Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1862-12-15
WHEELING. VA. MONDAY MORNING. DECEMBER IS 1862 S

ing IN the persona aad deliberate acts OF
their lOyGl citizens.
| Last Winter, We who are stigmRtiEed as
f"RadieAls,p because ne strike At the root
of this atroeious Rebellion. adopted and
acted on the former or territorial hypOth-
esis, which denies that there is, potentially,
any State Of Virginia, so long rs a majority
of her people and the authorities of them
| constituted are in armed rebellion Rgainst
| the Nation. This position vas stigmatiEed
as monstrous, horrible, by our Democratic
CONSERVATIVES" who regarded it as little
better than Secession ITSELF Then we un-
derstOod them to hold State as subsisting
indestruotibly in the person and through
lae acts of its loyal citizens.
But now that we accept and act upon
this theory in the case of West Virginia,
they, make wry faces at their own Physic,
and utterly refuse to swallow it. And yet
the case is a peculiarly strong one. West
Virginia never for one moment assented t.
nor acquiesced in Secession. Il has re-
mained continuonsly, and defautly loyal
throughout. Her case is totally different
from that of South Carolina, or even Ten
nessee, which has been wholly 10 posses
sion and uuder the rule Of the rebels
There has always been loyal Virginia;
that loyal Virginia chose q lLegislature
aud Governor very soon after Leteher &
Co., went TO their own placei and that Le-
gislature aud Governor of netD Virginia have
heartily assented to the formation Of the
new State of West Virginia under a Con-
stitution framed by q Convention Of her
People alone. The West Virginia which
forms the new State is totally distinct from
the old (loyaI) Virginia that assenis to il;
though it happens that most foot ALL of
the members of the old Virginia Legisla-
ture are chosen from the counties which
form the new State Of West Virginia. The
current assumption that the same body has
acted alternately as the Legislature OF Viz
ginia and of West Virginia is entirely at war
with facts. Francis H. PeirPOint lives in
West Virginia, bat he Is Governor OF Vir-
ginia proper, aud will not be Governor Of
West Virginia unless and until be shall be
elected to that office. And there will be
no U. s. Senators from West Virginia until
a Legislature, chosen distinetly brand for
that State, shall elect them.
As 10 the Public Debt of Old Virginia,
West Virginia Will doubtless assume aud
pay whatever may be adjudged her fair
proportion of il. We presume she will
court and abide by the decision Of any i'm
partial arbiter on that point
Too long already has the living been
changed to the dead. West Virginia be-
longs by geography and topography, by
character and destiny, to the great Free
West. SheIhas immense resources in iron,
coal, salt, timber, &C., which have too long
awaited development. She ought to be
one Of the greatest wool-groWing States in
the Union. Twenty years of peace and
Freedom should suffice to increase her pop
ulatiou from 100000 to full million. Civ
ing her power aud weight in the Union
equal 70 thst Of Indiana or Illinois ten to
fifteen years ago. 1t is an ill-wind that
blows good to no one; and the long medi-
tAted treason Of the First Families Of obsti-
nately decaying Eastern Virginia has at
length given her West its aFdeutly coveted
but long vainly hoped for opportunity. All
hail, then, the State Of WEST VIRGINIA,
the mountain home of loyal and liberty.
loving freemen