The daily Evansville journal. (Evansville, Ind.) 1862-1863, 1863-01-23
OLE Daily 3uurnat.
OFFICIAL.
LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES
Passed at the Third Session Of the
Thtrty-sevemth Congress,
PUBLIC-No. 4.

PUBLIC-No. 4,
AN ACT for the admission of the State Of West
Virginia into the Union and for other purposes.
WHEREAS the people inhabiting that portion OF
Virginia known as West Virginia did by Con
vention assembled in the city of Wheeling on
the twenty-s sixth of November, eighteen
hundred and sixty-one, frame for themselves a
Constitution with view of becoming a separate
and independent State; and whereas at geher-
al election held in the counties composing the
Territory aforesaid on the third day Of May last,
the said Constitution approved ana adopted
by the qualified voters Of the proposed state ana
whereas the Legislature Of Virginia, by an act
passed on the thirteenth day of May, eighteen
hundred and sixty-two, did give its consent to
the formation Of new State within the iursdic-
tion of the said State of Virginia, to be known
the following named counties, TO wit: Hancock,
Brooke Ohio, Marshall. Wetzei, Marion Mon
ongalia Preston, Taylor, Tyler, Peasants, Ritch-
lie, Doddridge, Harrison, Wood jackson, writ,
Roane Calhoun, Gilmer, Barbour Tucker. Lew
is Braxton. Upshur, Randolph, Mason. Putnam,
Kanawha Clay, Nicholas, Cabell, Wayne, Boone
Logan, Wyoming, Mercer, Mcdowell, Webster,
Pocahontas, Fayette, Raleigh, Greenbrier, Mon
roe, Pendleton, Hardy, Hampshire, and Morgan:
and whereas both the Convention and the Legis-
lature aforesaid have requested that the new
State should be admitted into the Union, and the
CONSTITUTION aforesaid being republican IN form,
Congress doth hereby consent that the said forty
eight counties may be formed into a separate
and independent State, Therefore
Be Il enacted by the Senate and House Of Repre-
sentatires of the United States Of america in Con-
oress as senbled, That the State of West Virginia
be and is hereby declared to be one of the United
States of America, and admitted into the Union
on an equal footing with the original States in all
respects whatever, and until the next general CEN
sus, shall be entitled to three members in the
House of Representatives of the United States ::
Prorded allcays That this act shall not take effect
until after the proclamation of the President of
the United States hereinafter provided for
1t being represented to Congress that since the
Conve ation of the twenty-sixth of November,
eighteen hundred and sixty zone, that framed and
proposed the Constitution for the said State OF
West Virginia, the people thereof have expressed
a wish to change the seventh section of the elev-
enth article of said Constitution by striking ont
the same and inserting the following in its place
viz: ''The children of slaves born within the lin
its of this State after the fourth day of July
eighteen hundred and sixty-three, shall be free
and that all slaves within the said State who shall
at the time aforesaid be under the age of ten years
shall be free when they arrive at the age of TWEEN
ty-one years and all slaves over ten and under
twenty-One years shall be free when they arrive a
the age of twenty-five years and no slave shall b
permitted to come into the State for permanen
residence therein" Therefore
SEC. 2. BE further enacted, That whenever tn
people of West Virginia shall through their sale
tion to be held within tn limits oftl said State
such time as the Convention may provide, make
and ratify the change aforesaid, and properly Ger
tify the same under the hand Of the President o
the Convention, it shall be lawful for the Presiden
of tie Uniiel States to issue his proclamation stat
ing fact, and thereupon this act shall take eff
feet and he in force from and after sixty days from
the date of said proclamati n,
Approved, December 81 1862