Pretty much as the title, my understanding (such that it is) is that during the late unpleasantness the counties that comprised West Virginia weren’t down with that whole seceding business and split off to remain in the Union.
So, when the business was amicably resolved, why didn’t the other states prod them back in to rejoining? Obviously they wouldn’t want to (who’d want to give up 2 senators), but then what was to stop all the other states splitting up and making ‘West New York’ or whatever and getting themselves some more senators? Why’d they put up with these shenanigans on the Shenandoah?
Many residents in the western half of Virginia felt that the traditional political system in Virginia had been rigged in favor of the eastern half of the state. So even after succession and slavery were no longer issues, they still wanted their own state.
The reason the other states didn’t try to prod West Virginia into rejoining Virginia was because they saw it was strictly something between the West Virginians and the Virginians and therefore none of their business. Also, the Civil War was over but social and political divisions between the two states were still deep enough to be irreconcilable for many years afterward. Even if the rest of America wanted to get them back together, it would’ve been a fool’s errand.
In 1866, Virginia tried to get West Virginia back but the Supreme Court decided against them in 1870. In the post-Civil War climate the Congress and the northern states weren’t disposed to be sympathetic to Virginia.
The whole process was of doubtful legality and constitutionality but went forward during the Civil War due to expediency on the part of the Union. Afterward it was just regarded as a fait accompli and ignored because no one in the North wished to support Virginia.
Because it’s not up to the state alone. It also has to be approved by a majority of Congress. And other states aren’t going to be sympathetic to giving two extra Senators to a state that wants to split.
Western Virginia felt like that long before secession. Dominion of Memories: Jefferson, Madison & the Decline of Virginia explained a lot to me. The Tidewater & Piedmont were controlled by planters who depended on slavery. Perennially cash poor, they opposed taxes–which paid for public schools, roads, etc. They envisioned an agrarian future, instead of investing in canals, rail (when that time came) & developing industry.
WV really is geographically and politically distinct from Virginia, and pretty much always has been. The Civil War giving them the cover to split off, despite the Constitutional prohibition otherwise, was probably best all around.
Which is kind of funny because now WV is more of a southern state, politically, and VA is more of a northern state (relative to each other). For VA, that has a lot to do with the large population center in Northern VA, consisting of many folks not originally from the area.
Yes, Virginia has become more blue and West Virginia much more red in recent years, just as Hawaii and Alaska have largely swapped party loyalties since statehood.
Thanks for the replies guys, most of what I know about West Virginia comes from a John Denver song.
So, is it safe to say that the breakup of a state into two would involve circumstances so far beyond ‘the norm’, i.e. a civil war, that two states from one is just not gonna happen any time soon?
Right. Usually secession movements are driven by one part of a state being wealthier than the other or feeling it doesn’t get its fair share of revenue. But that part of the state almost by necessity has to be a minority of voters, or else they would have elected enough state legislators to correct the imbalance before it got to the point of secession.
Possibly, if both house of Congress were securely in the hands of one party, and both parts of the dividing state reliably voted for that party, then there would be some political advantage to getting two new Senators. But that circumstance rarely prevails.
Yeah, the only way that West Virginia statehood was able to get pushed through was that the rest of Virginia (and the Carolinas, and Georgia, and Alabama, and so on) all spent the process metaphorically sticking their fingers in their ears and saying “Na na na we can’t hear you!”. The Virginian members of Congress could have showed up just long enough to say “No, we won’t let you”, but they didn’t, because they considered the exercise meaningless.
Interesting. So why didn’t they invade? Just take back what was rightfully theirs? Probably myriad reasons. I could go check wikipedia. But is there a quick, simple answer for not taking their territory back by force. Didn’t the whole shooting war start over taking of a fort?
Here’s another one. I’m given to understand the only difference between North and South Episcopalian, and North and South Baptist, is support for slavery Biblically. So … war’s over, why didn’t they rejoin? Same answer really – they didn’t want to dilute their power. So what keeps any group of more than one person together? Inertia?
Well, the original Virginian members of Congress couldn’t show up because they would have been arrested. And by that time, West Virginians had taken over Virginia’s seats in Congress.
What happened was pretty bizarre. After the Virginia state legislature voted for secession, and that decision was ratified in a plebiscite, representatives from the western part of the state met in Wheeling and declared that the members of the state government had by that act vacated their offices, and that they were the new state government of Virginia. The new legislature then voted to allow West Virginia (themselves) to secede from Virginia (themselves). More complicated than that, but basically it was a shell game.
