421 ] FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE I9TH CENTURY I23 



The popular vote on the ordinance of separation was 

 almost unanimous against it in Western Virginia, while 

 with equal unanimity Eastern Virginia voted in favor of it. 

 It was carried by a large majority of the votes cast."^"- 



The second Wheeling Convention, called in pursuance of 

 a resolution of the first Wheeling Convention of May 13, 

 assembled in Washington Hall on June 11. Two days later 

 it issued " a declaration of the people of Virginia repre- 

 sented in Convention at the City of Wheling." The next 

 day it began the reorganization of the state government. 

 The new General Assembly, whose members were duly 

 chosen at the occasion of the vote of the secession ordi- 

 nance, convened on July i and sent new representatives to 

 the Congress in Washington. On August 6 the Convention 

 assembled once more and three days -later declared " all ordi- 

 nances, acts, orders ... of the Convention which assem- 

 bled at Richmond on the 13th of February last, being with- 

 out authority of the people of Virginia constitutionally 

 given .... illegal, inoperative, null, void and without 

 force and effect." It then passed an ordinance providing 

 for the " formation of a new state out of a portion of the 

 territory of this state," the new state to be called the State 

 of Kanawha. This ordinance was to be and was submitted 

 to a plebiscite in the disaffected sections on the fourth Tues- 

 day of the ensuing October. The vote, when taken, " stood 

 eighteen thousand four hundred and eight for the new 

 State, and seven hundred and eighty-one against it." At the 

 Constitutional Convention called by the new Governor for 

 November the name of the new State was changed to West 

 Virginia. 



In connection with the principle of self-determination as 

 applied in the secession movement, reference should here 



i''^ Appleton's American Annual Cyclopjedia, 1861, p. 738. Mc- 

 Pherson gives the total votes cast' as 128,884 for and 32.134 against 

 secession (McIMierson, p. 8). while Lewis claims for Western Vir- 

 ginia alone 4o,o(X) against secession out of 44,000 votes cast in that 

 part of the Old Dominion (Lewis, p. 356). 



