on sundays, book tv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. funding for c-span2 comes from these television companies and more, including cox. >> one connection is needed most, cox is there to help .bringing affordable internet to families in need , new tech the boys and girls club's, and support the veterans. whenever and wherever it matters most. we will be there. >> cox, stte along with these company supports c-span2 as a public service. >> welcome back. we are obviously at that point in the semester when we look at west virginia stated in the creation of the state we are currently in. we can stop talking about western virginia and eastern virginia. we have a looking at the

device between eastern and western virginia. we have talked about some of the political differences. the grievances westerners have about the lack of funding for internal improvements, roads and highways. we talked about the very complex role of slavery in the region. we left off last time looking at their virginia secession convention when delegates decided to pull virginia out of the union in april of 1861. shortly thereafter that, delegates go back to their home counties. we talked about this last time. they are trying to get support for a statewide referendum on secession. even though the richmond secession convention voted to take routine out of the union, the vote gets to go to the people in late may of 1861. delegates go back to their home counties. one of the first things that starts to gain traction is to

hold a meeting in the northern panhandle of west virginia in wheeler. at what is known as the first of several wheeling conventions. this is the meetings that will create the current state we are residing in. at the first meeting one of the key figures, john carlisle of harrison county, a leader of this sort of statewide push noted pretty dramatically early on, let us act. let us repudiate these usurpations. let us show our loyalty to virginia and the union. but is mart -- let us maintain ourselves in the union at every hazard. i for one over people was set by one of virginia's most noblest sunset great statement, give me liberty or give me death. kind of suggesting we want to stay loyal in the union. the things we have been seeing for many of the people here in the west. remember carlisle a little later on. he will evolve a little bit.

as we noted, the secession convention votes to secede. this is their third vote. they had voted a couple of times to not to see from the union. -- secede from the union. after lincoln's order for troops several days later the convention votes this time out of the union. there is going to be about a month or so later a statewide vote on secession. both armies are mobilizing during this period. there's a lot of action that will take place during this time. as you can see from this cartoon, how virginia was voted out of the union. yes. if you said no in the east, you got a bayonet pointing at you. in the west there is a large amount of support for staying in the union. there's a lot of debate over what to do next.

just a little bit of review to note there are several key figures in the statehood movement. we will talk about three of them today. the two early leaders are john carlisle, on the right, a former congressman from harrison county. he was very vocal in support of the union and maintaining slavery. the man on the bottom left was a noted figure in state politics, a former whig. in 1859, candidate for lieutenant governor of the state of virginia. both men and others like them in the west consistently argued that the planter class of eastern virginia was enslaving the non-slaveholding class of white residents in the west. we talked about how the rhetoric

was amplified in newspapers and the and conventions in other areas. it was a common refrain throughout this period. obviously, we talked about what happened after the virginia secession convention. what starts happening next is delegates start going to wheeling. you see it up confronting you now. a list of counties where people decided to go to wheeling. it might be small but if you look at that light gray shaded counties, they are sending delegates. anything maybe that jumps out at you as you look at it, the representation here? >> [indiscernible] william: yeah. somebody coming from frederick county, virginia. interesting. anyone else? >> is gonna split in half, north and south of who -- william: you can see a natural

split maybe south to north and also east to west to a certain extent. anybody else? recover the vote on secession -- remember the vote on secession? does it match up to what you are never from that somewhat? fairly close? we can see there's a large number of counties that become west virginia they do not send anyone. how did they end up being in a new state? we will get into that. here's where it's going to start to get a little tricky. feel free to ask questions at any time if something does not make sense. about a week or so before the statewide vote delegates meeting wheeling. it's often a misconception they meet and what is known as independence hall. they actually need in this building called washington home. -- hall. they meet over a few days. as you can tell from that map,

only 27 counties were represented. it is roughly half. many counties in southern and eastern parts of the state sent no one. at this convention there were two to arguments -- two arguments that came out. broad-based are commits -- arguments. when delegates as the secession convention acted illegally and we need to -- john carlile says cut the not now -- knot now. carlile has been the most vocal supporter of this idea but there are problems. it is like anything in politics. if you suggest something rhetorically when there is no -- nothing at stake, it's easy to rally support. all of a sudden this is real, serious. people start wondering, what is actually going to look like?

what is the process going to look like? as the convention goes on, carlile's exuberance is sort of overshadowed by more conservative approaches led by primarily waitman willey who argues we should not try to get ahead of public opinion. we should wait and see what happens with the statewide referendum. that will actually take virginia out of the union. if we want to stay loyal to the country after that, that's privately fine. let's not try to put the cart before the horse. the convention says it will go back to their home counties, try to rally support that way. willey suggest the idea that if virginia does secede, we should create some sort of government that represents the union loving people of virginia. it's a vague idea. when the referendum happens, what is now the state of west virginia, the vote is

overwhelmingly against secession. look at this vote. while it is a majority, there are 19,000 voters in what becomes west virginia who want to secede. it is a majority. it is not a big of a majority has most people often think. particularly in the eighth grade west virginia history class. everybody wanted. this suggests that is the case. yeah? >> what was the explicit reason for having a convention? william: i think to have an organized meeting where everybody could get on the same page about -- there were different ideas happening at the local county meetings right after the convention in richmond in april. they are saying we want to actually have a strategy of what we want to do. we need to actually start

creating a process. are we going to create a new state? they want to get themselves organized. any other questions? >> was the main virginia government aware of this? william: they were aware of it. they probably were not happy about it. there was nothing they could do about it. that will be a problem that will come up again. this is what we looked at last time. if you remember what we looked at before about delegates at the convention, it's roughly similar. as we noted last time, we have interesting outlier counties where the large massive salt industry and saltworks are. a few counties in the interior that are not supporting staying in the union. roughly half. this would suggest the loyal state of virginia.

with this vote in hand, delegates convened. this time they meet at the federal customs house located on 16th street in downtown wheeling. if you go there today you will still see this building. it is called west virginia independence hall. this convention lasts a little longer, several weeks. it is known as the second wheeling convention. this is the key convention in the state's creation in my book. this is where much of the organized structure of what will take place is going to get off the ground. we will be talking about the civil military side of this separately. i should note, after the virginia statewide referendum, the union army has entered western virginia at wheeling and parker's bill. they are starting to move east. east along the railroad, the turnpike. confederate are mobilizing -- confederates are mobilizing your

grafton. there are concerns the army wants to secure the region. the key figure that comes out of this convention who's probably the key figure we will talk about moving forward is system and, francis pierpont. there's a statute to him on the corner of the street in front of independence hall. pierpont was born in 1814 in morgantown. he was a schoolteacher and became an attorney. we set up a lucrative law practice in fairmont and was heavily involved in legal issues with the railroad. he was a friend of weightma -- waitman willey.he went to school with gordon patel. pierpont was investing early in coal mining and the railroad industry, the future of what west virginia would become. like willey, he was a little worried that people like carlile

wanted to go to quick. after the first convention he had been tasked to figure up a strategy. his wife famously said he was in his study looking over the way this could possibly happen and she reported at one point he said, eureka. i have found it. he was looking at the u.s. constitution. does anybody know how you create a new state in the u.s. constitution? any constitutionalists? if that part of civics class you never get to. >> approval of the previous state part of the federal government. william: right. you need the federal government's approval and the approval of the state you are wanting to take territory from. so, we need the virginia government in richmond to approve the creation of west virginia. is ever going to happen? that's the part of the

wheeling convention, how was i going to work? they latched onto something willey talked about another's. -- and others. basically what we will do is the virginia government enrichment has left the united states. it is no longer under the u.s. constitution. the loyal american citizens in virginia are allowed to reconstitute, reorganize the government of virginia as part of this emerging civil war. they will create and try to create a reorganized unionist government. that government will manage virginia's affairs and get permission for the creation of west virginia. any obvious questions here? were still good? we will see in a minute if were still ok. this works fairly well.

they basically agree to this. there are only 88 delegates at the second wheeling convention. it's a little smaller than the first one. they hold their meetings in the customs house. they are going to choose a number of key people. the chairman of the commission is actually going to be the first governor west virginia, arthur borman. you might guess he might be the person they are thinking of to be the governor virginia. maybe him. we don't want to give anything away. throughout this whole period, was this legal? was this ok? what you are looking at is a letter from abraham lincoln to the honorable francis pierpont in march of 1862. this is one of my favorite letters from lincoln. this is from lincoln. it might be hard to see. make haste slowly.

if you know anything about lincoln, this sums up his political personality well. make haste, slowly. go quickly with what you are doing but don't miss any steps. that's one week and interpret it. we don't have context of what lincoln is referring to here. it's a little unclear. >> focus on what you are doing but when you walk to class today, you have to get there but as i see. william: right. that's a good point. you gotta go quickly but you don't want to fall down and break a leg. that's a good point. yeah. there's the other obvious thing here. lincoln is writing a letter to pierpont. is he calling the government? no.

it is very wishy washy. he's telling him what to do. you could say he's not the governor virginia but this will be important. the issue of consent will be a very important part of the story. we have to get into some of the nitty-gritty steps they take. i showed that letter to emphasize the way they go about it. they take a conservative approach. early on in the meeting we have 88 delegates. one of the first things they do, john carlisle -- carlile, chair of the committee on business, a key committee at the convention, he presents what he calls the declaration of the people of virginia. declaring their rights as u.s. citizens and virginians, and proposes the idea of reorganizing government.

the irony in this statement is he actually says as well that secession itself is illegal. you might be sitting there wondering, wait a minute. aren't we going to do the same thing? and the way it's described, you start hearing this, what virginia did in the richmond government, they is he succeeded from the united states -- seceded from the united states. what we're going to do is we're going to eventually see seed to be loyal -- secede to be loyal. it's an entirely different thing, a different concept. supposedly. a few days later, the committee, the convention itself, passes an ordinance to create the reorganized government of virginia. so this is the government of virginia that will be centered in wheeling. you might be asking yourself, are you saying there's two virginia governments?

yes. there's one in richmond, that's in the confederate states of america, and there's one in wheeling. the restored government of virginia. virginia. we're still we're still good. so with this now that they've said that we're loyal to the united states, we're going to reorganize the government, the next day, june 20, note the date, june 20, 1861, they will choose officers for this reorganized government. and if you're wondering, the suspense is over, the governor is named of virginia. he's the governor of virginia from 1861 to i believe 1868 or 1869. if you ever go to the virginia state capitol, tell me if you see a bust to him amongst the governors. but he will be obviously selected as the governor and

other key representatives of this new government will be chosen as time goes on. so i think we have to get into, first, looking at this restored government of virginia and maybe seeing what do they do as a government. so it's fine to say you've reorganized the government, but are there any problems with this? like just thinking, like, we're going to create a loyal government. now what do we do? yeah, liam? >> are they actually in charge of anything? are they making decisions, not just are we going to be pro-union but in terms of governing their land now? william: can we govern the territory like a government does of a state or country or anywhere else? yes. >> how is virginia reacting, eastern virginia? are they ready to go to war with west virginia itself? i doubt that they'd taken this very lightly here. william: no. >> seems like they'd be pretty set about that. william: by the time the second wheeling convention is going on,

we have active military operations in the region. the union army has very successfully moved across much of the northern half of what's now the state which is an important factor in terms of -- to liam's point also, actually being able to govern a certain territory. but no, they're not happy about this at all. in any stretch of the imagination. so they now have to have a third convention, the one takeaway today will be lots of conventions. lots of meetings. and this is a special session that governor calls of the virginia general assembly. ok. all right. now, why he's doing this is because the virginia general assembly has left the united states and joined the confederacy. if we're going to have a government, we have to reconstitute a state legislature. so they reconstitute with eight state senators and 32 delegates. that's probably smaller than what the actual prior virginia

government's legislature was. true. and it represents not the same amount of territory. there are other problems and several of you have hinted at the obvious problems. governing territory. how are these people chosen for office? were they elected? not really. kind of -- they're kind of appointed by the convention. there's going to be a lot of discussion about that. but because of what the virginia government itself has done, there's not as much concern about what a loyal union government is doing. this is a nonchartered territory so everybody's kind of operating in the blind so to speak. liam, to your point, there is not a lot of institutions, so they have to create a -- reconstitute a legislature. one of the biggest things is they actually need to get funding. they need to get more revenue. do they have the taxing power? well, not entirely yet.

so they'll get donations from wealthy individuals, they'll get some money from the federal government. interesting. one of my favorite incidents is they actually seize the virginia state bank in weston. i usually joke, you know, think of a bank robbery. it's not exactly what it is. but, you know. they need revenue to do things. now, some of this is a little more serious. they actually need to deal with the fact that there's a lot of people who weren't loyal to the union. so they will force all county elected officials to sign a loyalty oath to virginia, the restored government of virginia, and the union. anybody who is not willing to do that is removed from their position. put in jail. so there is a heavy amount of coercion that's going to happen. but again, this is a unique situation.

the other thing they have to do, remember after fort sump ter, lincoln called for troops from all the states. virginia hasn't sent troops. so one of the first things the governor's government does is they raise several regiments of troops. it doesn't meet the entire virginia quota but it shows that they are a functioning government. and thattrary trying to meet their obligations to the federal government. interesting. they create a new general assembly as we've mentioned. and they select representatives to the house of representatives in washington. the obvious question. wait for a constitutional person to ask. >> during the first, what, two years of the civil war, there were virginia representatives in the -- william: two different

governments. >> in the federal government? william: well -- >> that they send to congress? william: that's a good point. what happens is whenever the secession crisis happen, virginia leaves and other states leave, their representatives in washington vacate their seats. so virginia's slate of congressmen and senators, they go to the confederate congress. some of them. some of them join the military. one of them's albert jenkins that we mentioned briefly. he had been the congressman from western virginia, he forms a confederate cavalry. so these seats need to be filled and they get filled. do all of them get filled? eh maybe. on july 13, the convention chooses two representatives for the u.s. senate from virginia. john carlyle and willey. not surprising. the two leading figures for years for west virginia statehood or at least against the grievances against west virginia. we have organized state

government. we have active military operations happening that the unionists will see next week as being very successful. and there's moves to create a new state. any questions so far? yeah. >> is slavery discussed at all at these conventions? william: not very much. and that gets to an interesting point that scholars have not fully appreciated, more recent scholars have, that they do talk about slavery. but the reality is a lot of the delegates at the convention are either slave holders or people who adopt as sort of moderate pro-slavery approach we've been talking about. that's going to slowly change because people like pierpont, he's a little moranity slavery, let's say. and self-of the other people that will get involved -- several of the people that will get involved later will be more so. >> you talked about lack of funding. where all these states seceded and there was federal government floating around there, i understand they were raising, you know, money and troops for our war.

but did not some of that get reallocated to west virginia being a new state or -- some federal but -- william: they're getting a decent amount of federal support which later becomes a legal question that if the federal government is giving the reorganized government federal money, are they recognizing it as the state government of virginia? it could be. make haste slowly. lincoln's words of wisdom. so, they are getting things organized. and on august 20, the convention approves a dismemberment ordinance. it sounds scary. dismembering -- those of you in biology or any of the health science, dismemberment means what? cutting off a limb, cutting off a part of something. that's literally what they're suggesting. we are going to cut off a part of virginia to form a new state.

so they've said, we're loyal to the union. we've created a new loyal government and reorganized it. and that government, the government of virginia, to the point earlier, is going to approve the creation of a separate state. through this dismemberment ordinance. everybody clear. and that new state is -- wait, what? what? kanawha. this comes out of those early meetings. this was the proposed state in that dismemberment ordinance known as kanawha. any obvious questions? there's one obvious one. where did it go? the shaded area is obviously the part of kanawha, would be this new state. what's left out? yeah. >> the panhandle and the greenbrier valley. william: yeah, a good portion of the greenbrier valley. murcer county, monroe county.

much of the eastern panhandle. anybody in here from the eastern panhandle? you would have been in virginia. anybody think maybe why these are the only counties they're included? yes? >> i don't know where it was 100 years prior that had any relevance, but there was a fairfax company. i don't know if there was any pull -- i don't know if that had any relevance. william: the relevant point there is that they're part of old virginia. remember, we've talked about this regionalism within the state. nobody ever really considered the eastern panhandle, what now the eastern panhandle it, hey, that's western virginia. they thought of it as part of eastern virginia. greenbrier valley, same thing. the other reality too is those are areas where there are active confederate military operations. confederate troops. they're stationed near the greenbrier.

and in front of you, you have a handout that is showing what this dismemberment ordinance did was the convention approved this, and like with the secession convention, they held a statewide referendum. and this referendum is held on october 24. any obvious questions as you look at this map? and on the backside you have the actual election returns. remember, we had a decent turnout for the secession. any observations as you're taking a look over that? it's very interesting. >> looking at calhoun county.

it says they're not participating because of issues from the civil war. but they're in the pocket of everyone else that is participating. william: sure. it's suggesting the type of warfare that's starting to happen, we'll call it guerrilla warfare. so there are certain interior counties where it's going to be difficult to hold some of these votes. what else? >> there are a couple counties that supported secession that now are supporting statehood as well. william: so they flipped. >> if the statehood was based on, like, consent of virginia, quite a bit of the territory wasn't even voting, then why did they say that was there? william: sure. you can see there's some counties where it's saying at some point in the future there will be a vote on inclusion. they can't -- why wouldn't they hold this vote right now? why wouldn't they want to hold it?

they wouldn't want to hold the vote in greenbrier county because they'd say, no, we don't want to join the new state. we're part of virginia. that's where the confederate army is. >> i was going to go off of hampshire and hardy were both counties that participated in the referendum and they were on to be added if majority of voters were approved. it's interesting that they were in both. william: yeah. you can see a set of counties on the border with virginia and eastern panhandle where it's kind of like in the future, maybe they'll get included. >> they're flirting with the idea. william: yeah. yeah. yeah. any other observations? >> the entire wyoming county form a military regiment and vote as that? william: not exactly sure. but those are all, again, counties in the southern -- deep southern part of the state where there is a lot of confederate support, there's active operations. most of the people who have joined to fight are fighting for the confederacy for sure. the other thing, look at the overall vote.

700 or so people voting against the creation of the new state. you think that's accurate? some of you shaking your heads no. >> why was there so many voters that just didn't vote? william: good question. does anybody know how you voted back then? now we have secret ballots, it's all very -- [indiscernible] -- you would go before a board of commissioners and you'd be asked, how do you vote on this? how do you vote on the question of statehood? i vote yes. in front of a group of people. so let's say, let's say, max, he decides he comes up to the meeting and he goes, i vote no. le excuse me, sir. are you a secessionist? are you aiding the confederacy? what are you doing?

well, maybe anybody behind them is going to go -- mm, maybe i don't vote or maybe i don't engage in this. given a simplistic description of what would happen but there is a certain level of coercion here. the reality is, in our system, we count the people who vote. if you don't vote, you're giving your as itity consent, let's sas say. so the referendum, the voters approved the new state of kanawha. that will be made up of just 39 counties, so it's a little bit bigger than what we've seen up to this point. and just for our purposes of counting the tally, the statewide tally is 18,484 for the state. 781 opposed. you should really highly question that vote count. but it's the votes we have. there will be a number of these statewide referendums, every time they happen, the percentage

of people participating gets less and less. but the other reality to be fair, it is a time of war. so they're trying to do this and get public input when there's all kinds of devastating military action happening across the state. so there will be a group of counties that will be added at some point in the future. but again, just to note, we had roughly a 37% voter turnout which today if we got 37% for a referendum, we would love that. but at this time, this is a period of high levels of voter turnout, so this is very, very low. so there will be seven counties that would be added if a majority approved sometime later. they're mainly those counties you saw in the eastern and sort of mountainous counties like greenbrier. there are going to be some additional ones that will be added at some point as well down the road as well. if you're trying to wonder how we're going to get to the number of counties.

so now we have to have another convention in wheeling this. one is a constitutional convention. so now the voters have approved the creation of the new state of kanawha. it's still kanawha at this point. and they're going to meet, and this is where they're going to get into the more nitty gritty questions some of you have raised. they're going to meet in late 1861 into 1862 and really try to hash out some of these issues. this convention will meet for months, it will be smaller, about 56 delegates. and they will try to sort out a number of pressing issues that still exist. one thing the convention does is they will allow for the incollusion of the following -- inclusion of the following counties if they vote to join west virginia. frederick, jefferson, barkley, morgan, hampshire, hardy,

pocahontas, highland, ba'ath andal ghani. if they choose to join -- bath and allegheny. if they choose to join. what you're looking at is a tally of votes that they had a problem with. the name. they were like, kanawha. it's a little too regional in focus. there were a lot of names pitched. if you look there, you'll see augusta, allegheny, western virginia. we could be here in morgantown, in the state of kanawha. imagine that on your letter head. probably the best argument given was a simple one from willey. the name kanawha is a very hard name to spell. i think the rose would smell sweeter by some other name. if you know here, our county is spelled one way but the river is

spelled a different way. sort of interesting. so as you can see, the vote total, obviously the most votes are for the state to be named west virginia. they emphasize that west versus east dynamic. there is discussion as well about the boundary. as i mentioned, there are 39 counties, there will be initially it's sort of debated that there will be five counties that can be included at some point in the future and then as i mentioned this, he will also rule that there can be a large set of other counties that if they vote in the future, they can also join the new state. if you're wondering, there's a few counties that are created after the civil war. lincoln, grant in particular. this number will roughly get us to the current composition of the state that we have. so there will be five additional ones and then seven more that

are going to be allowed to vote sometime in the future. and i think you all appreciate why that's going to happen. in the future. >> so in regards to the stuff we learned earlier about that one -- you have the picture where it has east and west, it has planter versus mountaineer and we think about the previous conventions in virginia, the issues that kept arising. did that play a part in choosing west virginia? was that deliberate because of those divides that had happened over the years? william: i think it is. even the discussion about it, you get a sense of, there's this sense, we want to distinguish ourselves from over there. and if you pick kanawha, it's also very regionally specific. even augusta is a little bit regionally specific. remember, we mentioned before they want -- there was an earlier attempt to call it vandalia. those names have a certain distinctive quality to them whereas west virginia always tells you, we left you.

it's a way of kind of sticking a knife in a little. to be honest. that is kind of a little bit of what it is. so, the convention has ruled on a number of different sort of pressing issues. and voters across the region or the state approved the new constitution. i will note, we'll get to this next week, jefferson and berkeley don't participate in that vote. there will be a little bit of an issue after the war. especially those of you from jefferson and berkeley county. and for anybody watching, jefferson and berkeley county are two of the biggest counties now in the state. so their inclusion has always garnered some interesting comments over the years, let's say. greenbrier county will be included in this as well.

but again, they haven't been really included up to this point. and by may, this issue is getting sort of largely resolved. and so, by may, the state of virginia and its legislature and its governor gives permission to the creation of west virginia. so governor pierpont has given his consent. remember that letter from lincoln, it was like spring of 1862? make haste slowly. hm. hm. is he gives his permission? it's not clear. any questions so far?

if you're still wondering, the government of richmond really hates this. but they can't do anything at this point. you have to sort of accept the fact that if secession from the union is unconstitutional, that this can all happen. that what richmond did with the secession convention did and then the state govern did in richmond -- government did in richmond made any decision what they had going on out here null and void. now it's going to go to congress. now the issue here, and i want to make sure we go through this carefully, there are still some sticking issues that have not yet been resolved to the point that it needs to be. and one of the major ones is slavery. up to this point, west virginia is going to be a slave state when it enters the union. in the convention debates, there have been very few people that we would even suggest are abolitionists. the only one really is this

gentleman here, gordon from ohio county. he's a minister. he has been one of the more vocal supporters that west virginia should be a state that emancipates its slaves. but the general consensus of these conventions is that west virginia's going to be a slave state. like other border states. and when they start this process, slavery is not necessarily the only key issue. it's many issues. but by 1862, the war's changing. slavery and ending of slavery is becoming more of a priority for lincoln's government and the union. and so there's a lot of debate. delegates like gordon want to immediately end slavery the moment the state is created. let's get rid of it. let's join this sort of emancipationist movement. the majority opinion is held by people like john carlile that like everything else, it needs to be given to the voters of

west virginia to decide. if they want to end slavery, then that's fine. carlile consistently always talks about and throughout many of these periods that we've talked about, the role slavery plays in america. he's a defender of slavery in many respects for sure. so obviously -- as a slave holder himself, you know, he has particular views on this that are different than others. and so the idea basically kind of gets punted and when the bill is introduced in congress in the fall of 1862, carlile introduces a bill that shocks everybody. he includes counties in the shenandoah valley and in southwestern virginia that nobody had ever really talked about other than just in small debate. he included this massive new territory that had never really been approved and of course he kind of is vague on this issue

of slavery. but in essence, it is not going to be a free state by any stretch of the imagination. now, if you know anything about congress at this time, because none of the southern states have representatives there, it is a supermajority republican congress. much more abolitionist. and so from the get go, people like charles sumner, good night that got caned on the floor of the senate, he's against the creation of this state. if it is going to create and maintain slavery. and there's a lot of debate about this. and carlile really doesn't want to budge so willey is going to have to step in and propose an amendment to the statehood bill. his amendment is a compromise. and it will institute a system of gradual emancipation.

so this is kind of meeting the situation sort of midway. so that when the state comes into effect, and they think it's going to be july, it ends up being june eventually. whenever the state comes into effect, any slave who is 21 years or older will be immediately freed. in the new state of west virginia. freed immediately. if you're not 21, you remain a slave until you turn 21. does everybody understand what that's going to mean? i mean, obviously this is a moot point because of the 13th amendment. to end slavery in the whole country. but basically when west virginia's going to be approved by congress and when it's being created, it will be created with slavery still maintained and if

the 13th amendment had not happened, if you were born right before the state went into effect, you could have theoretically been a slave well into the 1880's, if we hadn't had the emancipation proclamation, not that, because that was a war measure. if we didn't have the 13th amendment, obviously th 13nd amendment makes this whole issue null and void. but the tate is admit -- state is admitted as a slave state. that's very, very important to remember. it's not admitted as a totally free state. is there any questions about that? it's very important. i think it represents a lot of these sort of questions you've all had all semester about the role of slavery in west virginia too. >> was which will willey a supporter slavery himself? william: he had been but i think he also realizes that this is a good compromise measure too. he was kind of known as being a compromiser. sort of let's give all sides -- >> because i feel like the

people that were slave owners or big supporters of slavery would have at that time tried to gather slaves by slaves that were 9, 10 years old -- i feel like that was just -- i don't know if he had a consortium that he was trying to please in that regard. william: let's be honest. in america, the value of slaves, the younger slaves, are worth more too. so this is a way to placate slave owners because you're going to allow them to keep their youngest slaves, their most valuable slaves. yeah. it is a reality. this new state also will be the boundary that we all know and love. and so the senate is given the bill, there is still heavy opposition to it, but it passes by a margin of 23-17. so there's a vigorous debate about it.

one of the no votes is john carlile from west virginia. i told you at the beginning, remember carlile. if you ever want to go into politics, this is how you end your political career. everybody wonders what this is about. historians have debated this for years. >> 239-17 vote, is that in the u.s. congress? william: u.s. senate. so the state of virginia's given its permission. the congress now has to give its permission. so they've given -- the senate's given its permission with carlile, the vocal leader of the statehood movement saying, no, i don't want it. if i don't get it the way i want it basically, too bad. obviously his view on slavery is important. his main gripe was the fact that congress could intervene at this point to say that this new state had to be on the path of grat eud emancipation -- gradual emancipation. but it obviously means -- it passes the house of representatives. there's a debate but it's not as strong once the which willey --

the willey means is added to it and of course it goes to president lincoln. lincoln's a strict follower of the constitution. and like many things with his cabinet, he gives to his cabinet to help him give him their opinion. he has six cabinet members. how do you think they give him feedback? three say we support and three say we don't. it's up to you, mr. president. and lincoln debates this for a while. he has to decide upon it by december 31, 1862. keep in mind, the two things on his desk are the emancipation proclamation and this bill about west virginia. he's convinced about the first one. the second one, he actually -- he really debates whether -- is this setting a bad precedent? and he really debates it until the very, very, very end. big spoiler alert, how does he -- how do you think he rules?

in a very short signing statement, it's very short and concise, lincoln makes it very clear that west virginia's creation is expedient to winning the civil war and as commander in chief his job is to win this war and bring the country back together. he argues that without west virginia, this could potentially lead to the other loss of the border states like kentucky and missouri and other places, which has been a key factor in this throughout. if they lose the border states, it makes it difficult for the union to wage its military campaigns in the south. and he states pretty clearly, a precedent in times of war is not a precedent in times of peace. this will never happen again unless we have a civil war. it is approved. it will have to go back to the state's voters to approve the

change with the willey amendment that was made that would be approved overwhelmingly and when this is a approved, lincoln issues a proclamation on april 20, 1863, that 60 days would go into effect the creation of west virginia on june 20, 1863. west virginia enters as the 35th state. with i think the best creation story of all of them. but i'm biased. so we will wrap things up there and we will look at the civil war and one question we're going to get into is the politics of how this factored into the civil war, particularly the legality question which is not brought up by virginia per se, it's actually brought up by jefferson berkeley county which is now part of the new state. thanks, everybody. and thank you for your attention and i'll see you next week. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2025]

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>> order! >> in a nation divided, a rare moment of unity. this fall, c-span presents "ceasefire," where the shouting stops and the conversation begins, in a town where partisan fighting prevails. one table, two leaders, one goal. to find common ground. this fall, "ceasefire" on the network that doesn't take sides. only on c-span. so let's talk >> so let's talk about world war ii. so, world war ii entanglements. today we're going to talk about japan and hawaii. so we're looking at these intanglements specifically in the pacific. what do i mean by entanglements? this word refers to the intimate