Stateside With Rosalea Barker: West Virginia

RIP Van Winkle! I’m sorry that your argument did not prevail; I would rather have liked to visit the Great State of Kanawha some day. (If only to see if that’s where Our Kiri came from.) But I jest, and West Virginia is no jesting matter. The 35th state to be admitted to the Union, it is the only one to secede from the Confederacy. Except that it didn’t, because the US Constitution says that no new state can be created from one already in existence without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress. Even though, by the end of 1861, 11 states had seceded—including Virginia--the Union never recognized their secession.

So, first of all, the folks in Western Virginia had to set up a legislature that claimed to represent Virginia, then they voted to allow themselves to form a new state and got Congress to go along with the idea, leaving the Old Dominion to its Confederate fate.

Which is where Van Winkle and his arguments to name the new state after one of its major rivers comes in. On December 3, 1861, at the First Constitutional Convention, Van Winkle asked that they get down to business and have Section 1 of the proposed state constitution read out:

It was read as follows:

Section 1. The State of Kanawha shall be and remain one of the United States of America. The Constitution of the United States, and the laws and treaties made in pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme law of the land.

MR. SINSEL. Mr. President, in the first section I move to strike out the word "Kanawha."

MR. POWELL. I second that.

MR. VAN WINKLE. I should like, sir, to hear some reason assigned if there is any, why this name is not a good one.

And thus the arguments began. The constitutional convention lasted two years, and West Virginia wasn’t admitted as a state until June 20, 1863.

I suppose it is too much to hope, dear reader, that you share my own predilection for parliamentary debates, but there is much to be gained from reading about how West Virginia got its name at http://www.wvculture.org/history/statehood/statename.html

May I tempt you with this morsel from later in the debate, after the two-hour lunch break:

MR. SINSEL. After hearing the apology from the gentleman from Wood, I wish to make a few remarks.

MR. VAN WINKLE. No "apology", sir, I made an explanation. I offer no apology for anything I do.

Or with this one:

MR. LAMB. … But what have we here in western Virginia to attach us to the name of Virginia. Sir, I have been an inhabitant of western Virginia for thirty odd years. During that time what have we received here but oppression, and outrage I may say, from the State of Virginia. During that time our people having been constantly complaining of the course of policy that has been forced upon them. We have been denied by the State of Virginia, for many long years, our proper share in the representation and government of the State. Look at the policy of Virginia in regard to improvements. Loaded down with a debt from which she never can recover, the proceeds of that debt invested in public improvements and public buildings. Where is the one foot of these improvements - where is the one public building - within the borders of western Virginia?

But I have to say that my very favorite part of the name debate comes at the end. Having voted to strike the word “Kanawha” from Section 1, there’s a flurry of motions and amendments to fill the gap with a different name—Alleghany, Columbia, New Virginia. Mr. Lamb at first suggests that “When we cannot untie a knotty proposition, it may be better to cut it. I should move, if it would meet with general concurrence, that members write upon separate ballots the names they prefer, that those ballots be handed to the clerk to be by him counted and the name which has a majority in its favor be inserted.”

After a bit of confusion, the amendments and the original motion to name it Alleghany are withdrawn, and “West Virginia” is finally decided upon using a method we would recognize today as (almost) Instant Runoff Voting:

MR. LAMB. I have attempted to state it several times. It is, that the roll should be called, and that each member in answer to his name should mention the name he preferred for the new State, to be taken down by the Secretary, and that if any one name has a majority of the votes of the members in its favor, that shall be adopted as the name of the new State, but if no name has a majority of such vote, the lowest shall be dropped and the roll shall be called again, and so on until such majority is obtained.

--PEACE—

rosalea.barker@gmail.com

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