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proposed convention.

      This election having been held at the time appointed, representatives from nearly forty counties assembled at Wheeling on June 11. The convention, numbering 98 members, organized by selecting for its president Hon Arthur I. Boreman. Before proceeding to business the following oath was administered to the delegation from each county: “We solemnly declare that we will support the Constitution of the United States and the laws made in pursuance thereof, as the supreme law of the land, anything in the Ordinance of the Convention that assembled in Richmond on the 13th day of February last to the contrary notwithstanding, so help us God.”^[167] The State government was reconstituted on the 13th by an ordinance declaring vacant all places, whether legislative, executive or judicial, whose incumbents had espoused the cause of secession. This class, as already observed, included nearly every official in Virginia. These vacancies the convention supplied by the appointment of loyal men. In the constitution they made an important alteration which prescribed the number of delegates necessary to constitute a quorum in the General Assembly. All State, county and town officials were required to take an oath of allegiance which pledged support of both the Federal Constitution and the restored government of Virginia. On June 17 a declaration of independence was adopted without one dissenting voice; it denounced the usurpation of the Richmond convention, which had assumed to place the resources of Virginia at the disposal of the Confederate Government, to which power it repudiated allegiance. Resolutions expressing a determination never to submit to the ordinance of secession, but to maintain the rights of Virginia in the Union, were then passed. All persons in arms against the national Government were commanded to disband and to return to their allegiance. Though the members seriously endeavored to reorganize their government, it was with an express declaration that a division of the Commonwealth was a paramount object of their labors, and they decided, June 20, by a unanimous vote in favor of ultimate separation.

      Under an ordinance previously adopted Hon. Francis H. Pierpont was chosen Governor on the same day; a lieutenant-governor, an attorney-general and an executive council of five were also appointed. Other administrative offices were subsequently filled. The new incumbents were to exercise their functions for six months or until successors should be elected and qualified. The convention on June 25, subject in an emergency to be reassembled by the Governor and Council, then adjourned to August 6, 1861.

      Before concluding this session the convention directed all members willing to swear fealty to the Union, who were elected to the assembly on May 23 preceding, to meet on the 1st of July at Wheeling. At the time of their election these representatives were destined for Richmond. In addition to those regularly chosen under the old law of the Commonwealth, others pursuant to an ordinance of the convention were elected to fill vacancies. All were to qualify themselves by taking an oath or affirmation of allegiance to the United States and to the reorganized government of Virginia. These members, chiefly from the western counties, were to compose the law-making body, which was invested with all the powers and duties pertaining to the General Assembly.

      The new Governor was inaugurated on June 20, and, after taking the oath of office, said: “We have been driven into the position we occupy to-day by the usurpers at the South, who have inaugurated this war upon the soil of Virginia, and have made it the great Crimea of this contest. We, representing the loyal citizens of Virginia, have been bound to assume the position we have assumed to-day for the protection of ourselves, our wives, our children, and our property. We, I repeat, have been driven to assume this position; and now we are but recurring to the great fundamental principle of our fathers, that to the loyal people of a State belongs the law-making power of that State. The loyal people are entitled to the government and governmental authority of the State. And, fellow-citizens, it is the assumption of that authority upon which we are now about to enter.”^[168]

      “It was not the object of the Wheeling convention,” he declared on a later occasion, “to set up any new government in the State, or separate, or other government than the one under which they had always lived.”^[169]

      From these utterances his hearers must have concluded that the reorganized government was not for a part but for the whole of Virginia. Indeed, it was to the discernment of Mr. Pierpont that Virginia loyalists were chiefly indebted for a legal solution of the intricate problem that confronted them. While Carlile and others were urging a counter-revolution, Mr. Pierpont was carefully studying the provisions of the Federal Constitution. The clause of that instrument which guarantees a republican form of government was designed, he believed, to meet just such an emergency as had arisen. Though this conservative suggestion was not at first received with much favor, it continued gradually to win adherents until its propriety was universally recognized.^[170] By thus proceeding along constitutional lines a State government in all its branches was soon established in every county not occupied by an armed foe.

      The Legislature of the restored State assembled, July 2, at Wheeling and assumed the full exercise of its powers. Two United States Senators, Waitman T. Willey, whose fidelity many considered doubtful, and John S. Carlile, an able, eloquent and then a trusted leader, were elected, July 9; the former to fill the vacancy occasioned by the withdrawal of James M. Mason, the latter to succeed Robert M. T. Hunter, who also had abdicated his seat in Congress. Both were admitted, though not without a vigorous protest from the minority, to seats at the first session of the Thirty-seventh Congress, which met on July 4, 1861.

      Their certificates were presented, July 13, by Andrew Johnson. Senator Bayard entered a protest. Their admission, he said, would be a recognition of an organization that was not the regular government of the Commonwealth. Mr. Letcher was still Governor of Virginia, his term not having expired. The Senate had no authority to create a new State out of a part of an existing one. He then moved to refer their credentials to the Committee on the Judiciary. His colleague, Mr. Saulsbury, objected, that Mason and Hunter were not expelled until July 11, whereas the claimants were appointed two days previously, at a time when no vacancies had occurred. To this Senator Johnson replied that the vacancies did in fact exist at the time of their election, July 9, and that the expulsion of Mason and Hunter was not merely a declaration that vacancies existed, but their seats were regarded as filled, and the occupants expelled from the floor of the Senate.

      Mr. Bayard denied that, even if Mason and Hunter were guilty of the alleged crimes, there was any power in either the Governor or Legislature to terminate their appointments; they might die, they could be removed by expulsion, but vacancies could not be anticipated by the Legislature of Virginia. The name of Mr. Pierpont could convey no authority to their credentials. On the question of reference five Senators voted in the affirmative, thirty-five in the negative. The oath was therefore administered and they took their seats, July 13, at the special session which began on the 4th.^[171]

      A resolution was passed by the House of Delegates of the reorganized government instructing the Senators and requesting their Representatives in Congress to vote the necessary appropriation of men and money for a vigorous prosecution of the war, and to oppose all compromise. A stay law was also enacted by the Legislature, and a bill passed which authorized the Governor to organize a patrol in such counties as might require it; two hundred thousand dollars were appropriated for military purposes.

      On August 6, 1861, the Wheeling convention reassembled. Hitherto in all its proceedings relative to a reorganization there had been great unanimity, but when the delegates returned they were conscious of a strong popular sentiment in favor of erecting a new State, a subject that had been introduced, though not much discussed, before adjournment. This determination among their constituents seriously troubled many of the members. Political aspirations had been awakened; many of them had enjoyed the benefits of the humbler offices under the mother State; the Union forces, it was confidently expected, would soon crush the insurrection in Virginia, and the reorganized government, with themselves at its head, would be acquiesced in by their recent oppressors. To their ambition this hope was far more flattering than the prospect of administering the affairs of a comparatively small State on the western frontier of the Old Dominion. Then, too, the idea of dismemberment was certain to wound Virginia State pride. Moreover, the movement to form an independent commonwealth, when the reorganized government itself had been scarcely recognized, would look premature. Sentiments of this nature had begun to possess the minds of many delegates about the time of their return.

      In

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