SPEECH 
 
 OP 
 
 y 
 
 HON. K. Y. WHALEY, 
 
 !OF VIRGINIA, 
 
 DELIVERED 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 
 '^S^/y 
 
 July 11, 1862, 
 
 ON A BILL TO PROYIDE FOR THE ADMISSION OF WEST YIRGINIA INTO 
 THE UNION AS A STATE. 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 SCAMMELL & CO., PRINTERS, COR. SECOND & IND. AVENUE, THIRD FLOOR. 
 
 1862. 
 
SPEECH 
 
 Mr. WHALEYsaid: 
 
 _ Mr. Speaker : The people of West Vir- 
 ginia, with unparalleled unaaimit}^, through 
 their Representatives; ask for the separa- 
 tion of their portion of the State from 
 East Virginia, and the admission of it into 
 the Union as a separate^ independent, and 
 sovereign community. If it were a Terri- 
 tory of our national domain, with her su- 
 perficies of about twenty-four thousand 
 square miles, and with her population of 
 nearly four hundred thousand souls, asking 
 admission into the Union, there would be 
 no hesitancy. If it were a mere question 
 of the division of a large State, you would 
 at once refuse to entertain the proposition. 
 If there were not urgent public and Fed- 
 eral reasons therefor, affecting essentially 
 the peace, happiness, and prosperity of 
 West Virginia, you should promptly de- 
 cline to consider the suggestion of the di- 
 vision of the ''Old Dominion." If the 
 causes demanding the separation were tran- 
 sient and evanescent, or such as could be 
 removed without political convulsion and 
 in a nation's lifetime, or such as might con- 
 tinue without the greatest detriment and 
 injustice, if the highest weHare and safety 
 of the Union could be preserved in the 
 present status of affairs, 'tha case would be 
 different. 
 
 For eighty years have the people of 
 West Virginia suffered from her unnatural 
 connection M-ith East Virginia. For near- 
 ly three generations has she petitioned and 
 sought for the adoption of a liberal and 
 
 just policy toward her. For almost a cen- 
 tury has she borne the oppression, insult, 
 and contumely of Eastern legislation with- 
 out redress and without relief. Forty years 
 ago, hoping for no change in policy from 
 the Eastern aristocracy, she sought the di- 
 vision of the State; some contending that 
 the Blue Ridge, and others the AUeghaii}'- 
 mountains, should constitute the boundary. 
 The seaboard and Piedmont districts, in- 
 stead of modifying legislation and render- 
 ing it less odious to the people of West 
 Virginia, sought to make it more perma- 
 nently oppressive by detaching the valley 
 from us, extending internal improvements 
 of all descriptions into that section, uniting 
 the people commercially and socially with 
 Pbichmond, treating the West as her rival ia 
 commerce, her enemy, and an inferior. 
 
 After the metropolitan city of Maryland 
 had extended a branch of its road to Win- 
 chester, the Virginia Legislature denied 
 further charters. The breeding of slaves 
 for southern markets served also to detach 
 the valley from the West and assimilate it 
 to the East. Of the forty-four millions of 
 State debt expended in internal improve- 
 ments up to January 1, 1861, only one and 
 a half millions have been expended in 
 West Virginia. Not only has Virginia re- 
 fused to permit us to improve our country, 
 but when Baltimore proposed to build rail- 
 roads througli our territory at her own ex- 
 pense, the Legislature refused a charter. 
 
 The antagonism usually finding place be- 
 tween commuuities with social oraaniza- 
 
tions so widely different as those of West- 
 ern and Eastern Virginia, developed to 
 such a degree that John Randolph of Ko- 
 anoke spoke in the convention of Virginia 
 of 1829 of the valley and Western Vir- 
 ginia as parts of the State "which I must 
 call alien to us, and forever separated from 
 our interests and feelings, torn by factions. 
 marked by lines which divide her into two 
 different people — distinct in feeling, dis- 
 tinct in possessions, different and antagoni- 
 zing interests." Mr. Baldwin, of Augusta, 
 predicted that "if slave representation 
 should be forced upon them, the final re- 
 sult will be the separation of the State." 
 So oppressive had the legi.slation become, 
 with no hope of relief in the ordinary way, 
 that Mr. Goode, in the convention of A'^ir- 
 ginia in 1851, proposed that the House of 
 Delegates and the Senate should each be 
 divided into two chambers, one composed 
 of those east, and the other of the njeni- 
 bers west of the Blue Ridge, and requiring 
 votes by chambers, and a majority of each 
 chamber necessary to appropriate or raise 
 money by taxes, loans, or otheiwise. Mr. 
 Wise said, "we [the Ea.st] had kept their 
 nose [of the West] to the grindstone for 
 the last seventy-five years in agony." 
 
 In 18(5U there were 490,887 slaves, of 
 ■whom only 12,771 were west of the Alle- 
 ghanies. By the monstrous system of tax- 
 ation, so unjust to the West, no slave, 
 though worth §1,800 in the market, can 
 be valued over §800 for taxation; and no 
 slave under twelve years can be taxod,' 
 though worth seven or eight hundred dol-i 
 lars. Thus, §200,000,000 of slave property 
 owned in the East, its chief property, has 
 never been taxed at all, while legislation 
 has mainly been for this property and its in- 
 terests; and while every species of income 
 and property in the West has been fully 
 taxed, even to the earnings of the humble 
 toiler for daily bread barely sufficient for 
 family support. Licenses must be paid for 
 at enormous prices for every branch of busi- 
 ness, except the breeding, working, and 
 selling of negroes, giving monopoly to the 
 slave interest of the East, and crushing the 
 free labor of the West. In addition tu the 
 recording fee, the poor man, buying his 
 piece of wild land to clear him a home, 
 must pay his one dollar tax to the State j 
 before his deed can be recorded. So with I 
 all forms of legal process, whether relating ' 
 
 to the living or the dead. , 
 
 For eighty years, as at the present, the 
 East has denominated the western lands 
 " waste and unappropriated," and has sold 
 tliem and granted patents of any portions 
 to all who will pay, until the whole country 
 has been affected — two, three, or more, 
 frequently paying taxes on the same land 
 at the same time, thus increasing the rev- 
 enue from the West, keeping titles unset- 
 tled, defrauding and impoverishing the 
 people; the Legislature repeatedly exone- 
 rating lands in the East justly assessed, 
 and by the same act enforcing the payment 
 of a like tax against western lands by or- 
 dering sale. There has been one statute of 
 limitation for lands east, and another for 
 lands west of the Alleghanics. 
 
 One of the greatest injuries sustained by 
 our Western people has been an organized 
 opposition to a system of free schools and 
 popular education, by which the bright 
 but untutored minds of our mountain ranges 
 and humbler classes have not been devel- 
 oped, while colleges and seminaries for 
 the rich have bcQn fostered bj' Eastern le- 
 gislation. To keep the people in igno- 
 rance is a part of the policy of tlu-ir masters, 
 the forty thousand slave-owners of East 
 Virginia. Since 1776, Virginia has had 
 thirty-three Governors, of whom West Vir- 
 ginia has had five, and twenty-four Ignited 
 States Senators, of which West Virginia 
 has had but three. 
 
 But the greatest wrong and insult which 
 has degraded us politically and socially is 
 what is called the " mixed basis of repre- 
 sentation." In the west portion of the 
 State there exists a large majority of white 
 population, and in the other portion the 
 slave property interest, and giving rise to 
 diversity of sentiment. The East insists 
 upon protection of property by apportion- 
 ment of representation; that the majority 
 of the people should not rule, but the ma- 
 jority of interests; that the great wealth of 
 the State is in slaves, and that the forty 
 thousand slaveholders of the East should 
 rule; that while eight hundred and ninety- 
 eight thousand people have, say fifty rep- 
 resentatives, $4:95,000 of taxes must also 
 have fifty representatives; that slavery, 
 and not free white men, is the element of 
 political power; that more than one hun- 
 dred and twenty-five thousand citizens of 
 the West are properly denied represeuta- 
 
tiou in the councils of the State; that, 
 ■with 'an inmiense majority of free white 
 men in the West, the legishitive power is 
 rightly phiced in the hands of the minority, 
 giving them thirty majority on joint ballot 
 in General Assembly, as Mr. Scott said in the 
 Virginia convention, "to secure property 
 [slaves] by not surrendering the legisla- 
 tive control to a majority of mere num- 
 bers." As i\Ir. Bcal also said, " to protect 
 slavery from West Virginia." 
 
 The West, on the contrary, while valuing 
 property, values persons more; declares 
 that according to every principle of repub- 
 lican freedom the whole majority, and not 
 slaves, should rule; that a minority of in- 
 terests should not govern a majority of 
 people ; that one dollar in money should 
 not be counted equal to two white men ; 
 that all men are by nature free and inde- 
 pendent; that all power is vested in and 
 derivable from the people; that a majority 
 of tlie people is the only true bsisis of legis- 
 lative power ; that any other basis is a pal- 
 pable infraction of the great American doc- 
 trine. There is a heartfelt and almost uni- 
 versal earnestness of sentiment on the other 
 side of the Alleghanies, that a majority of 
 the community is the true source of politi- 
 cal power ; that no man or set of men ai'e 
 entitled to exclusive emoluments or priv- 
 ileges, and that by the property basis a 
 sectional minority inflicts political degra- 
 dation on a large majority of the popula- 
 tion; that a denial to the majority of the 
 people of the right to protect themselves, 
 each and all alike, is the denial of all re- 
 publican principle; that everything should 
 not pay tribute to the slave power; that the 
 doctrine of the sovereignty of the people is 
 sanctified by time, and tested and confirm- 
 ed by experience, commended by treasure 
 expended, the blood shed, and the suf- 
 ferings endured in the American Revolu- 
 tion. 
 
 The principle of mixed representation, 
 based partly on property, was imported from 
 South Carolina and planted in the Com- 
 monwealth of Virginia — and later, also, 
 that of secession. And -do you now won- 
 der, under such discipline, that when more 
 than a year ago these oppressors, whose cup 
 of iui([uity was running over, plunged into 
 treason and rebellion, that the people of 
 the West, loyal and true, should not only 
 have rallied under the national flag, but 
 
 also have rejoiced to escape from such bond- 
 age? Then was reorganized the State 
 government. Our young men and men of 
 middle age gathered around the nation's 
 standard, and rallied, leaving wives and 
 children, aged parents and property, to the 
 mercy of guerrillas and bandits, and num- 
 bering as many, proportionately, in the" 
 loyal army as any portion of the c -uitry, 
 where such •sacrifices as ours are unknoAvn. 
 We have done our duty faithfully in this • 
 crisis. 
 
 Fidl^r do I endorse what one of our 
 worthy Senators from Virginia [Mr. ^VlL- 
 ley] said in the convention of 1851 : 
 
 "Our own ginrinus history amply vindicates tho patriot- 
 ism of tile mus.srs vvlio shed thi ir blood most froely iu our 
 revolutionary struggle for iiidcpondence. Whom did tho 
 Father of his Country lead to victory ? Upon whom did ho 
 rely in the ' dark days which tried men's souls':' Was it 
 upon thu slave owner, the land owner, the man of merchan- 
 dise, the wealthy? I will venture the assertion that seven 
 leiUhs of those nohle men hail no title to a foot of the soil 
 tlu'y enriched by their blood, sheil in defence of it ; and. 
 when tliey shoiddered their Icnapsacks they carried on their 
 backs their entire stock of goods and chattels. Yet we 
 confided in them. We filaced in their keeping our lives 
 and fortunes and sacred lionor, and we were not betrayed. 
 Wliy the shouts of the victories of Cliepultepx and Buena 
 Visui are still echoing in ou'- moiuitains and tloating across 
 your lowlands? Wlio fought thu'so brilliant achievements? 
 Our landhrds, our slam ownnrs, or Ihe iccalthy jn'oprielaries 
 of Iheoiuntry? No, sir. No." 
 
 I would fill our hills and valleys with a 
 population loving the Union, men of in- 
 dustry and enterprise ; would give to our 
 free and manly people the control of their 
 own legislation, and emancipate them from 
 the thraldom of disloyal and wasted Pjastern 
 Virginia. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, this is a question in which 
 the whole people of America have a deep 
 interest. It is the appeal of West Virginia 
 for equal rights, for the rights of the peo- 
 ple against the rights of money — mammon 
 against liberty. AV^ill the gentlemen of 
 this Congress, Democrats and Republicans, 
 discard the tried and well-established doc- 
 trine of the right of the majority to gov- 
 ern? Will you not gixaranty to us the en- 
 joyment of this right? Will you permit 
 every vestige of liberty to be swept away 
 from Virginia? Safety, quiet, peace, and 
 liberty can only be found in separation. 
 Will you compel us to continue a connec- 
 tion not only repiilsive to our feelings, but 
 utterly repugnant to all the principles of 
 free government? Will you force us to be 
 ruled over by an odious and most offen.sive 
 aristocracy? to be dependent serfs of our 
 Eastern lords? Will the Republican and 
 Democratic masses of the North sustain you 
 
6 
 
 in compellin<r our free people to live in I 
 such galling degnidation and bondage ? j 
 West Virginia is law-abiding. ^ he has! 
 been ardently uttached to the good old 
 Conunonwcalth. When the Kast was in|[ 
 peril, western men flew to the rescue and i 
 sacriticed even life itself in defending theij 
 border towns and cities from fire and sword, !i 
 and eastern property from jiillage. The 
 East in the late secession movement has re- 
 •paid us by calling a convention unsanc- 
 tioned, witlaout the consent of a majority, 
 usurping powers to our injury; by pre- 
 t^ended ordinances requiring us to separate 
 from and wage war against the Cxovern- 
 ment of the United States, and against t-he 
 citizens of friendly neighboring States; at- 
 tempting to subvert the I'nion of Wash- 
 ington and his copatriots,andto transfer our 
 allegiance to a rebellious confederacy, and to 
 place the whole military force and opera- 
 tions of the Common wealth under the control 
 of the rebellious southern confederacy; iu- 
 
 V stituting a reign of terror to suppress the 
 free expression of the will of the people; 
 making elections a mockery and a fraud; 
 instituting war by seizing the property of 
 the Federal Grovernment; orii:anizin'r and 
 mobilizing armies to capture and destroy 
 the capital of the nation; attempting toj 
 
 .bring the allegiance of the people of thcj 
 United States into direct conflict Avith 
 their subordinate allegiance to the State. 
 
 The Western Virginians arc, and always 
 have been, of the race of American pio- 
 neers — the conquerors and cultivat(n-s of 
 the wild regions of the New AVorld — 
 mountaineers by nature, and democrats, in 
 the legitimate sense of the word, by in- 
 stinct. They belong to the advance guard 
 of modern civilization. In principle, policy, 
 and interest, they arc of the progressive 
 party of the American people. Everything 
 in them and around them and before them 
 impel them to proccfd — nothing that allows 
 them to recede. ]3y this difference of 
 character and conditions, they are morally j 
 and politically divorced from Eastern Vir- 
 ginia. A mountain chain divides us geo- 
 graphically; a guil' as broad as that be- 
 tween Abraham and Dives, lies between us 
 in spirit, institutions, and destiny. Sooner 
 or later the virtual division so long felt to 
 be necessary, will and must be acknowl- 
 edged and establi:^1u■d in fact. 
 
 in the State of Virgiuia, immediately 
 
 before its ordinance of secession, there were 
 490,887 slaves; of these there were but 
 12,771 in AVest A'irginia, or one in thirty- 
 nine of the whole number, while its free 
 population numbers 034,021, or closely ap- 
 proaching one-third. Eroni such a diver- 
 sity of interests as the dilfcrence in slave 
 population, and from such a preponderance 
 of political power in the State to sustain 
 the system' of work without wages against 
 the free labor of the West, helped out, as it 
 has been, by the atrocious principle of 
 slave property representation, it is easy 
 to infer the malign influences that have 
 retarded our progress in everything neces- 
 sary to our welfare. Our contributions to 
 public measures have not been paid back 
 to us in the internal improvements which 
 our country demands; nor in the fiee 
 school system, to our advancement in all 
 that makes a people prosperous and happy. 
 The tide of emigration has been turned 
 away from a country tempting to the men 
 that are building up an empire in the 
 Northwest as " the sun visits in his wide 
 career." Our mountains full of minerals; 
 our coal, marble, salt, rock oil, are all held 
 under the ban of a middle age policy of 
 I legislation. Our rivers are unimproved, 
 and our valleys arc shut out of the nuirkets 
 I that a happier government would long 
 ; since have opened to them. The mass of 
 ! these mischiefs is to(j great and too nun)e- 
 I rous for statement, as the injury is be^Hind 
 calculation. 'JMiey may bo summed up in 
 one generally comprehensive and terribly 
 j significant fact. The State of Viririnia, 
 I larger than Pennsylvania and Maryland 
 I put together, as old as cither, and naturally 
 ; richer than both, advanced in free popula- 
 ' tion but 156,Ut)3, or twelve and a half per 
 cent., in the last ten years; while Penn- 
 ! sylvan ia made an increase of 594,584 per- 
 I sons, equal to twenty-five and three-f|uar- 
 j ters per cent., mure than d<iuble the rate 
 I of growth in that great ]iroduct which in 
 a country like ours is the sign and a pmuf 
 of all other kinds of progress. 
 
 Are we not right, Mr. Speaker, in crying 
 out with the apostle, " who shall deliver us 
 from the body of this death ?" }Uit we 
 have already, by our own act, thrown off 
 the decaying and corrupting carcass that 
 , so long cumbered and oppressed us. and 
 we are now asking you to break the slender 
 i thread of State unity that fictitiously holds 
 
•us together here in representation and re- 
 sponsibility. 
 
 Wliile the secession of Eastern Virginia 
 seemed too monstrous to be possible, and 
 while it stood merely as a temporary tri- 
 umph of political desperadoes over the 
 sober and better judgment of her real 
 people, we who knew that the act of seces- 
 sion was a falsehood of the convention, and 
 therefore believed that she could not be 
 constrained into a mad and treasonable re- 
 bellion in fact and deed, as well as in words, 
 hoped that ere this time she would return 
 to loyalty ; but the history of the last year, 
 and the attitude of her people to-day, have 
 opened our eyes. Instead of repentance, 
 they exhibit nothing- less than the very 
 desperation of popular insanity. We no 
 longer hope for their return to the 
 spirit of unity and peace. Possibly we 
 might forgive the bloodshed, the robberies, 
 the imprisonments, which they have so 
 ruthlessly inflicted upon us; but it is not 
 possible for them to become worthy of such 
 forgiveness, or capable of such forbearance. 
 They first made themselves our enemies, 
 and now they have made us theirs. We 
 cannot again go, as a minority of the State, 
 into their legislative councils; we will not 
 again endure their malignant domination. 
 The constructive unity of the State of Vir- 
 ginia is a mere legal fiction; in common 
 English, it is not true of the present, and it 
 is as clearly impossible in the future. We 
 have for more than a year stood front to front 
 at the point of the bayonet. We never can 
 again stand side by side in their halls of 
 legislation. They cannot beat us in the 
 battle-field. We will not surrender to their 
 superior numerical force at the ballot-box. 
 They have never done us justice or shown 
 us mercy in either. We choose, if we must 
 choose, that in which we had the free use 
 of our prop'fer defences; and Grod be with 
 the right. 
 
 We are constrained by the circumstances 
 of this wicked rebellion to cast our fortunes 
 in with our kindred of the free North and 
 W^est. Give us our State independence, 
 and we will repay it with such benefits as 
 might well purchase a greater boon. The 
 Alleghany chains on our eastern and south- 
 ern borders are the natural boundaries for 
 our State line, that is to be eternal, what- 
 ever happens to the semi-tropical regions 
 of the Gulf and the eastern slope of the 
 
 Alleghanies south of the line that nature 
 and civilization have dedicated to demo- 
 cratic liberty and efjuality. Our streams 
 from their very fountain-heads flow into 
 your rivers, and all tlic territory from the 
 Alleghany peaks to the great lakes have 
 one common interest, and must forever be 
 one united people. Your northern lakes 
 are within our neighborhood. Our inter- 
 ests are common, reciprocal, inseparable, 
 and we have proved our fraternity, political 
 and moral, by all that is difficult and dan- 
 gerous in the separation of our political 
 ties, and by the resolute endurance of all 
 the cruelties of a civil war within our bor- 
 ders. The groans of our slain and impris- 
 oned people, the flames of our burning 
 dwellings, the devastation of our farms and 
 villages, we oifer in support of our claim ; 
 and finally we urge the necessity of the 
 measure as a sufiicient answer to all scruples 
 that lawyers or politicians can urge. There 
 can be no constitutional objection. The 
 clause in the Federal Constitution which 
 provides ''that no new State shall be erect- 
 ed within the jurisdiction of any other 
 State without the consent of the Legisla- 
 ture of the State concerned, and of Con- 
 gress," is in all respects satisfied. Con- 
 gress has already recognised the restored 
 government of Virginia to be the true gov- 
 ernment of Virginia. The Senators which 
 the Wheeling Legislature elected hold their 
 seats as Senators of Virginia. This same 
 Legislature has by vote authorized the for- 
 mation of the new State, and it now re- 
 quires only the ratifying vote of Congress 
 to consummate the procedure in precise ac- 
 cordance with the Constitution. If the 
 body of that State shall hereafter deem it 
 hard that it was dismembered, it must be 
 content to count it among infelicitous con- 
 sequences, parricidal madness. 
 
 The New or West Virginia stands and 
 promises ever to stand within the rights 
 and duties of a member of the national 
 compact. The Union rent and shattered 
 by fratricidal strife, whether restored or di- 
 vided, must be reconstructed. Why not in 
 the territorial limits of the States as well 
 as in the other conditions of the settlement 
 where policy, expediency, and necessity 
 alike demand it? 
 
 We appeal to this Congress in the name 
 of the one hundred and twenty-five thou- 
 sand of the white majority of West Vir- 
 
giuia, and of the whole population, for 
 speedy relief. We appeal to your sense of 
 honor and justice, to your appreciation of 
 the ji-reat principles of freedom and politi- 
 cal equality, to deliver us and let us enter 
 on a career of honorable prosperity. We 
 speak nut the sentiments of an individual^ 
 
 013 760 543 
 
 nor those of momentary excitement. They 
 are the sentiments of our entire people — 
 deep, fixed, heartfelt, unalterable senti- 
 ments, cherished for three-quarters of a 
 century, and we feel assured that we shall 
 not appeal in vain to this House and the 
 American people. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 013 760 543 <; 
 
 p6Rnuli$^4