Rogue State Read Online Free PDF Page A

vote on the Ordinance of Secession would be premature and “altogether unwise.” Others, however, including John Carlile, sought immediate action. “Let us act,” Carlile declared. “Let us repudiate these monstrous usurpations; let us show our loyalty to Virginia and the Union; and let us maintain ourselves in the Union at every hazard. It is useless to cry peace when there is no peace; and I for one will repeat what was said by one of Virginia’s noblest sons and greatest statesmen, ‘Give me liberty or give me death!’” 18
    Carlile resolved not to await the May 23, 1861 statewide canvass on Virginia’s proposed secession. On May 14, Carlile proposed a resolution for creation of a new state. Proposed names for the new state included New Virginia, Kanawa or Kanawah or Kanawha, and West Virginia, among others. 19 Opponents of such a move deemed the separate statehood proposal premature and even revolutionary. A majority of delegates supported resolutions offered by the Committee on State and Federal Resolutions. Those resolutions recommended that if the people of Virginia approved the Ordinance of Secession on May 23, 1861, western Virginians then would elect delegates to a Second Wheeling Convention to begin on June 11, 1861. 20
    The voters of the Commonwealth approved Virginia’s Ordinance of Secession on May 23, 1861. In substance, approval by that date was merely a technicality. The state government of Virginia already had passed an ordinance of secession, proceeded to align itself with the Confederate States of America [still then headquartered in Montgomery, Alabama], and already was preparing for war even prior to the May 23 vote. During the month following passage of the secession ordinance in April by delegates at the Richmond Convention, citizens of western Virginia gathered in their communities to discuss the issue. Some voiced opposition to secession, while others supported Virginia’s decision to leave the Union. The May 23, 1861 vote confirmed things and made Virginia’s course of action final.
    When Virginia’s Governor John Letcher announced that the ordinance had been ratified by Virginia’s citizens by a vote of 125,950 to 20,373, many western Virginians were outraged by news that most of the votes from western Virginia apparently had not been delivered to Richmond for tabulation. Due to the fact that many vote totals were lost, it is unclear how western Virginians voted. Some historians believed that the overwhelming majority in the west voted against secession. 21
    But regardless, just as Virginia prepared to separate from the Union, there also was already initiative and momentum pointed in the direction of efforts to separate many western counties of Virginia from the rest of the state. Virginia’s secession from the Union had provided a pretext. However, the rationale had been building for decades, even centuries. The May 23, 1861 vote for Virginia’s secession from the Union only served to solidify the preference for separation among citizens of the western counties. And, it led to the next phase.

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C ONSTITUTIONAL L EGERDEMAIN :
S ECEDING F ROM A S ECEDED S TATE
    President Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861. Despite his oft-repeated pledge, reiterated eloquently in his first Inaugural Address, not to interfere with slavery where it already existed, seven states remained, in their view, not Lincoln’s, outside the Union, with more to follow.
    Following creation of the Confederate States of America in February 1861 and a subsequent Southern assault on Fort Sumter in April 1861, a convention of Virginians on April 17, 1861 approved secession and voted to submit a secession bill to the people. Led by Clarksburg’s John S. Carlile, western delegates marched out of the Secession Convention, and vowed to form a separate state government loyal to the Union. This was the eventual pretext and seed for creation of the state