CONGRESS, U. S. 



305 



nnder proper conditions. But the Constitution 

 of the United States requires that no State shall 

 be divided unless the assent of its Legislature 

 he first obtained. 



" I do not regard this proposed division of 

 Virginia as having received that assent from 

 the Legislature of the State which the Con- 

 stitution requires. Here, however, is a ques- 

 tion; and the question turns on whether the 

 State of Virginia of which a Mr. Pierpont is 

 Governor, is the lawful State or not. I do not 

 believe that it is. 



" This Pierpont State is an institution of very 

 recent origin. It started into existence about 

 two years ago, and is a spontaneous production 

 of the soil. A number of individuals met at 

 Wheeling, and, without any legal authority 

 whatever, arranged a plan for a government. 

 Several persons have since been holding them- 

 selves out as officials of this organization, in- 

 cluding Pierpont, the Governor; but to what 

 extent it executes the actual functions of a gov- 

 ernment does not satisfactorily appear. 



"It is true, the President of the United 

 States has recognized this as the actual State 

 of Virginia ; and acting upon his sanction, the 

 Senate has admitted its senators into that body. 

 But this is of no binding force upon us. On 

 the contrary, if the President and Senate are 

 wrong in so grave a matter, it is the more im- 

 portant that the House of Eepresentatives should 

 be right. The argument in favor of the validity 

 of the Wheeling government is that the original 

 State of Virginia fell into treason and became 

 null and void, and caused a vacuum which 

 could only be filled in this way. Now this 

 is entirely unsatisfactory to me; for, in the 

 first place, I do not see how a State can 

 fall into treason ; and secondly, if it should, 

 what right Mr. Pierpont would have to assume 

 the office of Governor over any other individ- 

 ual who might wish it. Where did the law 

 come from which gave him his warrant ? From 

 a mob or a mass meeting^ Neither mobs nor 

 mass meetings make laws under our system. 

 It seems to me that this presents a question 

 of the utmost magnitude, as touching other 

 matters than the one immediately under con- 

 sideration. Eleven States have placed them- 

 selves in the same situation as Virginia ; and 

 in order to proceed toward them justly and 

 properly, it is necessary to adopt correct legal 

 principles at the outset. I have serious reason 

 to believe that it is the intention of the Pres- 

 ident to encourage the formation of State or- 

 ganizations in all the seceded States. A policy 

 seems about to be inaugurated, looking to an 

 assumption of State powers by a few individ- 

 uals, wherever a military or other encampment 

 can be effected in any of the rebellious districts. 

 The utter and flagrant unconstitutionality of 

 this scheme I may say, its radically revolu- 

 tionary character ought to expose it to the 

 reprobation of every loyal citizen and every 

 member of this House. It aims at an utter 

 subversion of our constitutional system." 

 VOL. ni. 20 A 



Mr. Brown, of West Virginia, followed, for 

 the purpose of showing the legitimacy of the 

 Wheeling government : " Let us see how the 

 fact was in Virginia, and we shall see how, 

 upon the soundest principles of political phi- 

 losophy, the government at Wheeling can be 

 vindicated. The government at Richmond, 

 and all the officers under the old government 

 of Virginia, transferred themselves and at- 

 tempted to transfer their people to a foreign 

 organization. I need hardly detail the particu- 

 lars of that act, as they must be fresh in the 

 memory of every gentleman. They know that 

 the functionaries at Richmond, immediately 

 after they passed the ordinance of secession, 

 which they were bound to submit to the peo- 

 ple, did not wait for the people to act upon 

 their so-called ordinance, but immediately en- 

 tered into a treaty with the government at 

 Montgomery, and the whole military and civil 

 powers of the State were transferred, so far 

 as they could transfer them, to that govern- 

 ment. 



"The loyal people of Virginia immediately, 

 finding that their rulers, those to whom the 

 legislative and executive powers had been in- 

 trusted, had betrayed them, and had ceased to 

 be capable of exercising their prerogative, 

 called, in all the loyal counties where they had. 

 permission to do so, mass meetings, which sent 

 to Wheeling five hundred of as loyal and good 

 men as live in any portion of the United States, 

 not for immediate action, but for the purpose 

 of consulting upon the emergency of the times. 



"That convention merely organized and pro- 

 posed a plan by which regular elections were 

 to be held to fill the vacancies caused by the 

 withdrawal of all disloyal representatives. A 

 day was fixed and elections held, not within 

 the boundaries of the proposed new State, but 

 held throughout Virginia wherever loyal men 

 chose to hold them, from one end of the com- 

 monwealth to the other, and the body thus 

 elected assumed the legislative functions of the 

 people." 



Mr. Brown then proceeded to state that, in 

 addition to the counties composing West Vir- 

 ginia, those of Fairfax and Alexandria were 

 represented in this Legislature, so elected, but 

 more than one half the counties of the original 

 Virginia, were not at all represented, saying : 

 "It is sufficient for me to say that they were 

 invited to cooperate, and if they stayed away, it 

 was their fault, not ours. They were invited 

 to act, and, if they were loyal men, they ought 

 to have acted with us. If they were disloyal, 

 they should have no voice in the Legislature 

 of Virginia, or in this body." 



He then read the following act adopted by 

 this Legislature : 



1. Be it enacted ly the General Assembly, That the 

 consent of the Legislature of Virginia be, and the same 

 is hereby given to the formation and erection of the 

 State of West Virginia within the jurisdiction of this 

 State, to include the counties of Hancock, Brooke, 

 Ohio, Marshall, Wetzel, Marion, Monongalia, Preston, 

 Taylor, Tyler, Pleasants, Ritchie, Doddridge, Hani- 



