USA > West Virginia > Encyclopedia of contemporary biography of West Virginia. Including reference articles on the industrial resources of the state, etc., etc. > Part 3
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"How is it now, sir?" he exclaimed. " Where- ever our country's flag, with its thirty-four stars, floats on the breeze, any Virginian may stand up and proudly point to that banner as a flag that represents his country and his country's greatness and power. Sir, it is a noble flag. It is a flag upon which victory has perched with- out interruption for seventy years-a flag which Perry carried in his hand through the din and smoke of battle and placed it victoriously upon the enemy's vessel-an enemy who once held the empire of the sea-a flag which waved in
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF WEST VIRGINIA.
triumph at the head of our army in its victori- ous march from Vera Cruz to the capital of Mexico, and at last floated over the palaces of the Montezumas-a flag which protects our commerce in every port and on every sea-a flag which, in short, represents our national power, gives full protection to every American citizen, go where he will-whether among the savages in the steppes of Russia, or among nobles in the abodes of kings or emperors, or wherever else he may choose to wander. Se- cession will trail that glorious banner in the dust-destroy its prestige and power-and leave the American citizen to wander abroad, if he shall dare to go abroad, an object of contempt, for chuckling tyrants to point the finger of scorn at, while they say, 'Behold the last pitiable demonstration of the fallacy of the dogma of man's capacity for self-government.'"
Notwithstanding the powerful influence brought to bear by the Confederate govern- ment, the convention held out against the efforts of the secessionists during the month of March. At length the chiefs in the movement deemed the hour for decisive action at hand. The con- vention went into secret session, and after a few days of intense but brief debate, an ordi- nance of secession was passed April 17, 1861. On its passage Mr. Willey and other members, a majority of whom were representatives of western constituencies, voted in the negative. For a day or two after the fateful secret found its way to the outside world, the members who had voted against it were the objects of scorn and contumely. Many of them yielded to the storm that came from the various quarters of family and local influences. They came into the convention on the following day and by the appeals of their associates were induced to sign the fateful document after its enrolment. The last speech made by Mr. Willey, in the conven- tion, was in resistance to these vehement ap- peals. He cast no vote after the one which recorded him in the negative on the ordinance of secession, and took no further part in the proceedings. On the 21st of April, being com- pelled to procure a permit from the Governor (Letcher) he started for his home. On arriving at Alexandria he was prohibited from going to Washington, and was forced to remain over night, during which he was seriously beset by a band of self-styled "Regulators," who threat- ened to cast him into the Potomac River. He retraced his course the next morning to Manas-
sas Junction, and came up the valley to Win- chester, where he found the place full of volun- teers marching to Harper's Ferry. He arrived at the latter place next day, to find the armory and the splendid buildings of the United States Government a mass of smoking ruins, and the place occupied by armed volunteers of Virginia. Here he was kept under military surveillance until evening, when he boarded the cars and in due time once more breathed the free air of his native hills. When it became known to the loyal people of northwestern Virginia that the Convention had passed an ordinance of seces- sion, the excitement became intense, which was succeeded by a resolution of defiance in their minds and hearts. The remembrance of years of injustice at the hands of the eastern oligarchy rose up to stimulate their deep-seated love of the government of the fathers. This was height- ened when it became known to what lengths of usurpation the convention had been extended. Its proceedings were thus described by Mr. Willey in a speech delivered subsequently in the Senate of the United States :
" Before the seal of secrecy was removed from the proceedings of the convention; before the people knew that the ordinance had been passed; before the people had voted upon it-yes, sir! on the very next day after the passage of the ordinance, the convention began to levy war against the United States-large appropriations for military purposes were made; field officers were appointed and commissioned; the military stores, forts, arsenals, and arms, and custom- houses of the United States were seized at Richmond, Norfolk, Harper's Ferry, and other places. A fortnight had not elapsed until the convention, still in secret session, and before the people knew that any ordinance of seces- sion had passed, had, by solemn compact made with commissioners from the insurrectionary government of the so-called Confederate States, annexed Virginia to that confederation, and transferred to it her entire military resources and placed the militia under the control of the rebel chief of that insurrectionary organization. All this was done by these secret conspirators, not only before the people had voted upon the ordinance of secession, but before they were permitted to know, or did know, that any ordi- nance of secession had been passed. Thus were the unconscious people of Virginia, like beasts in the shambles, transferred to a new allegiance, a new government, and new rulers and political masters, in the selection of whom they had no knowledge or choice. And before the people
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were permitted to know of these proceedings, the 'sacred soil' of Virginia was trodden by the armed legions of South Carolina and the Gulf States, and on the fourth Thursday in May, when the ordinance was to be voted upon by the people, thirty thousand glittering bayonets surrounded the polls from the Chesapeake to the summit of the Alleghanies. Portions of the Confederate forces had been pushed across the Alleghanies, and were menacing the lives and liberties of the people of northwest Virginia. Officers had been commissioned and authorized to raise troops there and to organize the militia in subjection to the military tyrants at Mont- gomery, and in hostility to the United States. The civil authorities were also threatened with condign punishment unless they instantly rec- ognized this new order of things, and adminis- tered their offices as under the authority of the Southern Confederation."
Alarmed and exasperated by their proceed- ings, the loyal people in some thirty of the northwestern counties assembled in primary . meetings and appointed delegates to a mass convention to be held in Wheeling on the 13th of May following. The object was to consult upon the situation and concert measures for the public safety. When the time appointed arrived there was a mass convention indeed. Some three hundred delegates were present. Mr. Willey had not intended to be present, but at the urgent request of the Hon. F. H. Pierpont he was induced to go. The latter gentleman informed him that the Hon. John S. Carlisle, who had been a delegate to the Richmond Con- vention and was an ardent Union man, intended to introduce a proposition to immediately create a new State out of certain northwestern coun- ties, without first having obtained the consent of either the Legislature of Virginia or of the Congress of the United States. Such a propo- sition was introduced by Mr. Carlisle early in the deliberations of the convention. It seemed to meet with great favor both in convention and among the throngs of people outside of the body. They were looking to the end without respect to the means. They were actuated by a patriotic and proper purpose; but were not advised of the essential preliminary steps to be taken in order to accomplish that purpose. Governor Pierpont exerted himself with great energy and ability to defeat so revolutionary a project. In this he had the hearty co-operation of Mr. Willey. They spoke against it for a con-
siderable part of two days. At first their efforts excited much angry feeling-especially against Mr. Willey. Placards were posted in the city calling a meeting to denounce him. But plant- ing themselves on the Constitution and the law, they maintained their position boldly and un- flinchingly. The convention came to see that the adoption of the proposed project would de- feat the object they had in view, and most probably involve the people of northwestern Virginia in disaster and disgrace. It was at this point when Governor Pierpont introduced the following proposition :
" Resolved, That in the event of the ordinance of secession being ratified by a vote, we recom- mend to the people of the counties here repre- sented, and all others disposed to co-operate with us, to appoint, on the 4th day of June, 1861, delegates to a general convention, to meet on the 11th of that month, at such place as may be designated by the committee hereinafter provided, to devise such measures and take such action as the safety and welfare of the people they represent may demand-each coun- ty to appoint a number of representatives to said convention equal to double the number to which it will be entitled in the next House of Delegates; and the Senators and Delegates to be elected on the 23d instant, by the counties referred to, to the next General Assembly of Virginia and who concur in the views of this convention, to be entitled to seats in the said convention as members thereof."
This resolution was cordially supported by Mr. Willey. It was adopted and furnished a happy solution of the difficulties of the situation. This June convention was called. It reorgan- ized the State. A Legislature assembled at Wheeling, and the loyal State government peacefully resumed its legitimate functions, with Governor Pierpont at its head. Mr. Willey has often said to the author of this sketch, that through this prudent, wise, and statesmanlike measure, the people were more indebted to Governor Pierpont, for the successful accom- plishment of this security against anarchy, and for the maintenance of their allegiance to the United States, and for the ultimate creation of the State of West Virginia, than to any other man in it. Of the effect of Mr. Willey's speech during the contest in the convention, Gen. George R. Latham, who was a delegate, in order to correct a misapprehension which still seemed to prevail in some quarters, wrote to him from
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF WEST VIRGINIA.
his seat in the House of Representatives at Washington in 1866: "I have no hesitancy in saying to yourself, as I have said to others, that your effort on that occasion saved us from anarchy, and placed the restoration of the State of Virginia upon a basis which secured it at once the respect of the thoughtful and the con- fidence and recognition of the government of the United States." Among the first acts of the Legislature was the election of Senators to the Congress of the United States. Mr. Willey was chosen as one of these in July, 1861. A special session of Congress was then being held at Washington, where he presented himself, and after a brief delay in which the credentials which he bore were carefully considered, he took his seat. Thus was the wisdom of the action for which Governor Pierpont and himself had so arduously struggled fully demonstrated. By his recognition as a Senator from Virginia the Federal Government was not embarrassed by the exigency of the situation, nor, in its efforts to encourage loyalty in so-called seceded States, was it required to occupy an illogical or inconsistent position upon the asserted right of secession. Mr. Willey in his first speech in the Senate, December 19, 1861, announced his opinions very decisively on the great question that was at issue between the contending forces. He asks the question as a primary one in the pending conflict :
"Has the Federal Government become so destructive of the ends of its institution as to create the right in the people, or any portion of the people, 'to alter or to abolish it, and to in- stitute a new government'? Respectfully ap- pealing to the 'opinions of mankind,' and invit- ing the most rigid scrutiny and criticism, I confidently declare that this rebellion is wholly inexcusable."
After showing the groundlessness of the fears of the South from the action of the Republican party on the subject of slavery, he again asks :
" What has the Republican party done, since the avowal of its policy, to exclude slavery from the Territories? Why, sir, with a decided majority in the other branch of Congress, it has allowed several territorial governments to be organized without intervention to exclude slav- ery. The South was at perfect liberty to emi- grate there with their slaves if they thought proper. Will it be a sufficient reply to this fact to allege, as Southern politicians have alleged,
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that this liberality on the part of the North would never have been manifested if it had not been known that the soil and climate of those Territories were of such a character as to prac- tically prevent the existence of slavery there? Grant the fact; what wrong has the North done to the South? Was the North responsible for the climate and soil? Sir, this outcry against the North in regard to these Territories applies only to the God of nature; and, so far as seces- sion is predicated upon the exclusion of slavery from any of the present Territories of the United States, it is a revolt against the inexora- ble laws of nature and Providence. The spirit which dictated- it is akin to the spirit which in- spired the angelic revolt in Heaven. May its overthrow be as complete."
He thoroughly examined the pretexts for se- cession, offered the opinions of the founders of the government in opposition to them, and maintained that the pretences set up by the leaders in the movement were false and that no shield of "peaceable secession" could avail against the execration of the future.
"Sir, truth will ere long strip these conspira- tors naked before the world, and the people whom they have so cruelly misled will rise up and curse them. History-impartial history- will arraign and condemn them to universal contempt. It will hold them responsible before man and God for the direful consequences al- ready brought upon country, and for the evils yet to come-for the desolations of war, its pil- lage, and rapine, and blood, and carnage, and crime, and widowhood, and orphanage, and all its sorrows and disasters. . .. What shall be said of those who, without pretence of provoca- tion, have conspired to destroy the unexampled peace and prosperity of the United States, and to overthrow the wisest and best Government which the annals of history have ever presented to the admiration of mankind?"
He closed this able speech in an eloquent peroration, in which he declared that the rebel- lion was "treason against universal liberty;" that " we were to-day in the last intrenchments of liberty, fighting her last battle," and "if she perish in the conflict she will sink into a grave from which there will be no resurrection;" and that "twenty millions of loyal people struggling in such a cause as this must prevail."
" Sir, this Union cannot be dissolved. Nature and Providence forbid it. Our rivers, and lakes, and mountains, and the whole geographical conformation of the country rebuke the treason that would sever them. Our diversities of cli-
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF WEST VIRGINIA.
mate and soil and staple production do but make each section necessary to the other. Science and art have annihilated distance, and brought the whole family of States into a close proximity and constant and easy intercourse. We are one people in language, in law, in relig- ion, and destiny. 'Whom God hath joined to- gether, let no man put asunder.' The past is glorious-the future shall be sublime.
"'No pent-up Utica contracts our powers ; But the whole boundless continent is ours. '"
In all the movements which had for their ob- ject the formation of a new State west of the Alleghanies, Mr. Willey was among the orig- inal actors and chief advisers. These acts of the loyal people of western Virginia will be viewed by the impartial historian with wonder- ment and admiration. Their position was one of extreme perplexity, because of their geo- graphical position and because of the complex nature of the problems they had to solve. In all, however, they acted wisely and well. Be- ginning at the corner-stone of all true govern- ment, they laid it well in the consent of the governed. Our limits do not admit of a detailed account of the acts and events in the formation of West Virginia. We must hurry on. It was with feelings of pride mingled with anxiety that Mr. Willey presented the Constitution of the proposed State of West Virginia, accompanied with the act of the General Assembly assenting to the formation of the same and the memorial requesting its admission, on the 29th day of May, 1862, to the Senate of the United States. He showed that there was the requisite popula- tion to entitle the people to the privilege. The geographical position of the territory was also in favor of the proposed admission. The Alle- ghany Mountains were impassable barriers, he maintained, to a common State policy. Vast sums of money had been expended in works of internal improvements in the eastern section, while the west had been denied like privileges. The social institutions were such as to indicate the propriety of a division of the State. Negro slavery required a system of laws adapted to its peculiar necessities. Slavery never could exist to any considerable extent in the bounds of the proposed new State. It was not adapted to the climate of West Virginia. This argument on the divergence of slave and free institutions he offered, to show that the communities were not
homogeneous, which was essential to every political organization, and not on the moral as- pects of the question of slavery; on that subject his opinions had been expressed in the Senate. After consideration of the area of the proposed State, a glance at its immense mineral and tim- ber wealth, and the statements that its water- power was sufficient to drive all the machinery of New England and its coal-fields to supply the continent for a thousand years, Mr. Willey con- cluded in the following eloquent appeal :
" Sir, these counties of western Virginia, knocking for admission into the Union as a new State, contain, in rich abundance, all the ele- ments of a great commonwealth. Why have they remained undeveloped in the oldest State in the American Union? Why are our mines unworked? Why are our waterfalls forever wasting away, unappropriated by the skill of man, chafing and foaming in their channels, as if in conscious rage at the long neglect? The answer to these questions is an irrefutable argu- ment in favor of the division desired. Unless the State is divided, these natural resources of wealth and power will forever remain undevel- oped. Is this just to the people there? Is it just to the country at large? Thus, sir, we pre- sent our claims for this new State. We pray you to grant your assent. It will send a thrill of joy through three hundred thousand hearts, and it will do no injustice to any. Then, sir, will our invaluable virgin mines invite the es- pousal of your surplus capital, and our peren- nial streams will lend their exhaustless power to your manufacturing skill. Then shall we soon be able to say, in the jubilant language of the Psalmist: 'The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy; they also sing.' Vir- ginia-East Virginia, restored from her tempo- rary aberration; West Virginia, like a newly discovered star-East Virginia and West Vir- ginia, twin stars, shall thenceforth shine with ever-brightening lustre in the republican zodiac of States encircling our western hemisphere."
The final vote on the admission of the State was not reached till July 14, 1862. It was some time before the matter was reported back to the Senate by the committee on Territories. It be- came apparent that the Senate was not satisfied with the constitution of the new State concern- ing slavery. While arguing the propriety of admitting the State with the constitution just as the people of West Virginia had ordained it, Mr. Willey was nevertheless willing to concede something to the wishes of Senators. He pro-
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF WEST VIRGINIA.
posed that the following clause should be incor- porated in the constitution :
" The children of slaves born within the limits of this State after the 4th of July, 1863, shall be free; and no slave shall be permitted to come into the State for permanent residence therein."
But even this did not meet the demand; and Mr. Willey's proposition was amended so as to make it read as follows :
" The children of slaves born within the limits of this State after the 4th of July, 1863, 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."
This substitute afterward came to be desig- nated as the "Willey Amendment," although it had not, in the first instance, been introduced by him in its exact present form, but only ac- cepted by him in deference to the sentiments of the Senate. Mr. Carlisle, his senatorial col- league, who, from some unexplained reason, had become violently opposed to the creation of the new State, vehemently assailed the measure now, upon the ground that to admit the new State with this amendment would be to impose a constitution upon the people of West Virginia, which, in this particular, had never been sub- mitted to them or ratified by them. There was much force in the objection. But Mr. Willey and the members of the House of Representa- tives representing the counties included in the limits of the new State, the Hon. William G. Brown, of Kingwood, and the Hon. Jacob B. Blair, of Parkersburg, aware of Mr. Carlisle's defection, had prepared themselves for such a contingency. Fortunately the convention which framed the proposed constitution of West Vir- ginia had not finally dissolved, but had simply adjourned to be re-convened upon the call of a committee which had been appointed by the body for the purpose, whenever in the opinion of the committee it might be deemed necessary and expedient. The surprise and discomfiture of the opposition was very great when Mr. Willey asked leave of the Senate to introduce, by way of substitute for the original proposi- tion pending, a new bill, which he had lying on
his desk, referring the constitution as amended back to the convention which framed it, with the provision that if that body should adopt it, and submit it again to the people, and they should ratify it as thus amended, that the Pres- ident of the United States, upon being properly certified of the fact, should make proclamation accordingly ; fixing a certain day when West Virginia should become one of the United States. In this form the bill finally passed the Senate on the 14th of July, 1862. It was imme- diately sent to the House of Representatives, but it being near the close of the session, the consideration of it was postponed until a day early in the next session, when the bill as it now stands was passed by a large majority. The committee referred to did recall the con- vention. It met again at Wheeling early in February, 1863. Mr. Willey attended, he being a member of it by election before its organiza- tion, and, by special resolution of the conven- tion, delivered an address on the 13th of Febru- ary, which was thus noticed by the Wheeling Intelligencer:
" Mr. Van Winkle moved that Mr. Willey be now invited to address the convention, and that gentleman accepting the invitation, in an ad- dress of some two hours, of such breadth and power that it is but faint praise to say that he exhausted the whole new State question, and left nothing for others to say."
This speech was translated into German, and was circulated throughout the State. In it Mr. Willey examined carefully the objections made, both legal and political, to the admission of the State into the Union. He declared his great surprise that any of the people of the State should offer opposition thereto. If it were true that no assent of the Legislature of Virginia had been given, then it was true that the objection in that behalf was well taken, as the constitution of the United States provided that "no new State should be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of another State, without the con- sent of the Legislature of the State and of the Congress." He then proceeded to say :
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