Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1862-07-12
West virginia.
PrOm the National Republican Of ruesIay.,

CFrOm the National Republican Of TuesIay.)
The motives for desiring the admission
of West Virginia into the Union as Il free
State, are various aud powerful.
Kid OF the Incubus of slavery, West Yir-
giuin would soon attract dense popula-
tion by its ine healthy climate, its euorm-
Gus mineral wealth, and It's great agricul-
tural and pastoral resources. ItunIv needs
population to become powerful, aud it's
situation, wedged down between Kentucky
and old Virginia, and touching East Ten
nessee, would give it great Importance in
some of the possible eveutualities of this
war So, also, it commands both of the
actual approaches to the Ohio river, of the
great railroad which connects Baltimore
with the West 1t was the fact that thar
railroad run through Virginia. which was
used by the secessiouists of MARYLAND as an
argument for the necessity of going ont Of
the Union, if Virginia did so. That argu
ment would have different bearing, with
West Virginia as a free State. MARYLAND
would then be bound to an alliance with
the free, rather than the slave Sta,es, by all
her possible relations ofinternal commerce.
But it is only rs free State that West
Virginia is desirable. To admit her with
slavery, IS simply tn cut Virginia into two
slave States, and thus double her weight
in the Senate and sensibly increase it in
the Presidential elections. Hence it is that
we did and do utterly scout the idea of
admitting West Virginia into the Union
under the Constitution adopted at Wheel
log, which sacrificed the Will and voice as
well as the interests of a whole people, to
the pigsheaded obstinacy of n few slave
holders, and to the clamors OF handful of
pro-slavery demagogues. The Constitution
adopted at Wheeling leaves slavery as It
now exists, and therefore dooms the State
asking admission under it to Peremptory
exclusion from the Union. The pretence
is too bald, that a State, which refused to
abolish slavery when she bad direct mo-
tive 20 do so in the strong desile to get into
the Union, would forthwith proceed 10 aboI-
ish slavery, after admission into the Union.
Equally vain are the suggestions. that sla-
very is a weak interest in West Vir-
ginig, that the number of slaves Is not
large, and that the institution will soon
die out. We know too well how little it
takes of the virus of slavery to corrupt a
great body polite. We know how easily
u few Shareholders sacrifice the interests of
whole communities to their own. We
know that there are more slaves to-day in
West Virginia than there were seventy years
ago in Delaware, which still holds on to the
accufsed thing. We have heared too much
of the "dyiug out' of slavery to have any
sort of confidence in it anywhere. Robert
J. Walker told MS eighteen years ago, and,
We doubt not, reliably believed, that il
would "die OUT in Maryland aud Ken,usky,
1t we would only annex Texas, instead of
which it forthwith took new start in both
States as soon as that event was brought
about. Some things rarely die a natural
death, and one of them is negro slavery.
1t will die out when it is killed out, and
not before
In view, them of the great reasons which
render the admission of West Virginia as
a free State most desirable, and of the ut
ter impossibility of admitting her under
the constitution actually adopted at Wheel
ing, and which leaves her slave State, the
course proposed by the Territorial Commit
teeof the Senate seems to be lin substance)
a wise one. The bill reported by that com
mittee offers West Virginia admission into
the Union, upon the condition that cons.i
tatlon abOlishiug slavery is adopted That
IS the general outline of the bill, and we
hope that it may be adopted by Congress,
with such amendments as will IemoVe oh
jections in matters of detail.
The objections which We have heard are
two:
That it ties up the future action of West
Virginia in the matter Of slavery, in such
4 way that she will not be upon the same
footing as the cid States, whereas it is upon
that footing only that new States car be
admitted f -.E
That tie abolition of slavery prorided
for is not sufficiently complete, in not ap-
plying to the present generation.
As to tie FIRST objection, if the bill is re-
ally open to it, it can be easily remedied
All we want is a clause prohibiting sla-
very in the constitution of the proposed
new State. covenant never to re-estab-
lish. slavery is superAuous, because that
would be to guard against danger wholly
imaginary.
As 10 the second amendment, it can be
remedied by amendment; and indeed, Mr..
Sumner has already proposed au amend
ment, making the abolition of slavery ap-
Plica6ie to the present as well rs future
generations.
We publish, to-day, a communication mp
on the condition ofthiugs in West Virginia,
from a resident there, long aud favorabiy
known TO US.