Twenty Years of Congress Volume I Part 32

The amendment also proposed to give to "Congress the right to appropriate money for the colonization of the emanc.i.p.ated slaves, with their own consent, at any place outside of the United States."

Congress had scarcely time to consider this grave proposition when the President issued on the first day of the new year (1863) his formal Proclamation abolis.h.i.+ng slavery in all the States in rebellion against the Government, with the exception of Tennessee, and of certain parishes in Louisiana and certain counties in Virginia whose population was considered loyal to the Government. Tennessee was excepted from the operation of the Proclamation at the urgent request of Andrew Johnson who, after the fall of Nashville in the preceding spring, had resigned from the Senate to accept the appointment of military governor of his State. His service in the Senate, with his State in flagrant rebellion, was felt to be somewhat anomalous and he was glad to accept a position in which he could be more directly helpful to the loyal cause. He possessed the unbounded confidence of Mr. Lincoln who yielded to his views respecting the best mode of restoring Tennessee to the Union, and her inhabitants to their duty to the National Government. There is good reason for believing that both Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Johnson afterwards regarded the omission of Tennessee from the Proclamation of Emanc.i.p.ation as a mistake, honestly made in the first place by Governor Johnson and too readily acceded to by the President.

The recommendation of Mr. Lincoln for a system of compensated emanc.i.p.ation was taken up promptly and cordially by the Republican members of both branches of Congress. The House appointed a special committee on the subject. With but little delay a bill was pa.s.sed appropriating to Missouri, the first State considered, ten millions of dollars with the restriction that the money should be paid only to the loyal slave-holders. The Senate increased the amount to fifteen millions of dollars and returned it to the House for concurrence in the amendment. The measure had been thus pa.s.sed in both branches but with stubborn opposition on the part of some prominent Democratic leaders from Missouri. John B. Henderson in the Senate and John W. Noell in the House labored earnestly to secure the compensation for their State, but the bill was finally defeated in the House. By factious resistance, by dilatory motions and hostile points of order, the Democratic members from Missouri were able to force the bill from its position of parliamentary advantage, and to prevent its consideration within the period in which a majority of the House could control its fate. The just responsibility for depriving Missouri of the fifteen millions of dollars must be charged in an especial degree to Thomas L. Price, Elijah H. Norton, and William A. Hall, representatives from that State, who on the 25th of February, 1863, by the use of objectionable tactics deprived the House of the opportunity even to consider a bill of such value and consequence to their const.i.tuents. A large majority stood ready to pa.s.s it, but the determined hostility of the Democratic members from Missouri defeated the kindly and generous intentions of Congress towards their own State. At a later period in the session the attempt was made to pa.s.s the bill by a suspension of the Rules, but this motion though it received the support of a majority was defeated for the lack of two-thirds of the votes as required. The Democratic members of Missouri were again active in resisting the boon which was offered to their State and so earnestly pressed by the Republicans of the House.

MISTAKE OF BORDER STATE MEN.

The course of the Missouri representatives was sustained by the solid vote of the Democratic members from the free States, and received the co-operation of a majority of representatives from the Border slave States. If the bill for Missouri had pa.s.sed, a similar relief would have been offered to Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. Mr. Crittenden whose influence with the representatives from these States was deservedly great could not be persuaded to adopt the President's policy. The consideration which influenced him and other Border State men to the course which subsequent events proved to be unwise, was their distrust of the success of the Union arms. The prospect had grown steadily discouraging ever since the adjournment of Congress in the preceding July, and with the exception of General McClellan's success at Antietam there had been nothing to lighten the gloom which deeply beclouded the military situation. The daily expenditures of the nation were enormous, and the Secretary of the Treasury had at the opening of the season estimated that the National debt at the close of the current fiscal year would exceed seventeen hundred millions of dollars. The Border State men chose therefore to maintain possession of their four hundred thousand slaves, even with the t.i.tle somewhat shaken by war, rather than to part with them for the bonds of a Government whose ability to pay they considered extremely doubtful.

They could readily have secured, indeed they were urged to accept, fifty millions of dollars, the equivalent of gold coin, in securities which became in a few years the favorite investment of the wisest capitalists in the world. Such opportunities are never repeated.

The magnanimous policy of the President and the wise liberality of the Republican party were precisely adapted, if the Border State men could have seen it, to the critical situation of the hour.

Subsequent events prevented the repet.i.tion of the offer, and the slave-holders were left to thank themselves and their representatives for the loss of the munificent compensation proffered by the Government. They could not believe Mr. Lincoln when at the pressing moment he pleaded with them so earnestly to accept the terms, and flavored his appeal with the humorous remark to Mr. Crittenden: "You Southern men will soon reach the point where bonds will be a more valuable possession than bondsmen. Nothing is more uncertain now than two-legged property."

After the unfortunate issue of the Peninsular campaign and in the fear that Lee might turn directly upon Was.h.i.+ngton, a new army was organized on the 27th of June, 1862, and placed under the command of Major-General John Pope. It included the forces which had been serving under Fremont, Banks and McDowell, and was divided into three corps with these officers respectively in command. General Fremont considering the designation below his rank asked to be relieved from the service, and his corps was a.s.signed to General Rufus King, and soon after to General Sigel. General Pope took the field on the 14th of July with a formidable force. General McClellan was still within twenty-five miles of Richmond, and with Pope in front of Was.h.i.+ngton, the Confederate authorities were at a standstill and could not tell which way to advance with hope of success or even with safety.

If the army of Lee should move towards Was.h.i.+ngton he might be compelled to fight General Pope protected by the extensive fortifications on the south side of the Potomac, leaving Richmond at the same time uncovered, with the possibility that McClellan, re-enforced by Burnside's corps which lay at Fortress Monroe, would renew his attack with an army of ninety thousand men. But as soon as the Confederates ascertained that McClellan was ordered back to the Potomac, they saw their opportunity and made haste to attack Pope. Fault was found with the slowness of McClellan's movements.

His judgment as a military man was decidedly against the transfer of his army from the point it occupied near Richmond, and it cannot be said that he obeyed the distasteful order with the alacrity with which he would have responded to one that agreed with his own judgment.

AGGRESSIVE COURSE OF THE CONFEDERATES.

No reason can be a.s.signed why if the Army of the Potomac was to be brought back in front of Was.h.i.+ngton it should not have been transferred in season to re-enforce General Pope and give a crus.h.i.+ng blow to Lee. General McClellan was directed on the third day of August to withdraw his whole army to Acquia Creek, and as General Halleck declares, "in order to make the movement as rapidly as possible General McClellan was authorized to a.s.sume control of all the vessels in the James River and Chesapeake Bay, of which there was then a vast fleet." General McClellan did not begin the evacuation of Harrison's Landing until the 14th of August--eleven days after it was ordered. General Burnside's corps was ordered on the 1st of August to move from Newport News to Acquia Creek, and an estimate of the transportation facilities at command of General McClellan, may be formed from the fact that Burnside's whole corps reached their destination in forty-eight hours. General Lee knew at once by this movement that it was not the design to attack Richmond, and he made haste to throw his army on Pope before the slow moving army from Harrison's Landing could re-enforce him.

General McClellan did not himself reach Acquia Creek until the 24th of August. The disasters sustained by General Pope in the month of August could not have occurred if the forces of the Union, readily at command, had been brought seasonably to his aid. It was at this crisis that the unfortunate movements were made, the full responsibility for which, perhaps the exact character of which, may never be determined, but the sorrowful result of which was that the Union forces, much larger in the aggregate than Lee's, were divided and continually outnumbered on the field of battle.

Flushed with success the Confederate authorities pushed their fortunes with great boldness. General Bragg invaded Kentucky with a large army and General Lee prepared to invade Pennsylvania. The cruel defeat of General Pope disabled him for the time as a commander, and the Administration, fearing for the safety of Was.h.i.+ngton, and yielding somewhat to the obvious wishes of the soldiers, ordered General McClellan on September 2 to a.s.sume command of all troops for the defense of the Capital. General Lee avoiding the fortifications of Was.h.i.+ngton, pa.s.sed over to Maryland, and prepared to invade Pennsylvania with a force formidable in numbers and with the added strength of a supreme confidence in its invincibility. General McClellan moved promptly westward to cut off Lee's progress northward.

After preliminary engagements the main battle of Antietam was fought on the 17th of September, resulting in a Union victory. Lee was severely repulsed and retreated across the Potomac.

General McClellan fought the battle of Antietam under extraordinary embarra.s.sment caused by the surrender of Harper's Ferry to the Confederates on the 13th, with a loss to the Union army of more than twelve thousand men. Could he have had the advantage of this force on the battle-field, under a competent commander, at the critical moment, his victory over Lee might have been still more decisive. His success however was of overwhelming importance to the National Government and put a stop to an invasion of Pennsylvania which might have been disastrous in the extreme. He was blamed severely, perhaps unjustly, for not following Lee on his retreat and reaping the fruits of his victory. He had the misfortune to fall into a controversy once more with the authorities at Was.h.i.+ngton.

After a correspondence with the War Department he was peremptorily ordered by the General-in-Chief Halleck on the 6th of October in these words: "The President directs that you cross the Potomac and give battle to the enemy or drive him south. Your army must move now while the roads are good. . . . I am directed to add that the Secretary of War and the General-in-Chief fully concur with the President in these instructions." The order was not promptly obeyed. The Army of the Potomac--as those who spoke for General McClellan maintained--had been for six months engaged in a laborious campaign in which they had fought many battles and experienced much hards.h.i.+p. They needed rest, recruitment, clothes, shoes, and a general supply of war material before setting out on what would prove a winter march. The authorities at Was.h.i.+ngton a.s.serted, and apparently proved on the testimony of Quartermaster-General Meigs, a most accomplished, able, and honorable officer, that the Army of the Potomac, when it received its first orders to move in October, was thoroughly and completely equipped. General McClellan thought however that if intrusted with the command of the army he should be allowed to direct its movements. He crossed the Potomac near Harper's Ferry in the last week of October, and began an advance through Virginia which effectually covered Was.h.i.+ngton. He had reached Warrenton, and, before the plan of his campaign was developed, received at midnight, on the 7th of November, a direct order from President Lincoln to "surrender the command of the army to General Burnside, and to report himself immediately at Trenton, the capital of New Jersey."

GENERAL McCLELLAN'S MILITARY CAREER.

The reasons for this sudden and peremptory order were not given, and if expressed would probably have been only an a.s.sertion of the utter impossibility that the War Department and General McClellan should harmoniously co-operate in the great military movements which devolved upon the Army of the Potomac. But the time of removal was not opportunely selected by the Administration. After General McClellan's failure on the Peninsula, a large proportion of the Northern people clamored for his deposition from command, and it would have been quietly acquiesced in by all. At the end of those disastrous days when he was falling back on the line of the James River, General McClellan had telegraphed the Secretary of War "If I save this army now, I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you or to any persons in Was.h.i.+ngton. You have done your best to sacrifice this army." Perhaps no such dispatch was ever before sent by a military officer to the Commander-in-Chief of the army--to the ruler of the nation. In any other country it would have been followed with instant cas.h.i.+ering. Mr. Lincoln, with his great magnanimity, had however condoned the offense, and after the defeat of Pope the Administration had enlarged the command of McClellan and trusted the fortunes of the country to his generals.h.i.+p.

The trust had not been in vain. He had rolled back the tide of invasion by a great battle in which for the first time the army of Lee had been beaten. He was now marching forward with his army strengthened for another conflict, and without explanation to the country or to himself was deprived of his command. A large part of the people and of the public press and an overwhelming majority in the army were dissatisfied with the act, and believed that it would entail evil consequences.

This ended the military career of General McClellan which throughout its whole period had been a subject of constant discussion--a discussion which has not yet closed. The opinion of a majority of intelligent observers, both civil and military, is that he was a man of high professional training, admirably skilled in the science of war, capable of commanding a large army with success, but at the same time not original in plan, not fertile in resource, and lacking the energy, the alertness, the daring, the readiness to take great risks for great ends, which distinguish the military leaders of the world. For a commander of armies, in an offensive campaign, his caution was too largely developed. He possessed in too great a degree what the French term the _defensive instinct of the engineer_, and was apparently incapable of doing from his own volition what he did so well on the b.l.o.o.d.y field of Antietam, when under the pressure of an overwhelming necessity.

General Burnside a.s.sumed the command with diffidence. After a consultation with General Halleck he moved down the Rappahannock opposite Fredericksburg where he confronted General Lee's army on the 13th of December, and made an attack upon it under great disadvantages and with the legitimate result of a great defeat.

The total loss of killed and wounded of the Union army exceeded ten thousand men. The public mind was deeply affected throughout the North by this untoward event. All the prestige which Lee had lost at Antietam had been regained, all the advantage we had secured on that field was sacrificed by the disaster on the still bloodier field of Fredericksburg. It added immeasurably to the gloom of a gloomy winter, and in the rank and file of the army it caused a dissatisfaction somewhat akin to mutiny. So p.r.o.nounced did this feeling become and so plainly was it manifested that the subject attracted the attention of Congress and led to some results which, despite the seriousness of the situation, were irresistibly amusing.

On the 23d of January Mr. Wilson of Ma.s.sachusetts offered a somewhat extraordinary resolution,--instructing the Committee on the Conduct of the War to "inquire whether Major-General Burnside has since the battle of Fredericksburg formed any plans for the movement of the Army of the Potomac or any portion of the same, and if so whether any subordinate generals of said army have written to or visited Was.h.i.+ngton, to oppose or interfere with the execution of such movements, and whether such proposed movements have been arrested or interfered with, and if so by what authority." The consideration of the resolution was postponed under the rule, and three days later it was called up by Mr. Anthony of Rhode Island and its adoption urged "with the view of finding out whether officers were coming up here from the Army of the Potomac to interfere with the plans of General Burnside." There was indeed no doubt that some of the general officers connected with the army had been in Was.h.i.+ngton, and confidentially informed the President of the dispirited and depressed condition of the whole force.

GENERAL BURNSIDE AND GENERAL HOOKER.

General Burnside's character was one of great frankness, truth, and fidelity. He was full of courage and of manliness, and he conceived from circ.u.mstances within his knowledge, that certain officers in his command were gradually undermining and destroying him in the confidence of the army and of the public. He had not desired the position to which the President called him as the successor of General McClellan. He did not feel himself indeed quite competent to the task of commanding an army of one hundred thousand men. But there as in every other position in life he would try to do his best. He failed and failed decisively. It would probably have been wise for him to resign his command immediately after the defeat at Fredericksburg. On January 23, the Friday before the Senate resolution was adopted, General Burnside, highly incensed by the injury which he thought had been done him, wrote an order peremptorily "dismissing, subject to the approval of the President, Major-General Joseph E. Hooker from the Army of the United States, for having been guilty of unjust and unnecessary criticism of his superior officers, and for having by the general tone of his conversation endeavored to create distrust in the minds of officers who have a.s.sociated with him, and for having habitually spoken in disparaging terms of other officers."

The order declared that General Hooker was dismissed "as a man unfit to hold an important commission during a crisis like the present when so much patience, charity, confidence, consideration, and patriotism is due from every person in the field." The same order dismissed Brigadier-General John Newton and Brigadier-General John Cochrane for going to the President with criticisms on the plans of the commanding officer, and relieved Major-General William B. Franklin, Major-General W. F. Smith, Brigadier-General Sturgis and several others from further service in the Army of the Potomac.

The outcome of this extraordinary proceeding was very singular.

General Burnside took the order, before its publication, to the President who instead of approving it, very good-naturedly found a command for the General in the West, and on the very day that the Senate pa.s.sed the resolution of inquiry, two orders were read at the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac,--one from General Burnside announcing that Major-General Joseph E. Hooker was a.s.signed to the command of the Army of the Potomac and asking the army to "give to the brave and skillful General, who is now to command you, your full and cordial support and co-operation;" the other from General Hooker a.s.suming command of the Army of the Potomac by direction of the President and conveying to the late commander, General Burnside, "the most cordial good wishes of the whole army."

In the South-West where General Grant, General Sherman, and General Rosecrans were stubbornly contesting the ground, no decisive results were attained. The army went into winter quarters, with a general feeling of discouragement pervading the country. A substantial advantage was gained by General Buell's army in driving Bragg out of Kentucky, and a very signal and helpful encouragement came to the Government from the fact that the public manifestations in Kentucky were decisively adverse to the Confederates, and that Lee's army in Maryland met no welcome from any portion of the population. General McClellan's army was cheered everywhere in Maryland as it marched to the field of Antietam; and as Bragg retreated through the mountain sections of Kentucky his stragglers were fired upon by the people, and the women along the route upbraided the officers with bitter maledictions. Perhaps the feature of the two invasions most discouraging to the Confederates was the condition of the popular mind which they found in the Border States. They had expected to arouse fresh revolt, but they met a people tired of conflict and longing for repose under the flag of the Nation.

Congress felt that the situation was one of uncertainty if not of positive adversity. They did not however abate one jot or t.i.ttle of earnest effort in providing for a renewal of the contest in the ensuing spring. They appropriated some seven hundred and forty millions of dollars for the army and some seventy-five millions for the navy, and they took the very decisive step of authorizing "the President to enroll, arm, equip, and receive into the land and naval service of the United States such number of volunteers of African descent as he may deem useful to suppress the present Rebellion for such term of service as he may prescribe, not exceeding five years." The enactment of this bill was angrily resisted by the Democratic party and by the Union men of the Border States.

But the Republicans were able to consolidate their ranks in support of it. In the popular opinion it was a radical measure, and therein lay its chief merit. Aside from the substantial strength which the accession of these colored men to the ranks would give to the Union army, was the moral effect which would be produced on the minds of Southern men by the open demonstration that the President did not regard the Proclamation of Emanc.i.p.ation as _brutum fulmen_, but intended to enforce it by turning the strong arm of the slave against the person of the master. It was a policy that required great moral courage, and it was abundantly rewarded by successful results. It signalized to the whole world the depth of the earnestness with which the Administration was defending the Union, and the desperate extent to which the contest would be carried before American nationality should be surrendered. The measure had long been demanded by the aggressive sentiment of the North, and its enactment was hailed by the ma.s.s of people in the Loyal States as a great step forward.

SUSPENSION OF HABEAS CORPUS.

A subject of striking interest at this session of Congress was the pa.s.sage of the "Act relating to _habeas corpus_, and regulating judicial proceedings in certain cases." The President had ordered for the public safety, and as an act necessary to the successful prosecution of the war, the arrest and confinement of certain persons charged with disloyal practices. No punishment was attempted or designed except that of confinement in a military fortress of the United States. It became a matter of argument not only in Congress but throughout the country, whether the President was authorized by the Const.i.tution to suspend the writ of _habeas corpus_. In order to set the question at rest it was now proposed to pa.s.s an Act of indemnity for past acts to all officers engaged in making arrests, and also to confirm to the President by law the right which he had of his own power been exercising. The bill declared that "during the present Rebellion the President of the United States, whenever in his judgment the public safety may require it, is authorized to suspend the privilege of the writ of _habeas corpus_ in any case throughout the United States or any part thereof; and wherever the said writ shall be suspended no military or other officer shall be compelled, in answer to any writ of _habeas corpus_, to return the body of any person or persons detained by him by authority of the President."

The bill was stubbornly resisted by the Democratic party, and after its pa.s.sage by the House thirty-six Democratic representatives asked leave to enter upon the Journal a solemn protest against its enactment. They recited at length their grounds of objection, the princ.i.p.al of which was "the giving to the President the right to suspend the writ of _habeas corpus_ throughout the limits of the United States, whereas by the Const.i.tution the power to suspend the privilege of that writ is confided to the discretion of Congress alone and is limited to the place threatened by the dangers of invasion or insurrection," and also because "the bill purports to confirm and make valid by act of Congress arrests and imprisonments which were not only not warranted by the Const.i.tution of the United States but were in palpable violation of its express prohibitions."

Mr. Thaddeus Stevens peremptorily moved to lay the request on the table, and on a call of the ayes and noes the motion prevailed by a vote of 75 to 41. The division in the House by this time amounted to a strict line, on one side of which was the war party and on the other side the anti-war party.

The crowning achievement of the session in aid of the Union was the pa.s.sage of an "Act for enrolling and calling out the National forces and for other purposes." By its terms all able-bodied citizens of the United States between the ages of twenty and forty- five years, with a few exemptions which were explicitly stated, were declared to "const.i.tute the National forces and shall be employed to perform military duty in the service of the United States when called on by the President for that purpose." Volunteering was not to be relied upon as the sole means of recruiting the army, but the entire population within the arms-bearing age was now to be devoted to the contest. Taken in connection with other legislation already adverted to--the enormous appropriations for the forthcoming campaign, the organization of African regiments, the suspension of the writ of _habeas corpus_ at the President's discretion--this last measure was the conclusive proof of the serious determination with which Congress and the people would continue the contest.

The spirit with which the President and Congress proceeded in that depressing and depressed period proved invaluable to the country.

The situation had so many elements of a discouraging character that the slightest hesitation or faltering among those controlling the administration of the Government would have been followed by distrust and dismay among the people.

CHAPTER XXI.

The President's Border-State Policy.--Loyal Government erected in Virginia.--Recognized by Congress and Senators admitted.--Desire for a New State.--The Long Dissatisfaction of the People of Western Virginia.--The Character of the People and of their Section.--Their Opportunity had come.--Organization of the Pierpont Government.-- State Convention and Const.i.tution.--Application to Congress for Admission.--Anti-slavery Amendment.--Senate Debate: Sumner, Wade, Powell, Willey, and Others.--House Debate: Stevens, Conway, Bingham, Segar.--Pa.s.sage of Bill in Both Branches.--Heavy Blow to the Old State.--Her Claims deserve Consideration.--Should be treated as generously at least as Mexico.

The great importance attached by Mr. Lincoln to the preservation of Loyalty in the line of slave States which bordered upon the free States was everywhere recognized. As Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri had been promptly placed under the control of governments friendly to the Union, there remained of the States in rebellion only Virginia with territory adjacent to the Loyal States. Virginia bordered on the Ohio River for two hundred and fifty miles; she was adjacent to Pennsylvania for a distance of one hundred and twenty miles, half on the southern, half on the western line of that State. Her extreme point stretched to the northward of Pittsburg, and was within twenty-five miles of the parallel of lat.i.tude that marks the southern boundary of New England. The continued exercise of even a nominal jurisdiction so far North, by the State which contained the capital of the Rebel Confederacy, would be a serious impeachment of the power of the National Government, and would detract from its respect at home and its prestige abroad. But the National Government was of itself capable only of enforcing military occupation and proclaiming the jurisdiction of the sword. What the President desired was the establishment of civil government by a loyal people, with the reign of law and order everywhere recognized. Happily the disposition of the inhabitants was in harmony with the wishes of the Administration and the necessities of the Union.

After the adoption of the Secession Ordinance by the Virginia Convention on the 17th of April, the loyal people of the Western section of the State were prompt to act. As early as the 13th of May--a fortnight before the day appointed for the popular vote on the Secession Ordinance in Virginia--five hundred staunch Union men came together in a Convention at Wheeling, denounced the Ordinance of Secession and pledged their loyalty to the National Government and their obedience to its laws. If the Ordinance should be approved by the popular vote of Virginia, this preliminary conference requested the people in all the counties represented, to appoint delegates on the fourth day of June to a General Convention to a.s.semble in Wheeling on the 11th of the same month. These Union- loving men were energetic and zealous. They realized that with the secession of Virginia, completed and proclaimed, they must do one of two things--either proceed at once to organize a State government which would be faithful to the National Const.i.tution, or drift helplessly into anarchy and thus contribute to the success of the rebellion. Their prompt and intelligent action is a remarkable ill.u.s.tration of the trained and disciplined ability of Americans for the duties of self-government.

The members of the Convention which was organized on the 11th of June were even more determined than those who had a.s.sembled the preceding month. Without delay they declared the State offices of Virginia vacant because of the treason and disloyalty of those who had been elected to hold them, and they proceeded to fill them and form a regular State organization of which Francis H. Pierpont was appointed the executive head. They did not a.s.sume to represent a mere section of the State, but in the belief that the loyal people were ent.i.tled to speak for the whole State they declared that their government was the Government of Virginia. This Western movement was subsequently strengthened by the accession of delegates from Alexandria and Fairfax Counties in Middle Virginia and from Accomac and Northampton Counties on the Eastern Sh.o.r.e. Thus organized, the Government of the State was acknowledged by Congress as the Government of Virginia and her senators and representatives were admitted to seats.

Notwithstanding the compliance with all the outward forms and requirements, notwithstanding the recognition by Congress of the new government, it was seen to be essentially and really the Government of West Virginia. It was only nominally and by construction the Government of the State of Virginia. It did not represent the political power or the majority of the people of the entire State.

That power was wielded in aid of the rebellion. The senators and representatives of Virginia were in the Confederate Congress. The strength of her people was in the Confederate Army, of which a distinguished Virginian was the commander. The situation was anomalous, though the friends of the Union justified the irregularity of recognizing the framework of government in the hands of loyal men as the actual civil administration of the State of Virginia.

CHARACTER OF WEST VIRGINIA.

The people of the Western section of Virginia realized that the position was unnatural,--one which they could not sustain by popular power within the limits of the State they a.s.sumed to govern, except for the protection afforded by the military power of the National Government. Between the two sections of the State there had long been serious antagonisms. Indeed from the very origin of the settlement of West Virginia, which had made but little progress when the Federal Const.i.tution was adopted, its citizens were in large degree alienated from the Eastern and older section of the State. The men of the West were hardy frontiersmen, a majority of them soldiers of the Revolution and their immediate descendants, without estates, with little but the honorable record of patriotic service and their own strong arms, for their fortunes. They had few slaves. They had their land patents, which were certificates of patriotic service in the Revolutionary war, and they depended upon their own labor for a new home in the wilderness. A population thus originating, a community thus founded, were naturally uncongenial to the aristocratic element of the Old Dominion. They had no trade relations, no social intercourse, with the tide-water section of the State. Formidable mountain ranges separated the two sections, and the inhabitants saw little of each other. The business interests of the Western region led the people to the Valley of the Ohio and not to the sh.o.r.es of the Chesapeake. The waters of the Monongahela connected them with Pennsylvania and carried them to Pittsburg.

All the rivers of the western slope flowed into the Ohio and gave to the people the markets of Cincinnati and Louisville. Their commercial intercourse depended on the navigation of Western waters, and a far larger number had visited St. Louis and New Orleans than had ever seen Richmond or Norfolk. The West-Virginians were aware of the splendid resources of their section and were constantly irritated by the neglect of the parent State to aid in their development. They enjoyed a climate as genial as that of the Italians who dwell on the slopes of the Apennines; they had forests more valuable than those that skirt the upper Rhine; they had mineral wealth as great as that which has given England her precedence in the manufacturing progress of the world. They were anxious for self-government. Their trustworthy senator, Waitman T. Willey, declared that the people west of the Alleghany range had for sixty years "desired separation." The two sections, he said, had been time and again on the eve of an outbreak and the Western people could with difficulty be held back from insurrection. Criminations and recriminations had been exchanged at every session of the Legislature for forty years and threats of violence had been hurled by one section at the other.

The opportunity for a new State had now come. Its organization and admission to the Union would complete the chain of loyal Commonwealths on the south side of Mason and Dixon's line, and would drive back the jurisdiction of rebellious Virginia beyond the chain of mountains and interpose that barrier to the progress of the insurrectionary forces Westward and Northward. The provision in the Federal Const.i.tution that no new State shall be formed within the jurisdiction of any other State without the consent of the Legislature of the State as well as of Congress, had always been the stumbling-block in the way of West Virginia's independence.

Despite the hostilities and antagonisms of the two populations, Virginia would insist on retaining this valuable section of country within her own jurisdiction. But now, by the chances of war, the same men who desired to create the new State were wielding the entire political power of Virginia, and they would naturally grant permission to themselves to erect a State that would be entirely free from the objectionable jurisdiction which for the time they represented. They were not slow to avail themselves of their opportunity.

ADMISSION OF WEST VIRGINIA TO THE UNION.

The Pierpont Government, as it was now popularly termed, adopted an Ordinance on the 20th of August, 1861, providing "for the formation of a new State out of a portion of the territory of this State." The Ordinance was approved by a vote of the people on the fourth Thursday of October, and on the 26th of November the Convention a.s.sembled in Wheeling to frame a const.i.tution for the new government.

The work was satisfactorily performed, and on the first Thursday of April, 1862, the people approved the const.i.tution by a vote fo 18,862 in favor of it with only 514 against it. The work of the representatives of the projected new State being thus ratified, the Governor called the Legislature of Virginia together on the sixth day of May, and on the 13th of the same moth that body gave its consent, with due regularity, to "the formation of a new State within the jurisdiction of the said State of Virginia." A fortnight later, on the 28th of May, Senator Willey introduced the subject in Congress by presenting a memorial from the Legislature of Virginia together with a certified copy of the proceedings of the Const.i.tutional Convention and the vote of the people.

The const.i.tution was referred to the Committee on Territories and a bill favorable to admission was promptly reported by Senator Wade of Ohio. The measure was discussed at different periods, largely with reference to the effect it would have upon the inst.i.tution of slavery, and Congress insisted upon inserting a provision that "the children of slaves, born in the State after the fourth day of July, 1863, shall be free; all slaves within the said State who shall at that time be under the age of ten years shall be free when they arrive at the age of twenty-one years; all slaves over ten and under twenty-one shall be free at the age of twenty-five years; and no slave shall be permitted to come into the State for permanent residence therein." This condition was to be ratified by the Convention which framed the const.i.tution, and by the people at an election held for the purpose, and, upon due certification of the approval of the condition to the President of the United States, he was authorized to issue his proclamation declaring West Virginia to be a State of the Union.

Mr. Sumner was not satisfied with a condition which left West Virginia with any form of slavery whatever. He said there were "twelve thousand human beings now held in bondage in that State, and all who are over a certain age are to be kept so for their natural lives." He desired to strike out the provision which permitted this and to insert on in lieu thereof, declaring that "within the limits of the said State there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude otherwise than in the punishment of crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." Mr. Sumner's amendment was opposed by some of the most radical anti-slavery men in the Senate, notably by Collamer and Foot of Vermont, by Wade of Ohio, and by Howe of Wisconsin. They believed that the convictions of the people of West Virginia had developed to the point embodied in the bill, and that to attempt the immediate extirpation of slavery might lead to re-action and possibly to the rejection of the const.i.tution. Mr. Sumner's amendment was therefore defeated by 24 votes against 11. Of the 24 votes 17 were given by Republican senators.

Mr. Powell of Kentucky vigorously opposed the bill in all its parts.

He contended that "if the cities of New York and Brooklyn, with the counties in which they are located, were to get up a little bogus Legislature and say they were the State of New York, and ask to be admitted and cut off from the rest of the State, I would just as soon vote for their admission as to vote for the pending bill."