But it was not long before the true purpose in assembling the body was disclosed. Resolutions looking to a seces- sion of the State soon poured upon the conven- tion from those whose ultimate object could no longer be doubted. One by one many whose fealty was supposed to be unquestioned yielded to the clamor or threats of the determined spirit of secession. It was an hour of grave thought and apprehension to those whose patriotism knew no faltering, and whose anxious hearts were true to the traditions and teachings of the founders of the Republic. None felt a more poignant sorrow at the madness of the hour than Mr. Willey. He exerted himself with all the ability and pertinacity of his character to stop the onward rush of the swelling waters of disunion. On the 2d of March, 1861, he deliv- ered a speech of great power, in opposition to the scheme of secession. Threats of violence had been uttered on the streets and in the very corridors of the capitol against any who dared to raise a voice of protest against the contem -. plated action of secession. He first spoke of the attempts to suppress free speech, and de- clared that he spoke more with a desire to vin- dicate the right of free speech than with a hope of enlightening the body; that he represented a free people and they should be heard through him. The right of free speech was a funda- mental principle of republican liberty, and
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF WEST VIRGINIA.
whenever it was destroyed the people's liberties were overthrown; whether the suppression was the result of an imperial edict or popular vio- lence and intimidation, in either case men were slaves. On the question of the right of seces- sion he said:
"I am not here, sir, to argue the right of secession. I do not intend to weary the con- vention by entering into a discussion of that question. I shall not even pause, sir, to vindi- cate the founders of our Constitution from the imputation, which seems to me would certainly apply to them, of a most gross self-stultification in organizing a great government, in establish- ing a more perfect Union, by collecting together a heterogeneous mass of political elements that might dissolve and fall asunder any day.
I shall never believe that Washington, and Mad- ison, and Franklin, and the other great sages who constructed the Union in the first place and organized our Federal Government, brought their labors to no greater results than this; that is to say, to bring the States of the Federal Union together, give them a simple introduc- tion to each other, and place them side by side, under the flag of the country, without any legal bond to bind the Union. Sir, I believe in no such voluntary association."
He said that he could not conceive that the Federal Government, when purchasing Louis- iana, believed that that State could foreclose the great commercial advantages arising from the freedom of the mouth of the Mississippi, at her pleasure, by secession. Nor when Florida, which was acquired at such great expense, chose to so construe the bond that she too could quietly walk out of the Union with all the forts and arsenals belonging to the General Gov- ernment. Nor could Texas pass out of the Union after so great a struggle had been made in her acquirement. If so, likewise a State could refuse to participate in a war with an in- vading enemy, or after it was over and the invader expelled, it could bid adieu to its asso- ciates whose blood and treasure had been ex- pended in its defence, and take no part in meeting the results. He showed that the founders of the Republic did not so esteem the Constitution; that the iron logic of President Jackson had penetrated the weak defences of the argument. He combated the various positions offered in favor of secession with warmth, and maintained that it provided no remedy for the ills complained of, but rather aggravated them.
To the argument that there was an irrepressible conflict between the North and the South, he spoke as follows :
" Against this mere speculative opinion I op- pose stubborn facts. Against this mere predic- tion I present actual history. I appeal to the record of the past operation and effect of the Federal Union. It is no longer a problem to be solved. It has had a fair trial; it has been in existence seventy-five years. Look at the result of the experiment. I shall not attempt to de- scribe it. Some traveller records that, in the great temple of St. Paul's, there is a tablet upon which the name of Sir Christopher Wren, the great architect, is engraved. Beneath it is this inscription-'Do you ask for his monument? Circumspice. Look around!' In reference to the great experiment of the Union, I can only say with reverence, awe, and patriotic emotion -'Look around!' Whose heart does not throb, as an American citizen, in view of this experi- ment? Look around you, from the Pacific to the Atlantic, from the Gulf to the Lakes, from Texas to Maine. Three-quarters of a century ago we were only four or five millions of people in number, and but a few scattered and impov- erished States. Now we are thirty-four States- for I will not admit that our sisters are finally gone-with cities rivalling in wealth, popula- tion, power and magnitude the oldest cities of the oldest empire of the world; with a people unsurpassed for intelligence, for all the appli- ances and means of self-subsistence, for happi- ness and prosperity, and the like of whom the sun of God has never before shone upon. And yet we are only upon the threshold of our glori- ous destiny, if we will be but faithful to our duties as true American citizens."
He spoke of the evils that would result from secession, in the establishment of a number of weak and warring confederacies. He declared that the moral sense of the world was against slavery. He said that one of the evils of seces- sion would be the destruction of nationality and the prestige of the American name and citizen- ship.
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