USA > West Virginia > Hampshire County > History of Hampshire County, West Virginia : from its earliest settlement to the present > Part 10
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The Virginia legislature called a convention to meet at Richmond February 13, 1861. The time was short, but the crisis was at hand, The flame was kindling. Meet- ing's were being held in all the eastern part of the state, and the people were nearly unanimous in their demand
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THE ORDINANCE OF SECESSION.
that the state join the Confederacy. At least, few opposed this demand; but at that time it is probable that one-half of the people of the state opposed secession. But rebellion was in the saddle and it held the reins. Richmond had gone mad. It was the center of a whirlpool of insurrec- tion. West of the Alleghany mountains the scene was different. The mass of the people did not at once grasp the situation. They knew the signs of the times were strange; that currents were drifting to a center; but that war was at hand of gigantic magnitude, and that the state of Virginia was " choosing that day whomshewould serve," were not clearly understood at the outset. But, as the great truth dawned, and as its lurid light became brighter, West Virginia was not slow in choosing whom she would serve. The people assembled in their towns, and a num- ber of meetings were held, even before the convening of the special session of the legislature, and there was but one sentiment expressed, and that was loyalty to the gov- ernment. Preston county held the first meeting. Novem- ber 12, 1860; Harrison county followed the twenty-sixth of the same month; two days later the people of Monongalia assembled to discuss and take measures: a similar gather- ing took place in Taylor county. December 4; and another in Wheeling ten days later; and on the seventh of the Jan- uary following there was a meeting in Mason county.
On January 21 the Virginia legislature declared by res- olution that, unless the differences between the two sec- tions of the country could be reconciled, it was Virginia's duty to join the confederacy. That resolution went side by side with the call for an election of delegate to the Rich- mond convention, which wasto "take measures." The elec- tion was held February 4, 1861, and nine days later the momorable convention assembled. Little time had been given for a campaign. Western Virginia sent men who were the peers of any from the tastern part of the state. The following delegates were chosen from the territory
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now forming West Virginia: Barbour county, Samuel Woods; Braxton and Nicholas, B. W. Byrne; Berkeley, Edmund Pendleton and Allen C. Hammond; Brooke, Camp- bell Tarr; Cabell, William McComas; Doddridge and Ty- ler, Chapman J. Stuart; Fayette and Raleigh, Henry L. Gillespie; Greenbrier, Samuel Price; Gilmer and Wirt, C. B. Conrad; Hampshire, David Pugh and Edmund M. Armstrong; Hancock, George M. Porter; Harrison, John S. Carlisle and Benjamin Wilson; Hardy, Thomas Maslin; Jackson and Roane, Franklin P. Turner; Jefferson, Alfred M. Barbour and Logan Osburn; Kanawha, Spicer Patrick and George W. Summers; Lewis, Caleb Boggess; Logan, Boone and Wyoming, James Lawson; Marion, Ephriam B. Hall and Alpheus S. Haymond; Marshall, James Burley; Mason, James H. Crouch; Mercer, Napoleon B. French; Monongalia, Waitman T. Willey and Marshall M. Dent; Monroe, John Echols and Allen T. Caperton; Morgan, Johnson Orrick; Ohio, Chester D. Hubbard and Sherard Clemens; Pocahontas, Paul McNeil; Preston, William G. Brown and James C. McGrew; Putnam, James W. Hoge; Ritchie, Cyrus Hall; Randolph and Tucker, J. N. Hughes; Taylor, John S. Burdette; Upshur, George .W. Berlin; Wetzel. L. S. Hall; Wood, General John J. Jackson; Wayne, Burwell Spurlock.
When the convention met, it was doubtful if a majority were in favor of secession. At any rate, the leaders in that movement, who had caused the convention to be called for that express purpose, appeared afraid to push the question to a vote, and from that day began the work which ultimately succeeded in winning over enough dele- gates, who at first were opposed to secession, to carry the state into the confederacy.
There were forty-six delegates from the counties now forming West Virginia. Nine of these voted for the ordi- nance of secession, seven were absent, one was excused, and twenty-nine voted against it. The principal leaders
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among the West Virginia delegates who opposed seces- sion, were J. C. McGrew, of Preston county; George W. Summers of Kanawha county; General John J. Jackson of Wood county; Chester D. Hubbard of Ohio county, and Waitman T. Willey of Monongalia county. Willey was the leader of the leaders. He employed all the eloquence of which he was master, and all the reason and logic he could command to check the rush into what he clearly saw was disaster. No man of feeble courage could have taken the stand which he took in that convention. The agents from the states already in rebellion were in Richmond urging the people to cry out for secession, and the people were not unwilling agents in pushing the designs of the South- ern Confederacy. The convention held out for a month against the clamor, and so fierce became the populace that delegates who opposed secession were threatened with personal assault and were in danger of assassination. The peril and the clamor induced many delegates who had been loyal to go over to the confederacy. But the majority held out in spite of threats, insults and dangers. In the front was General John J. Jackson. one of West Virginia's most venerable citizens. He was of the material which never turns aside from danger. A cousin of Stonewall Jackson, he had seen active service in the field before Stonewall was born. He had fought the Seminoles in Florida, and had been a member of General Andrew Jackson's staff. He had been intrusted by the government with important and dangerous duties before he was old enough to vote. He had traversed the wilderness on horseback and alone, be- tween Florida and Kentucky, performing in this manner a circuitous journey of three thousand miles, much of it among the camps and over the hunting grounds of treach- erous Indians. Innured to dangers and accustomed to peril, he was not the man to flinch or give ground before the clamor and threats of the Richmond populace, aided and backed by the most fiery spirits of the south. He
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stood up for the union; spoke for it; urged the convention to pause on the brink of the abyss before taking the leap. He risked his life for the honor of his state and country in those days of peril, and he stood to his guns until he saw that Virginia had taken the leap into the dark. Another heroic worker in the famous convention was Judge G. W. Summers of Charleston. He was in the city of Washing- ton attending a "Peace Conference" when he received news that the people of Kanawha county had elected him a dele- gate to the Richmond convention. He hurried to Rich- mond and opposed with all his powers the ordinance of secession. A speech which he delivered against that meas- ure has been pronounced the most powerful heard in the convention.
On March 2 Mr. Willey made a remarkable speech in the convention. He announced that his purpose was not to reply to the arguments of the disunionists, but to de- fend the right of free speech which Richmond, out of the halls of the convention and in, was trying to stifle by threats and derision. He warned the people that when free speech is silenced liberty is no longer a realty, but a mere mockery. He then took up the secession question, although he had not intended to do so when he began speak- ing, and he presented in so forcible a manner the argu- ments against secession that he made a profound impres- sion upon the convention. During the whole of that month the secessionists were baffled. They could not break down the opposition. Arguments had failed; threats had not succeeded. But on the other hand, the loyal members of the convention could not carry their point, and it was thus a deadlock until late in April. Secession then carried the day and Virginia, on April 17, 1861, took the plunge into the abyss, from which she was not to extricate herself until the flood of war, with all its horrors and ruin, had swept over her and left her fields untilled, her prosperity crushed and her homes desolate.
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The next day, April 18, a number of delegates from Western Virginia declared that they would not abide by the action of the convention. Amid the roar of Richmond run mad, they began to consult among themselves what course to pursue. They were watched by the seces- sionists, and it was evident that their season of usefulness in Virginia's capital was at an end. On April 20 several of the West Virginians met secretly in a bed room of the Powhatan hotel and decided that nothing more could be done by them at Richmond to hinder or defeat the seces-
sion movement. They agreed to return home and urge their constituents to vote against the ordinance of seces- sion at the election set for May 24. They began to depart for their homes. Some had gotten safely out of Richmond and beyond the reach of the confederates before it became known that the western delegates were leaving. Others were still in Richmond, and a plan was formed to keep them prisoners in the city; not in jail, but they were re- quired to obtain passes from the governor before leaving the city. It was correctly surmised that the haste shown by these delegates in taking their departure was due to their determination to stir up opposition to the ordinance of secession in the western part of the state. But when it was learned that most of the western delegates had already left Richmond, it was deemed unwise to detain the few who yet remained, and they were permitted to depart, which they did without loss of time.
The passage of the ordinance of secssion was a farce, so far as the leaders who pushed it through the convention were concerned. They intended to drag or drive Virginia into the Southern Confederacy, no matter whether the ordinance carried or not. They laid great stress on being constitutional in what they did in seceding from the union; but they violated both the letter and the spirit of their state constitution when they called a convention for pur- poses of secession; when they kept that ordinance a secret
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for many days after its passage; when they acted upon it as though it had been ratified by the people, not only be- fore it had been voted upon, but before the people of Vir- ginia knew that such a thing as an ordinance of secession was in existence. It was passed in secret session. It was kept secret for several days, There are crises in human affairs when men may act contrary to the strict letter of the law, when the end clearly justifies the means, and when the end can be reached by no other means. Every individual man may at some time in his life be called upon, in a sudden and momentous emergency, to become a law unto himself; and bodies of men may meet similar emer- gencies; and if they are right, no injustice will result. But the emergency had not come to the state of Virginia which justified the dragging of that state into the Southern Confederacy without the knowledge or consent of the people.
Before the people knew that an ordinance of secession had passed, the convention began to levy war upon the United States. Before the seal of secrecy had been re- moved from the proceedings of that body, large appropri- ations for military purposes had been made. Officers were appointed, troops were armed; forts and arsenals belong- ing to the general government had been seized. The arsenal at Harper's Ferry and that at Norfolk had fallen before attacks of Virginia troops before the people of that state knew that they were no longer regarded as citizens of the United States. Nor was this all. The convention, still in secret session, without the knowledge or consent of the people of Virginia, had annexed that state to the Southern Confederacy. It was all done with the presump- tion that the people of the state would sustain the ordi- nance of secession when they had learned of its existence and when they were given an opportunity to vote upon it. In fact, it was a part of the conspiracy that the convention should see to it that the ordinance was sustained at the
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polls. Every precaution was taken to that end. The election came May 24, 1861; and before that day there were thirty thousand soldiers in the state east of the Allegha- nies, and troops had been pushed across the mountains into Western Virgina. The majority of votes cast in the state were in favor of ratifying the ordinance of secession; but West Virginia voted against it. Eastern Virginia was carried by storm. The excitement was intense. The cry was for war, if any attempt should be made to hinder Vir- ginia's going into the Southern Confederacy. Many men whose sober judgment was opposed to secession, were swept into it by their surroundings. That portion of the state of Virginia lying east of the Alleghanies would prob- ably have voted for secession had no troops come up from the south to assist by their presence the spread of disloy- alty. As it was, few men cared to vote against that measure while confederate bayonets were gleaming around the polls. Before the day of election the general government had taken steps to invade Virginia. The President had called for seventy-five thousand volunteers. Federal troops had crossed, or were preparing to cross, the Potomac to seize Arlington heights and Alexandria; and when the time came for voting, the war had begun, and Virginia became one of the states of the Southern Confederacy.
CHAPTER X.
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THE REORGANIZED GOVERNMENT.
The officers and visible government of Virginia abdi- cated when they joined the Southern Confederacy. The people reclaimed and resumed their sovereignty after it had beeen abdicated by their regularly constituted authorities. This right belongs to the people and can not be taken from them. A public servant is elected to keep and exercise this sovereignty in trust; but he can do no more. When he ceases doing this, the sovereignty re- turns. whence it came,-to the people. When Virginia's public officials seceded from the United States and joined the Southern Confederacy, they carried with them their individual persons, and nothing more. The loyal people of the state were deprived of none of the rights of self- government; but their government was left, for the time being, without officers to execute it and give it form. In brief, the people of Virginia had no government, but had a right to a government, and they proceeded to create one by choosing officers to take the place of those who had abdicated. This is all there was in the reorganization of the government of Virginia; and it was done by citizens of the United States, proceeding under that clause in the constitution of the Umited States which declares: "The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a Republican form of government."
The government of Virginia was reorganized; the state of West Virginia was created; and nothing was done in violation of the strictest letter and spirit of the United States constitution. The steps were as follows, stated briefly
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THE REORGANIZED GOVERNMENT.
here, but more in detail elsewhere in this book. The loyal people of Virginia reclaimed and resumed their sovereignty and reorganized their government. This government, through its legislature, gave its consent for the creation of West Virginia from a part of Virginia's territory. Dele- gates elected by the people of the proposed new state pre- pared a constitution. The people of the proposed new state adopted this constitution. Congress admitted the state. The President issued a proclamation declaring West Virginia to be one of the United States. This state came into the union in the same manner and by the same process and on the same terms as all other states. The details of the reorganization of the Virginia state govern- ment will now be set forth more in detail.
When Virginia passed the ordinance of secession, the territory now forming West Virginia refused to acquiesce in that measure. The vote on the ordinance in West Vir- ginia was about ten to one against it, or forty thousand against to four thousand for. In some of the counties there were more than twenty to one against secession. The sentiment was very strong, and it soon took shape in the form of mass meetings which were largely attended. When the delegates from West Virginia arrived home from the Richmond convention, and laid before their con- stituents the true state of affairs, there was an immediate movement having for its object the nullification of the ordi- nance. Although the people of Western Virginia had long wanted a new state, and although a very general sentiment favored an immediate movement toward that end, yet a conservative course was pursued. Haste and rashness gave way to mature judgment; and the new state move- ment took a course strictly constitutional. The Virginia government was first reorganized. That done, the consti- tution of the United States provided a way for creating the new state; for when the reorganized government was recognized by the United States, and when a legislature
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had been elected, that legislature could give its consent to the formation of a new state from a portion of Virginia's territory, and the way was thereby provided for the accom- plishment of the object.
On the day the ordinance of secession was passed, April 17, 1861, and before the people knew what had been done, a mass meeting was held at Morgantown which adopted resolutions declaring that Western Virginia would remain in the union. A division of the state was suggested in case the eastern part should vote to join the confederacy. A meeting in Wetzel county, April 22, voiced the same senti- ment; and similar meetings were held in Taylor, Wood, Jackson, Mason and elsewhere. But the movement took definite form at a mass meeting of the citizens of Harrison county held at Clarksburg, April 22, which was attended by twelve hundred men. Not only did this meeting pro- test against the course which was hurrying Virginia out of the union, but a line of action was suggested for check- ing the secession movement, at least in the western part of the state. A call was sent out for a general meeting to be held in Wheeling, May 13. The counties of Western Virginia were asked to elect their wisest men to this con- vention. Its objects were stated in general terms to be the discussion of ways and means for providing for the state's best interests in the crisis which had arrived.
Twenty-five counties responded, and the delegates who assembled in Wheeling on May 13 were representatives of the people, men who were determined that the portion of Virginia west of the Alleghany mountains should not be dragged into a war against the union without the consent and against the will of the people. Hampshire and Berke- ley counties, east of the Alleghanies, sent delegates Many of the men who attended the convention were the best known west of the Alleghanies, and in the subsequent his- tory of West Virginia their names have become household words. The roll of the convention was as follows:
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THE REORGANIZED GOVERNMENT.
Barbour county-Spencer Dayton, E. H. Manafee, J. H. Shuttleworth.
Berkeley county-J. W. Dailey, A. R. McQuilkin, J. S. Bowers.
Brooke county-M. Walker, Bazael Wells, J. D. Nichols, Eli Green, John G. Jacob, Joseph Gist, Robert Nichols, Adam Kuhn, David Hervy, Campbell Tarr, Nathaniel Wells, J. R. Burgoine, James Archer, Jesse Edgington, R. L. Jones, James A. Campbell.
Doddridge county-S. S. Kinney, J. Cheverout, J. Smith, J. P. F. Randolph, J. A. Foley.
Hampshire county-George W. Broski, O. D. Downey, Dr. B. B. Shaw, George W. Sheetz, George W. Rizer.
Hancock county-Thomas Anderson, W. C. Murray, William B. Freeman, George M. Porter, W. L. Crawford, L. R. Smith, J. C. Crawford, B. J. Smith, J. L. Freeman, Jolın Gardner, George Johnston, J. S. Porter, James Stev- enson, J. S. Pomeroy, R. Breneman, David Donahoo, D. S. Nicholson, Thayer Melvin, James H. Pugh, Ewing Turner, H. Farnsworth, James G. Marshall, Samuel Freeman, John Mahan, Joseph D. Allison, John H. Atkinson, Jonathan Al- lison, D. C. Pugh, A. Moore, William Brown, William Hewitt, David Jenkins.
Harrison county-W. P. Goff, B. F. Shuttleworth, Wil- liam Duncan, L. Bowen, William E. Lyon, James Lynch, John S. Carlisle, Thomas L. Moore, John J. Davis, S. S. Fleming, Felix S. Sturm.
Jackson county-G. L. Kennedy, J. V. Rowley, A. Flesher, C. M. Rice, D. Woodruff, George Leonard, J. F. Scott.
Lewis county-A. S. Withers, F. M. Chalfant, J. W. Hudson, P. M. Hale, J. Woofter, J. A. J. Lightburn, W. L. Grant.
Marshall county-Thomas Wilson, Lot Enix, John Wil- son, G. Hubbs, John Ritchie, J. W. Boner, J. Alley, S. B. Stidger, Asa Browning, Samuel Wilson, J. McCondell, A.
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Bonar, D. Price, D. Roberts, G. W. Evans, Thomas Dowler, R. Alexander, E. Conner, John Withers, Charles Snediker, Joseph McCombs, Alexander Kemple, J. S. Riggs, Alfred Gaines, V. P. Gorby, Nathan Fish, A. Francis, William Phillips, S. Ingram, J. Garvin, Dr. Marshman, William Luke, William Baird, J. Winders, F. Clement, James Campbell, J. B. Hornbrook, John Parkinson, John H. Dickey, Thomas Morrissa, W. Alexander, John Laughlin, W. T. Head, J. S. Parriott, W. J. Purdy, H. C. Kemple, R. Swan, John Reynolds, J. Hornbrook, William McFar- land, G. W. Evans, W. R. Kimmons, William Collins, R. C. Holliday, J. B. Morris, J. W. McCarriher, Joseph Turner, Hiram McMechen, E. H. Caldwell, James Garvin, L. Gard- ner, H. A. Francis, Thomas Dowler, John R. Morrow, Wil- liam Wasson, N. Wilson, Thomas Morgan, S. Dorsey, R. B. Hunter.
Monongalia county-Waitman T. Willey, William Lazier, James Evans, Leroy Kramer, W. E. Hanaway, Elisha Coombs. H. Dering, George McNeeley, H. N. Mackey, E. D. Fogle, J. T. M. Laskey, J. T. Hess, C. H. Burgess, John Bly, William Price, A, Brown, J. R. Boughner, W. B. Shaw, P. L. Rice, Joseph Jolliff, William Anderson, E. P. St. Clair, P. T. Lashley, Marshall M. Dent, Isaac Scott, Jacob Miller, D. B. Dorsey, Daniel White, N. C. Vander- vort, A. Derranet, Amos S. Bowlsby, Joseph Snyder, J. A. Wiley, John McCarl, A. Garrison, E. B. Taggart, E. P. Finch.
Marion county-F. H. Pierpont, Jesse Shaw, Jacob Streams, Aaron Hawkins, James C. Beatty, William Beatty, J. C. Beeson, R. R. Brown, J. Holman, Thomas H. Bains, Hiram Haymond, H. Merryfield, Joshua Carter, G. W. Joliff, John Chisler, Thomas Hough.
Mason county-Lemuel Harpold, W. E. Wetzel, Wyatt Willis, John Goodley, Joseph McMachir, William Harper, William Harpold, Samuel Davies, Daniel Polsley, J. N. Jones, Samuel Yeager, R. C. M. Lovell, Major Brown, 11
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THE REORGANIZED GOVERNMENT. 141
John Greer, A. Stevens, W. C. Starr, Stephen Comstock, J. M. Phelps, Charles B. Waggener, Asa Brigham, David Rossin, B. J, Rollins, D. C. Sayre, Charles Bumgardner, E. B. Davis, William Hopkins, A. A. Rogers, John O. Butler, Timothy Russell, John Hall.
Ohio county-J. C. Orr, L. S. Delaplain, J. R. Stifel, G. L. Cranmer, A. Bedillion, Alfred Caldwell, John McClure, Andrew Wilson, George Forbes, Jacob Berger, John C. Hoffman, A. J. Woods, T. H. Logan, James S. Wheat, George W. Norton, N. H. Garrison, James Paull, J. M. Bickel, Robert, Crangle, George Bowers, John K. Bots- ford, L. D. Waitt, J. Hornbrook, S. Waterhouse, A. Hand- lan, J. W. Paxton, S. H. Woodward, C. D. Hubbard, Daniel Lamb, John Stiner, W. B. Curtis, A. F. Ross, A. B. Caldwell, J. R. Hubbard, E. Buchanon, John Pierson, T. Witham, E. McCasiin.
Pleasants county-Friend Cochran, James Williamson, Robert Parker, R. A. Cramer.
Preston county-R. C. Crooks, H. C. Hagans, W. H. King, James W. Brown, Summers McCrum, Charles Hooten, William P. Fortney, James A. Brown, G. H. Kidd, John Howard. D. A. Letzinger, W. B. Linn, W. J. Brown, Reuben Morris.
Ritchie county-D. Rexroad, J. P. Harris, N. Rexroad, A. S. Cole.
Roane county-Irwin C. Stump.
Taylor county-J. Means, J. M. Wilson, J. Kennedy, J. J. Warren, T. T. Monroe, G. R. Latham, B. Bailey, J. J. Allen, T. Cather, John S. Burdette.
Tyler county-Daniel Sweeney, V. Smith, W. B. Kerr, D. D. Johnson, J. C. Parker, William Pritchard, D. King, S. A. Hawkins, James M. Smith, J. H. Johnson, Isaac Davis.
Upshur county-C. P. Rohrbaugh, W. H. Williams.
Wayne county-C. Spurlock, F. Moore, W. W. Brum- field, W. H. Copley, Walter Queen.
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HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE.
Wirt county-E. T. Graham, Henry Newman, B. Ball.
Wetzel county-Elijah Morgan, T. E. Williams, Joseph, Murphy, William Burrows, B. T. Bowers, J. R. Brown, J. M. Bell, Jacob Young, Reuben Martin, R. Reed, R. S. Sayres, W. D. Welker, George W. Bier, Thomas Mc- Quown, John Alley. S. Stephens. R. W. Lauck, John Mc- Claskey, Richard Cook, A McEldowney, B. Vancamp.
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