Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1862-11-27
of the STATE; he'd been obtained. Nothing
now WAS lacking but the consent of Com
gress. ~


House of Congress would give It's consent
unless some provision WAS made for the ex-
tincLiOn of slavery in the new State. The
report ofthe Senate Committee drawn by Mr.. |
Garlic, one of the Virginia Senators did
include aproVisiou of this kind, but it In
eorporsted other provisions so eminently
calculated to destroy the whole new State
project that the friends of the measure
voted it down. and his colleague, Mr.. Will
ley offered a substitute embracing the
emancipation clause slightly altered but
emitting the Objectionable features of the
Committees report. This bill passed the
Senate at a very late day in the session,
and went to the House, but too near the
close of the session to get through be-
fore nm adjournment. Had it not been for
the treachery of Mr.. Carlils (whO had up 10
this time Professed to be and had been
regarded as the friend ef the measure the
bill wOuld have passed the Senate in time
to have gone through the House also, at
the last session.
This bill now comes up in the House
among the unfinished business of last ses
sion. 1t provides for the erection OF forty
eight counties into a separate State TO be
called West Virgins, of which the couu-
ties of Mcdowell, Mercer, Monroe ,Greenbrier
and POcahOntas form the Southern and
Southeastern tier of counties, the boundary
thence crossing the mountains and
including Pendleton, Morgan, Hardy and
Hampshire. 1t gives the new State three
members in the lower House of Congress
1t provides for gradual emancipation by
provision that all children born of slave
parents within the limits of the State after
the 4th of March, 1868, shall be free from
birth, and that all slaves within the State
at that time under ten years of age shall be
free when they become twenty.one, and all
over ten and under tweuty-oue shall be
free at the age of twenty-five; and further,
that no slave shall be permitted to come in
to the State for permanent residence. If
We are admitted under this bill 1t will make
US tree State in few years. and at the
same time by a mild equitable and gradual
process. And the certainty of this result
/ will greatly hasten the removal of slavery
\ from our limits.
1t would be useless aad Improbable to
consider whether we could not have come
up to Congress in better attitude than
We did. The best was done that could be
done, and we are thankful it was NJ worse
But whatever our Convention failed to do
was done in the Senate bill, so that we
now stand before the House and the coun.
try 10 such an attitude as must command
their sympathy and support. Whether we
are. in the way sought-and the only way
now left us-ever to become one of the
great prosperous sisterhood of free labor
States depends now on the decision of Con-
gress at the coming session. 1t will not do
to risk gong over to the next. 1t may be
hostile alike to our hopes and interests,
aud our interests We feel are allied to those
of the whole country. If not now it may
be never. We come before the country in
the attitude ola people who seek an escape
from impending ruin, yet asking only what
We are entitled to ask without sacrifice of
honor or dignity. Many a people have
been driven 10 revolt by less wrongs than
We have endured. We have borne them
Patienty while we must; but when our
4 prison walls are broken down and the fet-
tiers are wrenched off our limbs, all the in
stiucts implanted by God himself tell us
to rise up and be free. Whatever territory
we would add to the great domain of
freedom ia that much taken away from
the possessions of a power whose char
aeteristics are treason and inhumanity.
The erection of West Virginia into
new State (aud free State) will be a
mighty blow at the rebellion. All
the rebels feel it and everywhere they are
the deadly enemies of the measure Mis-
souri, is coming forward to meet the offer Of
the nation to make het free. West vir.
GINA is coming too. But Missouri is safe
whether she achieves the work this year or
next. Not so with US. 1t is now or never.
Not at least for the eyes of this generation
will be our prosperity if deaf ear is turned
to our petition this winter. - HG
If the lower House of Congress consents
as the Senate has done then the Coustitu-
ton comes back to our people for their rat
iicatton of the change in regard to emau-
cipation if they desire admission under it.
or rejection if they prefer the consequences.
Which it will be nobody doubts. This
change in the Constitution will first be rat
iHed by the Convention still in esss, and
then by vote of the people. re say ii
.OtH be, because, ifeverythiug were as NOR
ally certain as that, we should feel but little
anxiety about new State. When the
change is ratified and certified by the Pres
ident OF the Convention, it will become the
duty of the President of the United States