Journals of the Senate of the State of West Virginia: title varies, Wheeling, var. state printers, 1863-. West Virginia is unique as the only U.S.
state carved out of the territory of another state without its consent. Although the actual separation came only during the upheavals of the American
Civil War, the roots of the separation sentiment were longstanding. The citizens in the trans-Allegheny territory comprising modern West Virginia were
only loosely tied to the tidewater society of eastern Virginia, and felt discriminated against and underrepresented in Richmond. By the early 1770’s a
serious proposal was made to the British government to create a fourteenth colony called Vandalia, which would comprise nearly all of present West
Virginia and parts of Pennsylvania and Kentucky. That proposal had already been approved by the Privy Council and was pending Royal assent when the
revolutionary War intervened. During the half century following the Revolution dissatisfaction with Tidewater control continued among the westerners. The
basic problem is that the eastern areas of Virginia encompassed a slave society, with a minority white population, while the western portion was
comprised of mostly non-slave-owning farmers and small tradesmen. However, the eastern portion of the state kept electoral control under a system by which
each county was represented by two members in the House of Delegates. Thus, even though the white population of the western portion of the state went
into a majority compared to the white male population of the east by the time of the 1840 census, only modest progress was made in equalizing political
representation. Pressures rising out of Southern Secession in 1860-61 provided the final breaking point. The heavily slave-holding eastern portion of
Virginia was naturally strongly secessionist. Under its influence a convention held in Richmond in April of 1861 voted 85 to 55 to join the
Confederacy. The opposing minority were mainly westerners, who returned to their region determined to go their own way. Two separate conventions were held in
Wheeling between May and August of 1861. The Second Convention voted to create a new state and put the proposal before the citizens of the proposed
thirty-nine separating counties. Western voters approved this proposal on October 24, and also picked delegates for a First Constitutional Convention.
The convention itself was held in February, 1862, and the constitution for a new state was approved by the voters on 4 April 1862. The U.S. Congress
and President Lincoln went through the processes of accepting the new state during the last half of 1862. A new constitution for West Virginia was
approved by the voters of thirty-eight of the counties on 18 February 1863, and the first state elections for West Virginia were held on 28 May. The First
Session of the new legislature was held in June 1863. (Documents that were part of the Early State Records collection were digitized from a microfilm
copy of titles originally held by the Library of Congress).
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