Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1863-01-17

Shall we Enter into the Enjoyment
OF our LabOrs3
The Commissioners who were appointed
by the new State ConstitutionalCon
have met and discharged their appoiu ed
work, and have adjourned aud gone home.
They have issued their proclamation and it
utaears in our columns. Certain elections
il certain counties have been provided for,
and the polls ordered open on the 9TH day
of February next, to fill vacancies in those
counties heretofore unrepresented, and in
those counties in which vacancies have
occurred. This opens the canvass, and,
as they say in Congress, spreads abroad
for augmentation the whole merits of
the question.
We propose to address fewplain andprac-
teal considerations to the people of West
Virginia, on those merits, and we ask from
them their candid attention. This is no
time to array prejudices or to deal with
anything else save the broadest and most
uueIceptionable views of all the interests
involved in the important issue which We
are called upon to decide.
The Congress of the United States, after
an expression of public opinion from cur
selves, of the most decided and unequivo-
cal character, have admitted US, so far as
is in their power, into the Union as a sep
arate State. They have done what has
seldom been done in this country: they
have divided State and made two States
of it, both respectable in size and in all
the elements that go to make up State
They have been impressed with the views
of our people, frequently expressed, that
our interests demanded that we should have
a separate State. In the exercise of that
supervisory power with which they are
clothed and charged by the Constitution,
and in pursuance of that practice which
has obtained untnteruptedly from the be-
ginning of the Government down to this
time, they have in one single particular, and
only in one, revised our Constitution, and
in accordance with the sentiment OF our
people, as expressed at the polls. admitted
our State on the condition that from and
after certain date, gradual emancipation
shall commence.
On all hands, among those opposed and
those in favor Of new State, it has been
we'll agreed that natural causes, silently and
uncoutrollnbly at work, were fast Kidding
Western Virginia of slavery. Each recur-
ring census has shown that the slave popu-
lation was melting away. 1t has steadily
decreased. No human power-not all the
fostering and almost exclusive legislation
of Richmond through so many years could
maintain its foot-hold. The voice of ua-
ture was against it. We were in close
proximity to free States. Their influence,
their politics, THEIR industries, their senti-
ments, despite all legislation and opposing
agencies, were steadily destroying the hold
of slavery, and removing it beyond our
borders. The last census shows that now
it has but nominal existence among US.
The next would have shown it almost
wholly, perhaps entirely, melted away. 1t
was not in our power to keep it among us,
except in name. The Institution had no
natural sustenance among us, neither in
9lr climate, our;sOil, or our social relations.
1t was entirely foreign to the genius ard
necessities of our situation and our pur.
suits.
Anticipating time to which all the in.
telligent people of West Virginia looked
forward as period at which We would GER
taiuly be compelled to remodel the NUM-
pal policy of our surroundings, SO as to
make it in harmony with the fast accumu-
lating changes in our political and social
system, the rebellion precipitated upon us
the steps which very soon must have been
generally agitated for new and more con-
genial arrangements and provisions of
government. The steps which have
been taken are simply the fulflmeut
of long gone predictions - predictions
made by some of the best and wisess
men of the country, both within and with
out our bOrd ers. The unnaturaluess of our
political connection with far off part of
the country, radically different from US in
all its physical and artificial conditions of
life, was the unassaiIable basis upon
which these predictions were founded.
The fact that each year slavery was stead
lily waning, and never increasing, proved to
the minds of even former generation that
the memorable fate of West Virginia was to
become at last rid oSthe Institution. This
steadily working necessity has not in the
least been fostered. On the contrary, it
has all the while been jealously and deter
minedly retarded by legislation. But "the
mills of the Gods" as has we'll been said,
"althOugh they grind slowly, grind exceed
ingly sure" The force of nature, operat
Ing day and night, while we worked and
while We slept, irresistibly impressed upon
the public mind of West Virginia the con-
victIou that We, in the sheerest self defense,