The National tribune., 1910-07-28
A GREAT HISTORIC ANNIvERsART.


day of the State of West Virginia. Ex-
Senator Henry G. Davis, Chairman of
the committee, has called the meeting
to consider plans for appropriate exer-
cises These plans will be submitted to
the Governor, who will recommend
them to the Legislature for adoption.
There are quite a number of diverse
ideas, some of the members favoring a
Worlds Fair and others inclining to
separate celebrations in every impor-
tant city and town.
The action of the West Virginians IN
decisively repudiating the schemes to
drag them into disunion were of over
whelming Importance in procuring the
final triumph of National integrity. The
antagonism between the eastern and
western sections of Virginia had been
growing for many years prior to the
war. In eastern Virginia the old feud-
alistic, aristocratic feeling still pre-
vailed. BY various shrewd devices and
cunning political management the Of
fees and the political power were kept
in the hands of a small circle of slave
holders and members of the old gov
erniDg families. The people in the
western part of the State complained
with reason that while they were made
to pay the larger portion of the taxes
the money expended was mostly in in
stitutions and improvements in eastern
Virginia from which they got no bene-
fit. In West Virginia there was abso-
lutte manhood suffrage, and all the votes
We're counted In the east the manag-
ers had allowance made for their slaves
and they excluded from the polls those
whose votes were not wanted.
In the 40 Counties which now COM
pose the State of West Virginia there
was a free population in 1860 of 363,-
971, with only 12,771 slaves. The slaves
were largely concentrated in the Coun-
ties of Greenbriar, Monroe and Hamp-
shire.
The people of West Virginia were
the broad range of the Allegheny Noun
tains and the Shenandoah Valley, while
they were in close touch with the free
States of Ohio and Pennsylvania. There
fore, they had little sympathy with the
complaints of the Shareholders over
their fictitious wrongs, and were decid
edIy averse to breaking up the Union
at the bidding of South Carolina. The
people of eastern Virginia had found
that they could not raise corn, wheat
and ordinary farm products in compe-
tition with the free labor of the North
and West, and We're reduced to selling
their slaves to tie cotton growers of
the South in order to live in the style
that they had been accustomed to in
the days of their prosperity There
fore, they were dependent upon the
South as market for this product, of
which they sold as high as $12, 100000
a year. The census shows most aston
ishing diminution of the slave popula-
ton of Virginia prior to the war and
an equally astonishing increase of the
same population in Alabama, Mississip-
T, Arkansas and Louisiana; that is,
those who are taking up the fat lands
in those new States were buying slaves
IN Virginia, Kentucky and Maryland to
work their cotton fields.
With the usual disposition of men
who attribute their misfortunes to
everything else but their own unwis-
dom, the Virginians held the North ac-
in some way for their own
failure to adopt improved systems of
agriculture and make their farms as
profitable as they once had been. South
unless Virginia Joined the Confederacy
there would be a prohibition against
buying her slaves and the slave trade
would be reopened; that is, they would
import negros directly from Africa at
cost of 5000 or $500 head where they
had been paying the Virginians 1000
and upward for good field hand.
Therefore. the convention called to
consider the relations of the State to
the Union and which had been elected
by an overwhelming Union majority
found itself dominated by the secession
feeling, and in spite of all pledges steps
were taken to ally the State with the
Southern Confederacy.
AS soon as the action of the conven-
ton was known it set the people of
West Virginia on fire, and Union meet
ings were at once held in all the i'm
portant centers. Hon. John S. Carlile,
of Clarksburg, Representative in Con-
gress, was especially active in leading
the resistance to secession.
May II, 1861, great Union meeting
was held at Wheeling, which was ad-
dressed by Mr.. Carlile and Francis H.
Pierpont. The action of the secession
was strongly repudiated, and
a decision taken to give no further
tribute, military or pecuniary. to the
rule at Richmond. This
action met with approval all over the
State, and on May 13 a convention of
delegates from 35 Counties assembled
at Wheeling to protest more formally
against secession and demand sever
ance of West Virginia from the Old
Dominion. The convention provided for
the election of delegates to a Provision
al Convention to assemble June II. This
elected Arthur ]. Boreman Chairman,
and Mr.. CarliIe reported from the Com
mittee on Business q declaration de-
nouncing the usurpation of the seces-
sionists, repudiating all allegiance to
the Southern Confederacy and yacating
the offices of those who adhered to the
rebellion Mr. Carlile was ODnoSed 70