WEST VIRGINIA. 



799 



" It secures to all the citizens of the State 

 equal rights and privileges ; it proscribes no 

 man or class of men ; it retaliates no wrong 

 upon any party ; it secures the separate exist- 

 ence of West Virginia; it places the inde- 

 pendence of the judiciary beyond partisan 

 control ; it sacredly preserves the system of 

 free schools ; it increases the sources of the 

 irreducible school fund ; it secures and enforces 

 proper accountability for school moneys ; it 

 establishes a cheap and efficient County Court ; 

 it abolishes an intricate and expensive town- 

 ship and county organization ; it diminishes 

 the expenses of the government in each of its 

 departments ; it secures to the lona-fide settler 

 a good title to his lands ; it restrains the Le- 

 gislature from useless and mischievous legisla- 

 tion ; it secures the people from the creation 

 of State or county debts ; it deprives the Le- 

 gislature of the power of enacting laws in sev- 

 eral specified matters of private or local in- 

 terest, and in all matters in which a general 

 law can be enacted." 



The thirty-seventh section of article 6th 

 provides as follows: "The Legislature shall 

 not pass local or special laws in any of the 

 following enumerated cases, that is to say for 

 granting divorces ; laying out, opening, alter- 

 ing, and working roads or highways ; vacating 

 roads, town-plats, streets, alleys, and public 

 grounds ; locating or changing county-seats ; 

 regulating or changing county or district af- 

 fairs ; providing for the sale of church prop- 

 erty, or property held for charitable uses ; 

 regulating the practice in courts of justice; 

 incorporating cities, towns, or villages, or 

 amending the charter of any city, town, or 

 village, containing a population of less than 

 two thousand ; summoning or impanelling 

 grand or petit juries ; the opening or conduct- 

 ing of any election or designating the place $f 

 voting ; the sale or mortgage of real estate 

 belonging to minors or others under disability ; 

 chartering, licensing, or establishing ferries or 

 toll-bridges ; remitting fines, penalties, or for- 

 feitures ; changing the law of descent ; regu- 

 lating the rate of interest ; authorizing deeds 

 to be made for land sold for taxes ; releasing 

 taxes ; releasing title to forfeited lands ; the 

 Legislature shall provide by general laws, for 

 the foregoing, and all other cases for which 

 provision can be so made ; and in no case 

 shall a special act be passed where a general 

 law would be proper, and can be made ap- 

 plicable to the case, nor in any other case in 

 which the courts have jurisdiction, and are 

 competent to give the relief asked for." 



Strenuous efforts were made, by several 

 members of the convention, to have the ne- 

 groes deprived of their right to vote by the 

 new constitution. Not succeeding in this, 

 they strove to have negroes declared ineligible 

 to office, although they had actually been eli- 

 gible during the preceding three years. The 

 convention rejected the proposition. Section 

 4. article 4, " on elections and officers," makes 



no distinction of color, but provides: "No 

 person, except citizens entitled to vote, shall 

 be elected or appointed to any State, county, 

 or municipal office." The advocates of the 

 measure renewed their efforts on the last day 

 of the session, urging that, at the election to 

 be held on the ratification or rejection of the 

 new constitution, a section declaring white 

 citizens alone to be eligible to office should 

 be submitted to the people, as a question to 

 be voted upon separately. After a long and 

 excited debate, which was reported to have 

 been " characterized by more bitterness of 

 feeling and wider difference of opinion than 

 any other during the session of the conven- 

 tion," the controverted section was finally 

 adopted by a majority of more than one-half 

 yeas 50, nays 15. It forms the last section 

 of the schedule annexed to the constitution, 

 and provides as follows : " Section 23. At the 

 time of the submission of this constitution to 

 a vote of the people, there shall be submitted, 

 as a separate proposition, the following: 'Any 

 white citizen entitled to vote, and no other, 

 may be elected, or appointed to any office.' " 

 The following section was also made a part of 

 the constitution : 



SECTION 50. The Legislature may provide for sub- 

 mitting to a vote of the people, at the general election 

 to be held in 1876, or any general election thereafter, 

 a plan or scheme of proportional representation in 

 the Senate of this State ; and, if a majority of the 

 votes cast at such election be in favor of the plan 

 submitted to them, the Legislature shall, at its ses- 

 sion succeeding said election, rearrange the senatorial 

 districts in accordance with the plan so approved by 

 the people. 



Concerning the liability of West Virginia 

 for her proportional share in the public debt 

 of Virginia, there was much contrariety of 

 sentiments manifested in the convention. The 

 constitution of 1862 had a section relating to 

 West Virginia's liability for such indebted- 

 ness, and its eventual payment. A number of 

 delegates maintained that a like section should 

 be inserted also in the new instrument, 

 contending that its omission would injure the 

 honor and credit of the State, as if she in- 

 tended to repudiate her debt, and it might 

 even have for its consequence the forfeiture 

 of the condition upon which Congress gave its 

 consent to her separate existence as a State. 

 Others denied all this, and averred that the 

 liability of West Virginia for her share in the 

 debt of Virginia, and its proportional amount, 

 rest on legal grounds, with which the Consti- 

 tutional Convention has nothing to do, but be- 

 long exclusively to the Legislature; and that 

 the insertion or omission of such a section in 

 the new constitution could not alter the true 

 position of the State in that respect. ^Some 

 insisted on the propriety of omitting in the 

 new constitution the declaration of the said 

 liability ; especially as the State of Virginia, 

 within the previous year, had assumed alone 

 to decide the whole matter, and, so far as she 

 might be concerned with her creditors, car- 



