the Potomac. Christopher Gist, a surveyor in the employ of the first Ohio Company (see Ohio Company), which was composed chiefly of Virginians, in 1751-1752 explored the country along the Ohio river north of the mouth of the Kanawha, and the company sought to have a fourteenth colony established with the name “Vandalia.” Many settlers crossed the mountains after 1750, though they were somewhat hindered by Indian depredations. Probably no Indians lived within the present limits of the state, but the region was a common hunting ground, crossed also by many war trails, and during the French and Indian war (1754-63) the scattered settlements were almost destroyed. In 1774 the governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, himself led a force over the mountains, and a body of militia under General Andrew Lewis dealt the Shawnee Indians under Cornstalk a crushing blow at Point Pleasant (q.v.) at the junction of the Kanawha and the Ohio rivers, but Indian attacks continued until after the War of Independence. During the war the settlers in Western Virginia were generally active Whigs and many served in the Continental army.
Social conditions in western Virginia were entirely unlike those existing in the eastern portion of the state. The population was not homogeneous, as a considerable part of the immigration came by way of Pennsylvania and included Germans, the Protestant Scotch-Irish and settlers from the states farther north. During the War of Independence the movement to create another state beyond the Alleghanies was revived, and a petition (1776) for the establishment of “Westsylvania” was presented to Congress, on the ground that the mountains made an almost impassable barrier on the east. The rugged nature of the country made slavery unprofitable, and time only increased the social, political and economic differences between the two sections of the state. The convention which met in 1829 to form a new constitution for Virginia, against the protest of the counties beyond the mountains, required a property qualification for suffrage, and gave the slave-holding counties the benefit of three-fifths of their slave population in apportioning the state's representation in the lower Federal house. As a result every county beyond the Alleghanies except one voted to reject the constitution, which was nevertheless carried by eastern votes. Though the Virginia constitution of 1850 provided for white manhood suffrage, yet the distribution of representation among the counties was such as to give control to the section east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Another grievance of the West was the large expenditure for internal improvements at state expense in the East compared with the scanty proportion allotted to the West. For an account of the Virginia convention of 1861, which adopted the Ordinance of Secession, see Virginia. Here it is sufficient to say that only nine of the forty-six delegates from the present state of West Virginia voted to secede. Almost immediately after the adoption of the ordinance a mass meeting at Clarksburg recommended that each county in north-western Virginia send delegates to a convention to meet in Wheeling on the 13th of May 1861. When this “First Wheeling Convention” met, four hundred and twenty-five delegates from twenty-five counties were present, but soon there was a division of sentiment. Some delegates favoured the immediate formation of a new state, but the more far-sighted members argued that as the ordinance had not yet been voted upon by the people, and Virginia was still in the Union, such action would be revolutionary, since the United States Constitution provides that no state may be divided without its consent. Therefore it was voted that in case the ordinance should be adopted (of which there was little doubt) another convention including the members-elect of the legislature should meet at Wheeling on the 11th of June. At the election (23rd May 1861) the ordinance was ratified by a large majority in the state as a whole, but in the western counties 40,000 votes out of 44,000 were cast against it. The “Second Wheeling Convention” met according to agreement (11th June), and declared that, since the Secession Convention had been called without the consent of the people, all its acts were void, and that all who adhered to it had vacated their offices. An act for the “reorganization” of the government was passed on the 19th of June. The next day Francis H. Pierpont was chosen governor of Virginia, other officers were elected and the convention adjourned. The legislature, composed of the members from the western counties who had been elected on the 23rd of May and some of the holdover senators who had been elected in 1859, met at Wheeling on the 1st of July, filled the remainder of the state offices, organized a state government and elected two United States senators who were recognized at Washington. There were, therefore, two state governments in Virginia, one owning allegiance to the United States and one to the Confederacy. The Convention, which had taken a recess until the 6th of August, then reassembled and (August 20) adopted an ordinance providing for a popular vote on the formation of a new state, and for a convention to frame a constitution if the vote should be favourable. At the election (October 24, 1861) 18,489 votes were cast for the new state and only 781 against. The convention met on the 26th of November 1861, and finished its work on the 18th of February 1862, and the instrument was ratified by the people (18,162 for and 514 against) on the 11th of April 1862. Next the legislature of the “Reorganized” government on the 13th of May gave its consent to the formation of the new state. Application for admission to the Union was now made to Congress, and on the 31st of December 1862 an enabling act was approved by President Lincoln admitting the state on the condition that a provision for the gradual abolition of slavery be inserted in the Constitution. The Convention was reconvened on the 12th of February 1863, and the demand of Congress was met. The revised instrument was adopted by the people on the 26th of March 1863, and on the 20th of April 1863 President Lincoln issued a proclamation admitting the state at the end of sixty days (June 20, 1863). Meanwhile officers for the new state were chosen, and Governor Pierpont removed his capital to Alexandria where he asserted jurisdiction over the counties of Virginia within the Federal lines. The question of the constitutionality of the formation of the new state was brought before the Supreme Court of the United States in the following manner. Berkeley and Jefferson counties lying on the Potomac east of the mountains, in 1863, with the consent of the “Reorganized” government of Virginia voted in favour of annexation to West Virginia. Many voters absent in the Confederate army when the vote was taken refused to acknowledge the transfer on their return. The Virginia legislature repealed the act of cession and in 1866 brought suit against West Virginia asking the court to declare the counties a part of Virginia. Meanwhile Congress on the 10th of March 1866 passed a joint resolution recognizing the transfer. The Supreme Court in 1871 decided in favour of West Virginia, and there has been no further question. During the Civil War West Virginia suffered comparatively little. McClellan's forces gained possession of the greater part of the territory in the summer of 1861, and Union control was never seriously threatened, in spite of Lee's attempt in the same year. In 1863 General John D. Imboden, with 5000 Confederates, overran a considerable portion of the state. Bands of guerrillas burned and plundered in some sections, and were not entirely suppressed until after the war was ended. The state furnished about 36,000 soldiers to the Federal armies and somewhat less than 10,000 to the Confederate. The absence in the army of the Confederate sympathizers helps to explain the small vote against the formation of the new state. During the war and for years afterwards partisan feeling ran high. The property of Confederates might be confiscated, and in 1866 a constitutional amendment disfranchising all who had given aid and comfort to the Confederacy was adopted. The addition of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution caused a reaction, the Democratic party secured control in 1870, and in 1871 the constitutional amendment of 1S66 was abrogated. The first steps toward this change had been taken, however, by the Republicans in 1870. In 1872 an entirely new constitution was adopted (August 22).
Though the first constitution provided for the assumption of a part of the Virginia debt, negotiations opened by Virginia in 1870 were fruitless, and in 1871 that state funded two-thirds of the debt and arbitrarily assigned the remainder to West Virginia.
