West Virginia

“ Indeed from the very origin of the settlement of West Virginia, which had made but little progress when the Federal Constitution was adopted, its citizens were in large degree alienated from the Eastern and older section of the State. The men of the West were hardy frontiersmen, a majority of them soldiers of the Revolution and their immediate descendants, without estates, with little but the honorable record of patriotic service and their own strong arms, for their fortunes. ”

“ In determining the relative obligations of the National Government and of the government of West Virginia, concerning the debt, it is of the first importance to remember that the new State was not primarily organized and admitted to the Union for the benefit of her own people, but in far larger degree for the benefit of the people of the whole Union. The organic law would not have been strained, legal fictions would not have been invented, contradictory theories would not have been indulged, if a great national interest had not demanded the creation of West Virginia. ”

“ Those who went to Pennsylvania received grants of land in the western mountain region. The policy of the government was to interpose them as a buffer between the expanding colony and the Indian frontier. Once planted in the Alleghany region, they spread rapidly and in large numbers toward the southwest along the mountain country through the Shenandoah Valley and into the Carolinas. At a later time they formed almost the entire population of West Virginia, and they were the men who chiefly built up the commonwealths of Kentucky and Tennessee. ”

“ Its organization and admission to the Union would complete the chain of loyal Commonwealths on the south side of Mason and Dixon's line, and would drive back the jurisdiction of rebellious Virginia beyond the chain of mountains and interpose that barrier to the progress of the insurrectionary forces Westward and Northward. The provision in the Federal Constitution that no new State shall be formed within the jurisdiction of any other State without the consent of the Legislature of the State as well as of Congress, had always been the stumbling-block in the way of West Virginia's independence. ”

“ All the rivers of Virginia, great and small, were the highways of the tobacco industry; the rivers of any colony were placed high in an inventory of the colony's wealth, not only because they implied fertility, but because they were the great avenues of trade. The first important sign of commercial awakening in the interior of the colonies was the improvement of the navigable rivers and the highways.
In less than thirty-three days Washington travelled nearly seven hundred miles on horseback in what is now Pennsylvania and West Virginia. ”

“ To this day only one in sixteen of the population of West Virginia is colored, and it is still largely native white, despite the coal mines, which in other regions have come to depend largely on the labor of Slavs. In the 10 per cent of its foreign-stock population West Virginia has a scattering of Slavs, as also of almost every other people, but the largest element is British, the next German. ”

“ There is something grating to him who values State associations, and would encourage State emulation and State pride, in the mutilation of the Old Dominion and the erection within her borders of the new State called West Virginia. States in the Union are not mere prefectures, or mere dependencies on the General government, created for the convenience of administration. They have an individual, a real existence of their own, as much so as have the individual members of society. ”

“ In addition to mining areas producing more soft coal than any other state, plus our varied manufactures, we have fertile valleys and slopes from which ... an increasing harvest is reaped. The State’s diversity of activity should, in the fullness of time, make West Virginia the most progressive, the most socially balanced, and therefore the most truly civilized State in the Union. ”

“ The early history of West Virginia is filled with the same stories of privation, suffering, and horrors experienced by the settlers in Tennessee, Kentucky, and North Carolina. The privations of that time necessitated women taking upon themselves the hardest labors. ”

“ In the proposed settlements, for many years, Virginia and West Virginia have consistently adhered to the Fairfax stone as a starting point for the disputed boundary. When West Virginia passed the act of 1887, ratifying the Michler line, it was upon condition that Virginia titles granted between the Michler line and the old Maryland line should be validated. Maryland, in the act of 1852, recognized the same starting point. ”

“ The West Virginia Colored Orphans' Home near Huntington is not under state control, but has received appropriations from the legislature. In 1908 a law was enacted for establishing the West Virginia Children's Home to be under the control of the Humane Society.
Education.—Each magisterial district constitutes a school district and there are also a few independent school districts. For each school district there is a board of education consisting of a president and two commissioners, each elected for a term of four years, one commissioner every two years. ”

“ Strong and equitable as was the case of West Virginia, irritating and undesirable as her relations to the older State might be, advantageous to the people as the new government might prove, these considerations would not of themselves have offered sufficient inducement to engage the attention of Congress for an hour at that critical period. They would have been brushed aside and disregarded with that cool indifference by which all great legislative bodies prove how easy it is to endure the misery of other people. ”

“ Similar laws appeared on the statute books of West Virginia and Missouri, where, like Kentucky, these border states felt a pressing need for a loyal citizenry. On December 10, 1863, the former commonwealth declared that [Pg 31] no applicant should be admitted to an examination for a teacher’s license unless the county superintendent had reasonable evidence that the candidate was not only “of good moral character and temperate habits,” but that he was “loyal to the government of the United States and of West Virginia.” ”

“ Estoppel is not often to be invoked against a government. But West Virginia assumed a contractual obligation with equals by permission of another government that is sovereign in the field. After Congress and sister States had been induced to alter their positions and bind themselves to terms of a covenant, West Virginia should be estopped from repudiating her act. For this reason, I consider that whatever interpretation she may put on the generalities of her Constitution, she is bound by the Compact, and on that basis I concur in the judgment. ”

“ At the various towns, the railroads come out from the mountain regions of West Virginia, bringing the bituminous coal for shipment. Ninety-four miles below Pittsburg is Wheeling, the metropolis of West Virginia, a busy manufacturing city of forty thousand people. Farther down, in the midst of the flats adjoining the river, at Moundsville, is the great Indian Mound, a relic of the prehistoric inhabitants of this region standing up eighty feet high and being eight hundred and twenty feet in circumference at the base. ”

“ The counties to which the two brethren were going are included in West Virginia, which, as is well known, was organized a State during the Rebellion. The people living among the mountains are generally hospitable, and much attached to the scenes of their childhood and that wild freedom of nature found in the mountains that surround them. ”

“ The West Virginia secessionists, those that by act of Congress, when its membership was almost exclusively Northern, seceded from Virginia in 1861, were mainly confined to the Trans-Appalachian counties of Northwestern Virginia, where there were but few slaves and still fewer slaveholders, and where the larger portion of the population was more in sympathy with the adjacent States of Ohio and Pennsylvania than with the rest of Virginia. ”

“ West Virginia has developed 84,186 acres in its state-park and forest system. Sparkling rivers flow throughout the state. At the junction of the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers where Daniel Boone once roamed there is a monument commemorating the battle of the Revolution between colonial troops and Indians. Here too are the graves of a woman scout, “Mad Anne” Bailey, and a Shawnee chieftain, Cornstalk. There are hundreds of miles of trails, safe underfoot, but flanked by as wild and rugged lands as ever infested by the Indian. ”

“ No map can show the exact dividing line between the actual combatants of North and South. Eleven States seceded: Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas. But the mountain folk of western Virginia and eastern Tennessee were strong Unionists; and West Virginia became a State while the war was being fought. On the other hand, the four border States, though officially Federal under stress of circumstances, were divided against themselves. In Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and Kansas, many citizens took the Southern side. ”

“ Distribution in West Virginia.—A common tree, found throughout the State except in the highest mountains and in a few areas south and west, especially in Jackson, Putnam, Mingo, and Wyoming counties. Thrives at higher altitudes than Black Walnut, and grows at 3000 feet, or over, along cold mountain streams and hillsides in Randolph and adjacent counties. ”

“ West Virginia points to no provision of her Constitution which we can say was clear notice or fair warning to Congress or other States of any defect in her authority to enter into this Compact. It is a power inherent in sovereignty limited only to the extent that congressional consent is required. ”

“ Distribution in West Virginia.—Infrequent, found scattered through the mountainous parts of Clay, Nicholas, Pocahontas, Randolph, Upshur and Webster counties; growing at 3,500 feet elevation on the head of Cherry River. ”

“ Colfax of Indiana, who reviewed the successive steps by which the legality of the Virginia government had been recognized by the President and by all the departments of the executive government. He argued that West Virginia had taken every step regularly and complied with every requirement of the Constitution.
Mr. Crittenden of Kentucky said the Wheeling government could be regarded as the government of the whole State of Virginia "only by a mere fiction. We know the fact to be otherwise." ”

“ A ratio determined by population or land area would throw a larger share on West Virginia, but the relative resources of the debtor populations are generally recognized, we think, as affording a proper measure. It seems to us plain that slaves should be excluded from the valuation. The master's figures without them are, for Virginia, $300,887,367.74, and for West Virginia, $92,416,021.65. ”

“ These 14 simple, earnest crusaders, animated by pure and unselfish motives, would visit on a single tour of a thousand miles the principal German settlements in Maryland and Virginia (including the present West Virginia) . Sometimes they would make an extended circuit through North Carolina, South Carolina, and even Georgia, everywhere bearing witness to the truth of the gospel and seeking to carry the most elemental forms of the Christian religion, preaching and prayer, to the primitive frontiersmen marooned along the outer fringe of white settlements. ”

“ These Federal parts of two Confederate States formed a wedge dangerous to the whole South, especially to Virginia and the Carolinas. Each side therefore tried to control this area itself. The Federals, under McClellan, of whom we shall Page 30 soon hear more, had two lines of invasion into West Virginia, both based on the Ohio. The northern converged by rail, from Wheeling and Parkersburg, on Grafton, the only junction in West Virginia. The southern ran up the Great Kanawha, with good navigation to Charleston and water enough for small craft on to Gauley Bridge, which was the strategic point. ”

“ It is said that the first settlers came into West Virginia in 1749, and in 1751 two settlers were sent in by the Green Brier Company to open up the lands, and the first settlement was made near Wheeling. As soon as the outposts were established, others followed in the train of these first venturesome pioneers. In 1761, Mrs. Dennis was taken captive from the James' settlement and taken to the Indian settlement near Chillicothe, Ohio. ”