USA > West Virginia > Monongalia County > History of Monongalia County, West Virginia, from its first settlements to the present time; with numerous biographical and family sketches > Part 15
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came to see that the adoption of the proposed project would defeat the object they had in view, and most probably in- volve the people of north-western Virginia in disaster and disgrace. It was at this point when Governor Pierpont in- troduced the following proposition :
" Resolved, That in the event of the ordinance of secession being ratified by a vote, we recommend to the people of the counties here represented, and all others disposed to co-operate with us, to appoint, on the 4th day of June, 1861, delegates to a general con- vention, 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 county 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 difficul- ties of the situation. Perhaps on no other occasion in the history of governments among men did greater results ever turn on a more important measure. The course which this opposed was revolutionary, null and void under the Consti- tution of the United States. Had no such conclusion been reached, no mode would have been selected that would have been agreeable to the body, and anarchy would have been given wings; no lawful method could have been employed which would have eventuated in a new State, and civil gov- ernment been established around which the loyal people could rally in their aid of the Federal government in the sup- pression of the Rebellion, if indeed, loyalty itself had not fallen into disuse.
This June convention was called. It reorganized the State. A Legislature assembled at Wheeling, and the loyal State government peacefully resumed its legitimate func- tions, with Governor Pierpont at its head. Mr. Willey has often said to the author of this sketch, that through this
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prudent, wise and statesmanlike measure, the people were more indebted to Governor Pierpont, for the successful . accomplishment 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 mis- apprehension which still seemed to prevail in some quarters, wrote to him from 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 restora- tion of the State of Virginia upon a basis which secured it at once the respect of the thoughtful and the confidence 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 ef- forts 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 pend- ing conflict-
"Has the Federal Government become so destructive of the ends of its institution as to create the right in the people, or any por-
JAMES VANCE BOUGHNER. See Page 479.
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tion of the people, 'to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government ?' Respectfully appealing to the 'opinions of man- kind,' and inviting the most rigid scrutiny and criticism, I confi- dently 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 sub- ject 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 interven- tion to exclude slavery. 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, 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 practically pre- vent 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 secession is predicated upon the exclusion of slavery from any of the present Territories of the United States, it is a revolt against the inexorable laws of nature and Providence. The spirit which dictated it is akin to the spirit which inspired the angelic revolt in Heaven. May its overthrow be as complete."
He thoroughly examined the pretexts for secession, offered the opinions of the founders of the government in in opposition to them, and maintained that the pretenses 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 conspirators 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 already brought upon country, and for the evils yet to come-for the desolations of war, its pillage, and rapine, and blood, and car- nage, and crime, and widowhood, and orphanage, and allits sorrows and disasters.
"What shall be said of those who, without pretense of provoca- tion, have conspired to destroy the unexampled peace and pros- 13
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perity 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 ? a Government of which one of the principal conspirators, now Vice President of the organized rebel- lion, said a little more than a year ago,-
"'That this Government of our fathers, with all its defects, comes nearer to the objects of all good government than any other on the face of the earth, is my settled conviction.'-A. H. Stephens, before the Georgia Legislature, November, 1860."
He declared that it was hostility to democratic institu- tions that had evoked the spirit of secession. He advanced the view that the southern statesmen were hostile to the general education of the masses, because fearful of its ef- fects, and cited the pertinacity with which Mr. Calhoun had resisted the application of the majority principle in the national government, as subversive of the rights of the States. He closed this able speech in an eloquent perora- tion, in which he declared that the rebellion 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 can not 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 climate 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 religion, and destiny. 'Whom God hath joined together, 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 object the for- mation of a new State west of the Alleghanies, Mr. Willey was among the original actors and chief advisers. These acts of the loyal people of Western Virginia will be viewed by the impartial historian with wonderment and admiration.
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Their position was one of extreme perplexity, because of their geographical position and because of the complex nature of the problems they had to solve. In all, however, they acted wisely and well. Beginning at the corner-stone of all true government, they laid it well in the consent of the governed. Our limits do not admit of a detailed ac- count of the acts and events in the formation of West Vir- ginia. 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. After reviewing the preliminary steps taken on behalf of the movement, he spoke as follows:
"And now it only remains for Congress to give its assent. Ought that assent to be given ? Before I answer this question, I desire to correct a misapprehension which I find is prevalent, not only throughout the country, but likewise here. It seems to be supposed that this movement for a new State has been conceived since the breaking out of the rebellion, and was a consequence of it ; that it grew alone out of the abhorrence with which the loyal citizens of West Virginia regarded the traitorous proceedings of the conspirators east of the Alleghanies, and that the effort was prompted simply by a desire to dissolve the connection between the loyal and disloyal sections of the State. Not so, sir. The question of dividing the State of Virginia, either by the Blue Ridge mountain, or by the Alleghanies, has been mooted for fifty years. It has frequently been agitated with such vehemence as to threaten seriously the public peace. It has been a matter of constant strife and bitterness in the Legislature of the State. The animos- ity existing at this time between the North and the South is hardly greater than what has at times distinguished the relations between East and West Virginia, arising from a diversity of interests and geographical antagonismns. Indeed, so incompatible was the union of the territory lying west of the Alleghany moun- tains with the territory lying east thereof, under one and the same State municipality, that so long ago as 1781, several of the States insisted that Virginia should include in her act of cession all her trans-Alleghany territory, making the Alleghany mountains her western, as they were her natural, boundary. A committee in the
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Federal Congress about this time made a strong report, suggesting such a boundary ; and Mr. Madison records that-
"'From several circumstances, there was reason to believe that Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, if not Maryland likewise, retained latent views of confining Virginia to the Alleghany mountains.'-Madison's Debates, vol. 1, pp. 463-465 .??
He showed that there was the requisite population to en- title the people to the privilege. The geographical position of the territory was also in favor of the proposed admission. The Alleghany 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, whilst 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 con- siderable 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 institu- tions he offered, to show that the communities were not homogeneous, which was essential to every political organ- ization, and not on the moral aspects 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 timber 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 concluded 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 elements 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 water-falls forever wasting away, unappreciated 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 argument in favor of the division desired. Unless the State is divided, these natural resources of wealth and power will forever remain undeveloped. Is this just to the people there ? Is it just to the country at large ?
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"Thus, sir, we present 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 espousal of your surplus capital, and our perennial streams will lend their exhaust- less power to your manufacturing skill. Then shall we soon be able to say, in the jubilant language of the Psalmist : 'The pas- tures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy ; they also sing.' Virginia-East Virginia, restored from her temporary aberration ; West Virginia, like a newly discovered star-East Virginia and West Virginia, 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 became apparent that the Senate was not satisfied with the constitution of the new State'concern- ing slavery. Whilst arguing the propriety of admitting the State with the constitution just as the people of West Vir- ginia had ordained it, Mr. Willey was nevertheless willing to concede something to the wishes of Senators. He proposed that the following clause should be incorporated 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 fourth 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 resi- dence therein."
This substitute afterwards came to be designated as the "Willey Amendment," although it had not, in the first in- stance, been introduced by him in its exact present form, but only accepted by him in deference to the sentiments of
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the Senate. Mr. Carlisle, his senatorial colleague, who, from some unexplained reason, had become violently op- posed 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 constitu- tion upon the people of West Virginia, which, in this particular, had never been submitted to them or ratified by them. There was much force in the objection. But Mr. Willey and the members of the House of Representatives 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 Virginia 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 proposition 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 President of the United States, upon be- ing 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 immediately 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 convention. It met again at Wheeling early in February, 1863. Mr. Willey
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attended, he being a member of it by election before its or- ganization, and by special resolution of the convention, delivered an address on the 13th of February, which was thus noticed by The Wheeling Intelligencer:
"Mr. Van Winkle inoved that Mr. Willey be now invited to address the convention, and that gentleman accepting the invi- tation, in an address 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 admis- sion 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 con- stitution of the United States provided that "no new State should be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of an- other State, without the consent of the Legislature of the State and of the Congress." He then proceeded to say :
"I hardly suppose it is necessary to controvert the idea before the people of West Virginia, that the Richmond Legislature since the 17th day of April, 1861, was the true and rightful Legislature of Virginia. Traitors may think so, but loyal men cannot think so. Those who believe in the doctrine that a State has a right to secede from the Union, may be excused for entertaining such an opinion, but those who believe that Virginia is still in the Union, and one of the United States, cannot tolerate such a political heresy. Why, sir, those men at Richmond were rebels. They had abjured their allegiance to the United States and sworn to support the Constitu- tion of the so-called Confederate States. They had levied war against the United States. Shall they be acknowledged as the rightful Legislature of Virginia ? Not by me, sir, while God spares my life !. Not by me while the old flag of my fathers floats over one foot of ground between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans."
He quoted from the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the celebrated case of Luther vs. Borden, to establish the proposition that Congress having admitted Senators and Representatives under the government as re-
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stored at Wheeling, that it could alone be held to be the lawful and rightful government of Virginia ; and its decision was "binding on every other department of the govern- ment." As to the objection that Congress was exercising its power in an oppressive and unconstitutional way, by re- quiring a clause on the subject of slavery, he said that no law of very great importance was, perhaps, in all respects perfectly acceptable; the feelings and prejudices of all had to be consulted. Whilst he would have preferred to have had the State admitted under the constitution as it was originally framed, yet he could not hesitate ; the advantages of admission embarrassed by the change proposed by Con- gress, over its total rejection, were so overwhelming that there was no apology for hesitation. He cited in opposi- tion to the argument of Congressional dictation so many in- stances wherein it had been provided by Congress in the admission of States, that restrictions and qualifications had been imposed, that the precedents gave it the force of law, if it were not absolutely so in fact. In the ordinance of 1787 for the government of the territories north-west of the Ohio River, slavery was absolutely forbidden therein. The admission of Missouri was upon condition of a change absolute and imperative in relation to slavery. Likewise the State of Michigan was admitted with imposed conditions by Congress. Wisconsin was admitted witlı explicit funda- mental conditions in the act in relation thereto, which were to be complied with before it took effect. The same was true of Texas, and finally of Kansas. The principal objec- tion to the measure by its opponents was, he thought, not because of alleged Congressional dictation, but because if the amendment were adopted West Virginia would become a free State.
This branch of the subject he discussed in the aspect it presented as a question of political economy ; maintaining that slave labor ought not to be brought into competition with the white labor of West Virginia; that slavery was not adapted to the soil or climate of West Virginia, and cited
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copious extracts from the opinions of eminent Virginians · in the colonial days and earlier history of the State, to show that the institution everywhere was pernicious in its effects. He arrayed the progress of the free States of the Union against the inactivity and dullness pervading those in which slavery existed, by pertinent columns of meaning statistics. He declared that the separation could not injure Virginia in the least, and would derange no mutual interest. No social interest, he said, would be disturbed, because " in the East the tone of society is aristocratic; in the West it is democratic." This latter declaration he enforced in the following words:
"It was when speaking of what he called the 'peasantry' of the West, that Benjamin Watkins Leigh, in the constitutional conven- tion of 1829, said that in political economy slaves fill exactly the same place as the white laborers of the West. 'What real share,' said this illustrious representative of the aristocratic sentiment of Eastern Virginia,. 'What real share, so far as mind is concerned, does any man suppose the peasantry of the West . . . can or will take in the affairs of State ?' Yes, sir, this was the sentiment of the Tidewater and Piedmont districts of the State at that time-an assumption of social and political superiority based on slave labor and slave property. Nor has this sentiment at all abated. It was at the bottom of the present rebellion."
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