Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1862-12-31

rass. ~ f,if hSs 70 be charged In all
Marriages, NOtieesof Funerals, and announcement,
OF sermons, 80 cents each nouv1l-'59
Brown, In Congress, on the SennTr
PHI 1s admitting West VIrgInIa into
Mr. Speaker, will remark before 1
take my seat, that the extent of territory
OF West Virginia is larger than some of
the old thirteen states of the Union,
embracing some twenty-four thousand
square miles. Its population is larger
than some of those old States. We have
a population Of three hundred and thirty
thousand, giving US, under the apportion-
ment OF 1860, three Representatives upon
this floor, which is all we claim in the
pending bill, leaving eight Representa-
tlyes to the remaining portion of old Vir-
gInla So much for that matter
With regard to our revenue, will add
word The revenue collected within the
boundaries of the new State in 1889 can
be stated | have no accurate estimates
since that year. hold in my hand the
report of the auditor, which fixes the
revenue IN the forty-eight counties inclu-
ded in the bill of the Senate, for the year
1859, at 1920, ,06l, 80, sum larger than
IS collected in many of the old States of
the Union = -L-i-1- 1t4
Now, sir, there are other considerations
why this House should admit West Vir-
ginia into the Union. The bill ought to
passed at once as matter ofexpediency.
1t IS not a new question with the people
of West Virginia. They have been strugg-
ling for 1t for forty years They were on
the point of revolution in IS29-3O, when
Eastern Virginia yielded snail pittance
OF the power to them-not what they were
entitled to, but enough to reconcile them
for the moment In 1850 we were again
upon the point of revolution because we
were denied our proper representations in
the Legislature of Virginia. They then
yielded to us our proper representations
IN the House of Representatives, but they
denied them to us in the Senate. They
liked the Senate upon mixed basis, as
they call it They gave us our proper
weight in one branch of the Legislature,
but in the other they held the power to
control us. As an equivalent for what
they gave us, they retained in the consti-
tuition the provision that was most oppres-
sive and unjust. They retained provi-
sion that the Legislature should not tax
negroes under twelve years of age at all.
need not tell you, sir, that the negro
population is to be found in Eastern
Virginia. All that valuable class OF
property, many Of them then worth from
thousand to fifteen hundred dollars
the negroes under twelve years of age
was entitled exempt from taxation, and
the remaining portion of negro property
was only taxed as property ut the value
of $780, Although the negroes should
bring mora than thousand dollars it
was fixed that they should only be valued
at $500 each. While every article of our
property was taxed at its full value, the
negro was almost entirely exempt from
taxation. Wo protested against it, but
we were pOwerless because they retained
in the Legislature an undue proportionIof
the representative power
But sir, that is not all. They raised
not upon the property in these negroes
large sums of money for the purpose of
constructing railroads. They collected
of the $4,000 a large amount for the
purpose of constructing railroads in East
ern Virginia-railroads they are now
using for our subjugatiun and for the
destruction of the Union. They built them
out of our money. They raised revenue
in an undue proportion upon us, and then
expended it within their own localities.
A greater outrage was never committed
upon loyal people
But, sir, could assign another reason.
Our relations, always unfriendIy and un-
kind iu consequence of their oppression.
are doubly SO now, because of our loyalty.
We, sir, are the only people within the lim-
its of a seeded State that declared open
resistance to the revolution. The ave hun
drcd delegates who assembled at Wheeling
to inaugurste the project of fre-establishine
the government of Virginia upon a IoyaI
basis, went with their lives in their hands.
They were threatened with expulsion from
the State. They Eerc threatened with the
! gallOWs. At the time we assembled there
the southern troops were marching with all
possible speed for the parpose of intimida-
ting us, and to prevent US from the exer-
else OF our allegiance to the laws They
were, SIR, within fifty or sixty miles froGa
Wheeling. A people never did exhibit
more frmness and more determination than
the loyal people Of Yirginia on that oeca-
sion. So far as We had any intimation
/ from this Government, it was through the
last message of Mr.. Buchanan, who denied
that il had the right TO eoerce seeded
State. Virginia had seeded and annexed
herself to the soutberu eontederacy and
here were about three hundred thousand
loyal people of Virginia, without any as