USA > West Virginia > Preston County > History of Preston County (West Virginia) > Part 11
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39
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to adopt such measures as they might deem expedient for the welfare of the Commonwealth. The news of the call of the convention when received in Preston, increased the ex- citement already existing. Meetings were held all over the county irrespective of party, upon the subject of selecting delegates to a county convention to nominate candidates for election as delegates to the State Convention. A meeting of the citizens of the Fifth District was held at Reedsville on the 18th, at which a resolution was adopted in favor of the Union, constitutional rights and the enforcement of the Na- tional laws. On the 23d a large number of citizens, irre- spective of party, of the First District, assembled at Bran- donville to select delegates to the county convention. Har- rison Hagans, who presided over the great meeting at King- wood on November 12, 1860, was called to the chair. A. series of stirring resolutions were passed in favor of Virginia remaining in the Union, deploring the sectional animosities existing between the people of the Union, and approving - · the course of Major Anderson at Charleston, South Carolina. On the 25th of January, a large number of the citizens of the Fifth and Sixth Districts met, and speeches were made by Major William B. Zinn and others, and resolutions were passed in favor of the Union and the Constitution. The secretary, D. B. Jeffers, was instructed to send the proceed- ings of the meeting to the press for publication.
With each succeeding day the excitement was becoming more intense, and the people anxiously awaited the news to be flashed over the wires of the course of action being adopted by the different sections of the country upon the subject of secession.
Cowan and Scott, the members of the House of Delegates from Preston, sent back the following circular, which was printed and sent all over the county :
Fellow-Citizens of the County of Preston:
"In the present distracted condition of public affairs, we deem it due to you and just to ourselves, to give you a his- tory of the action of the Legislature at its present session,
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and the course we have pursued as your Representatives Soon after the convening of the House of Delegates, a com- mittee was appointed to report a bill calling a State Conven- tion. After the bill was reported, upon consultation, we found that it did not accord with our views, in this: It did not provide that the people of Virginia should, in their sov- ereign capacity, be consulted, or allowed in any form to re- view the action of the Convention, and indicate their wishes and opinions as to what should be the action of such Con- vention. The bill being in the shape referred to, we were opposed to it. Such being the case, we voted for an amend- ment, which provided that the question of 'Convention, or no Convention,' should be first submitted to the people, be- lieving that the call of a convention by the General Assembly would be wholly inoperative and void, except through the mere acquiescence of the people. On this amendment, we are sorry to say, we were defeated. An amendment was then proposed, providing that at the same time that the people voted for Delegates, they should vote upon the . question, 'whether the action of the Convention should be submitted to the people for ratification or rejection.' Upon this amendment we had a hard struggle, and finally suc- ceeded in having it incorporated in the bill. In this shape the bill has just passed the House of Delegates by a unani- mous vote. The bill as passed in the House leaves the Con- vention wholly unrestricted, opening the whole question, not only of Federal relations, but those other questions, of such vital consequence to Western Virginia, of Representation and Taxation.
"It now remains for you to select two of your wisest and best men, without reference to party, as your Delegates in said Convention. Do this and we may not only hope for a settlement of our difficulties with the North, the preserva- tion and perpetuation of our institutions and the Union of the States, but also for the redress of the many grievances under which Western Virginia has for so long a time suf- fered and complained. We of course can not forsee the
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fate of the Convention bill in the Senate, but take occasion here to say that we will oppose to the death every proposi- tion which denies your right to pass upon the action of the Convention, whatever it may be, either to ratify or reject the same, as your judgement may dictate. We deem it scarely necessary to urge you to give a unanimous vote to have the action of the Convention submitted to the people. This, we believe, is a principle which you will never surrender to any body of men, however intelligent or wise or prudent they may be.
"In conclusion, Fellow Citizens, we assure you that we have acted according to the dictates of our best judgement, and will deem ourselves amply rewarded should our action meet your approval, and merit the confidence you have so generously reposed in us.
" Your obedient servants, "R. E. COWAN. " JOHN SCOTT."
On Friday, the 25th of January, a large number of the citizens of Kingwood and vicinity met at the Court-house. and erected a beautiful pole 105 feet high. Upon a streamer at the top of the pole, in large letters, was the word "UNION."
On the next day, Saturday, the 26th, people gathered in from all parts of the county, to attend the county convention. A meeting was held in the Court-house previous to the hour set for the assembly of the convention. The call for this meeting was prepared, and circulated over such parts of the county as could be reached, the day before. The Union women of Kingwood prepared a beautiful flag, and presented it to the meeting, accompanied by the following address :
"To the Fathers, Husbands, Brothers and Sons of Preston : The ladies of Kingwood are influenced by cir- cumstances heretofore unknown to American history, to give some suitable expression of their abiding love for their Country. Our hearts have prompted us to present to you the emblem of our National Union, with all its stripes and
.
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every star, the flag of our whole country-that has waved in, triumph in every port and on every shore. We present it. to you with the prayer that fraternal feeling, good will and. faith will be restored, and that the glorious legacy left. us by our fathers may not be forfeited; and that no rash act may deprive our Country of her glory, so dearly won and fondly cherished. To the brave hearts and strong arms of our Country we entrust this sacred ensign. On your might we now rely for the defense of our Country's flag."
In reply, John J. Brown, on behalf of the Union men of the county, in accepting the flag from the women, said :
"My Countrymen : We have met to-day to do homage to the sentiment of patriotism, and if love to God and love to, our neighbor be the fulfilling of the law, certainly love for our country can not be idolatry. Love of country is a uni- versal sentiment, and is sometimes roused to the wildest en- thusiasm by apparently the most trivial causes. In times past. the Switzer's song of home, echoing along the glaciers of the Alps, has called a nation of freeman to arms; and the mer- cenary ranks of almost every army in Europe have been de- serted by the influence of the same soul-stirring song ... The Marsellaise has time and again revolutionized France, and to- day it is like a magazine beneath the throne of the imperial Napoleon. 'Hail Columbia' and 'Yankee Doodle' gave victory to the arms of Washington, and the smoke of battle and the: shout. of triumph at New Orleans rose amid their soul-inspir- ring strains. But while our ears hear, and our hearts drink the eloquence of song; when our eyes, kindled with the fire of patriotism, catch our country's flag streaming in the sun- light, then let the loud shout go up, as it did from the shores of the Chesapeake in 1814-
"Our flag is there- Our flag is there- Behold its glorious stripes and stars !'
"I now desire to perform one of the most pleasing acts of my whole life. Your mothers and wives and sisters have
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handed to me 'The glorious ensign of our Republic,' with "not a stripe erased or polluted, and not a single star ob- scured'-wrought by their own patriotic hands-and desire me to present it in their name, to you, my fellow countrymen of Preston County, and to say to you, +It is our country's flag-the emblem of our National Union.' I can find no more suitable response to the patriotic Union-loving ladies, than by giving utterance to the beautiful sentiment of the patriot poet of our own country :
'A union of lakes and a union of lands, A union of States none can sever, A union of hearts and a union of hands, And the flag of our Union forever.'
"It is not the flag of Virginia, nor of Pennsylvania, nor of Massachusetts, nor of South Carolina: It is the flag of our country-the flag of our Union; and there are clustering around it ten thousand hallowed associations and memories. It is the flag to which the gallant Lawrence turned his eyes in death and exclaimed 'Don't give up the ship!' It is the flag that Perry grasped from the prow of his sinking vessel, and through the deadly broadsides of the enemy, bore aloft to victory. It is the flag our gallant countrymen unfurled, in triumph over the palaces of the Montezumas.
"Go, my countrymen. Baptize it in the morning sun- beams, and give it to the breeze; and if the time shall ever come, (which God forbid !) when it must be bathed in blood, these mothers and wives and sisters and daughters, whose gift it is, bid me say to you, their fathers and husbands and brothers and sons-Go to the tented-field, stand by this flag, fight for your country under your country's banner, and die in its defense, if death shall come, like the gallant Jasper en. shrouded in its folds."
After this meeting the county convention met for the pur- pose of nominating two candidates to represent the county in the State Convention.
On motion, Colonel W. B. Crane was appointed chairman, and H. C. Hagans Secretary. The chairman, on motion, ap-
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pointed the following committee on credentials : William McKee, S. W. Snider, Thomas Elliott, Summers McCrum, John M. Jeffers, J. S. Hamilton, T. Gregg, A. L. Hooton, Jonas Wolf and W. H. Grimes ; and as the committee of basis of representation, he named James Hill, David Graham, W. T. Kelley, Isaac Startzman. G. Hidelberger, G. G. Murdock, John Howard, Daniel M. Gappin, F. M. Purinton, and Charles Bishoff. After the report of these committees, the convention proceeded to nominate candidates to represent the county in the State Convention, which resulted in the unanimous election of the Hon. William G. Brown and James C. McGrew, Esq. A motion was then made and carried, re- questing the candidates to express their views on the ques- tions now agitating the country ; to which they responded in able and eloquent speeches, in favor of the Union, and equal rights in taxation and representation.
On the same day, about one hundred and fifty citizens of the German Settlement met, and, electing Charles Hooton chairman, and George H. Shaffer secretary, the meeting passed resolutions disapproving the course of the extreme Southern States, deprecating the doctrine of secession, and approving of the compromise as set forth in the Crittenden Resolutions. The meeting then adjourned with three cheers for the Union.
On the 30th, a meeting was held at Gladesville school- house by citizens of the Fifth and Sixth Districts. M. Haney was elected president, Levi Springer and Jabez Brown, vice-presidents, and William Squires secretary. Speeches were made in favor of the Union, and resolutions adopted against secession.
On the 31st, a large and enthusiastic Union meeting was held in the Pleasant Valley Church, in the Fifth District. David C. Miles, was elected president, John Orr and James H. Carroll, vice presidents, and A. A. Vandervert and D. B. Jeffers secretaries. John J. Brown delivered an address on the state of the Union. A patriotic song was sung, and reso- lutions were adopted in favor of the Union, and urging, that
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a compromise by conciliation be effected. The women pres- ent handed in a resolution, expressing attachment to the country, devotion to its flag and the prayer that the Union might be preserved and perpetuated; and that its unsullied banner might forever wave, and remain its shield and its glory ; and heartily according to those who are laboring for the preservation of the Union and peace, their best wishes and sympathies. After several short speeches, the meeting adjourned. The three weeks had passed that were allowed the people for a canvass to elect members to the Convention and settle upon their action in regard to giving the Conven- tion unlimited power of decision on the subjects to come be- fore it. The campaign, though brief, in excitement equaled, if it did not surpass, any other ever known in the political history of the State. Men were wonderfully stirred by the action of the Southern States, and feeling that Virginia might soon be called upon to take action in an impending struggle, realized the importance of their State taking the right course in that struggle, if come it must.
Wednesday, the 4th of February, came, and the citizens, unmindful of the inclement weather of winter or the rough condition of roads, turned out almost in masses to the polls, and by a unanimous vote elected Messrs. Brown and McGrew as delegates to the Richmond Convention.
This Convention assembled, as required by law, on Wednes- day, the 13th of February, 1861, at the Capitol in the City of Richmond, and was spoken of during its sessions as the "People's Convention." Upon its final action much of good or evil depended to the State and the whole country. The first four days were spent in organizing the Convention. The Hon. John Janney, of Loudon County, was elected President. He was a man whose venerable appearance com- manded respect. On taking the chair, he made a strong Union speech, but asserted that Virginia would demand her rights as a condition of remaining in the Union. On Monday, the 17th, the Hon. Fulton Anderson, a commissioner from Mississippi, and the Hon. Henry L. Benning, a Commissioner
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from Georgia, were introduced, and addressed the Conven- tion; giving the reasons that they said had impelled their respective States to withdraw from the Federal Union, and inviting Virginia to co-operate with them and the other se- ceded States in forming a Southern Confederacy. On Tues- day, the 18th, the ordinary business of the Convention was suspended, and the Hon. John S. Preston, commissioner from the Government of South Carolina to the Governor and the Convention of the people of Virginia, was introduced, and announced to the Convention that the object of his mission was to communicate to the people of Virginia the causes which had impelled the people of South Carolina to with- draw from the United States, resume the powers hitherto granted by them to the Government of the United States of America, and to respectfully invite their co-operation in the formation of a Southern Confederacy. South Carolina had well selected the advocate of her cause. Preston's speech before the Convention was a splendid effort of forensic eloquence. He discussed the rights of the States prior to the Federal Constitution, which he claimed was adopted by the States in their sovereign capacity, and contained no word or phrase in it capable of being construed into any other meaning. He asserted that, adopted by the States in their sovereign capacitv, there could be no higher tribunal to de- cide upon their violation of this compact, if necessity demanded it as a last resort. The people of South Carolina assumed that their sovereignty had never been surrendered in the Federal compact, and that as a contracting power to the Federal Form of Government, they had the right to withdraw whenever the contract was violated so as to en- danger their liberties and safety. That time had now arrived.
He spoke of the tariff and said: "They (the North), there- fore, invented a system of duties, partial and discriminating, by which the whole burden of the revenue fell upon those who produced the articles of export which purchased the articles of import, and which articles of import were con-
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sumed mainly, or to a great extent, by those who produced the exports.
"They (the Northern people) have succeeded, by large majorities in all the non slaveholding States, in placing the entire executive power of the Federal Government in the hands of those who are pledged, by their obligations to God, by their obligations to the social institutions of man, by their obligation of self-preservation, to place the institution of slavery in a course of certain and final extinction.
"That is, twenty millions of people, holding one of the strongest governments on earth, are impelled, by a perfect recognition of the most sacred and powerful obligations which, fall upon man, to exterminate the vital interests of eight millions of people, bound to them by contiguity of territory, and the closest political relation. In other words, the decree inaugurated on the 6th of November was the annihilation of the people of the Southern States. Now, gentlemen, the people of South Carolina, being a portion of those who come within the ban of this decree, had only to ask themselves, Is existence worth a struggle? Their answer is given in the ordinance (of secession) I have had the honor to submit to you.
"We are very small-very weak-but if that fire-storm with which we are threatened should fall upon us and con- sume us, hereafter the pilgrim of liberty, perhaps from this State, who may be searching beneath the ruins of Charleston, will find the skeleton of our sentinel standing at our sea gate."
He appealed to Virginia, his native State, to come and take her place in the front ranks in a glorious future, saying : "Mr. President, I ask Virginia to come in the majesty of her august history, and the power of her courage and strength, and command this transcendent future." He then said: "I believe the question to be decided by you, gentlemen, is whether Virginia, like the trembling Egyptian, will skulk for shelter beneath the crumbling fragments of a past greatness, to dwell under the scourge of a haughty, but mean task»
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master, or whether she will step forth and with one voice hush the storm of war, and keep the ancient glory of her name." The Convention, by vote, requested copies of the address, and ordered the publication of three thousand and forty for distribution among the members. After the departure of the Commissioners, the Convention was employed for several days in discussing Federal relations. A great many resolu- tions were offered and some exciting speeches made. These resolutions went to the committee of Federal relations ; and there it was that the great battle was to be fought. It sat with closed doors, and among its twenty-one members were some of the ablest minds of Virginia. Waitman T. Willey of Monongalia, and Samuel Price, once a resident of Preston, were members of this memorable committee.
Robert E. Cowan, member of the House of Delegates, and James C. McGrew, member of the Convention, from time to time wrote letters back to the Kingwood Chronicle, inform- ing the people of Preston of the action of their respective bodies at the State capitol.
The people of Preston awaited with impatience the arrival of every mail for news of the condition of the country.
On the 4th of March, W. T. Willey, of Monongalia, made a speech, in which he said: "Let us Mr. President, look at the evils that must result from secession. The first, in my opinion, would be that our country would not only be divided into a Northern Confederacy and a Southern Confederacy, but, sooner or later, it would be divided into sundry petty Confederacies. We would have a Central Confederacy, a Confederacy of the States of the Mississippi Valley, a Pacific Confederacy, a Western Confederacy, an Eastern Confederacy, a Northern and a Southern Confederacy. And what the re sult of all this would be, I leave to the decision of history, recorded on many a mournful page of human story. It may be read in the dissolution of Greece. It is chronicled in the disintegration and downfall of the Roman Empire. It is written in characters of blood, hardly yet dry, drawn from the veins of the compatriots of Garabaldi, struggling to re-
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gain the blessings and power of the ancient Italian unity." He then spoke at length upon the consequences that would inevitably follow a dismemberment of the Union. He re- ferred to the effect secession would have upon Western and Northwestern Virginia, saying: "Secession, therefore, implies a necessity of putting this State upon a war footing. Look at our Western border-two hundred and fifty or perhaps three hundred miles of hostile border, upon which lies one of the most powerful States of the Union-Ohio. And then we go back by Hancook, Brooke, Ohio, Marshall, Wetzel, Mo- nongalia and Preston, which exhibit one hundred and fifty or two hundred miles more of hostile border, upon which lies the most powerful State in the Union-the great State of Pennsylvania. Look how we are thus fixed-stuck in like a wedge between the enemy and the Red Sea-four hundred and fifty miles of hostile borders surrounding us. Between us and you there is the almost impassable barrier of the Allegheny mountains ; and you, gentlemen of Eastern Vir- ginia, have not seen proper to give us enough legislative aid to transpierce these mountains, that we might have direct com- munication with you. How would we stand in a Southern Confederacy? Why, sir, we would be swept by the enemy from the face of the earth before the news of an attack could reach our eastern friends. You see we shall be the weakest point of a Southern Confederacy, and, therefore, the point of attack. Will you make Northwestern Virginia the Flanders of America, and convert our smiling valleys into the slaughter pens of as brave and loyal a people as dwell in the 'Old Dominion ?" '
On the 9th of March, a partial majority report was made to the Convention by the committee on Federal relations. It consisted of fourteen resolutions : The first, second and third were devoted to the consideration of efforts for an amicable settlement of State and National troubles, the sov- erignty of the States, and deprecation of the formation of sectional or geographical parties, whose tendencies were to the overthrow of the Government. The fourth declared that
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the Territories of the Union were equally the property of all the States. The fifth declared that the forts and arsenals within the limits of any State were not intended to be used against that State in the event of civil war. The sixth and seventh proposed measures for the peaceable adjustment of existing troubles The eighth asserted the right of a State to secede, and declared the people of Virginia would never consent to its forcible subjugation by Federal authority. The ninth recognized the right of the Gulf States to secede. The tenth declared that the people of Virginia desired the National Government to deal in a peaceable manner with these States, even to recognizing their independence. The eleventh treated of amendments to be submitted to the people of all the States. The thirteenth asked for no ag- gressive operations, while peace proceedings were pending, by either the Federal government or the Confederate States. The fourteenth suggested a conference of the border slave States.
The report of these resolutions opened the battle in the Convention between the parties. The Convention was com- posed of the ablest talent of the State-eminent lawyers, brilliant orators and able statesmen, including an ex-President of the United States, and an ex-Governor of Virginia in its numbers. Eighty-five of its members were adherents of Bell, thirty-five were supporters of Douglas, and its remain. ing thirty-two were followers of Breckenridge.
Every member was at his post, and the discussions were carried on with an animation never surpassed in the history of the State. The floor of the Convention was a great battle- field upon which giant intellects struggled for the mastery. The struggle, heretofore, for political supremacy between the eastern and western sections of the State, was lost in a strug- gle of National importance, whose result, beside affecting the future of the State, would influence the destiny of the Nation.
If Virginia elected to stay in the Union, the new formed Southern Confedreracy would be confined to narrow limits on the sea-board. If she cast in her fortunes with the Gulf
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