Was it… the right to own slaves, without interference… or… “States’ rights”? When it all boils down, what do we see?
Let’s visualize slavery in Virginia, in 1860.
From The Secession Movement in Virginia, 1847-1861 (1934), by Henry T. Shanks.
When it comes down to what portions of Virginia did and did not secede, is the answer really that simple?
Scott MacKenzie
January 12, 2011
The numbers for northwestern VA may appear clear, but nonetheless those who owned slaves in that area tended to support secession. Slave ownership granted them the wealth requisite to participate in politics. Those connections and the status which went with them, as I and others have argued, compelled slaveholders to go with Virginia out of the Union. Those who did not, likewise, replaced them and formed the new state of West Virginia. After the war, the prewar elites returned to power but adapted to the new politics in the 35th state.
So you’re right but the map only goes so far.
Robert Moore
January 12, 2011
Thanks for the comment, Scott. While the Kanawha makes sense, considering the slaveholders there, what gets me are some of those counties deeper into West Virginia. I love looking at numbers laid out on maps, but sometimes what we see can be deceiving. More of a story therein.
Bob Arrington
January 19, 2011
I’ve seen this map as well as the large slave map produced during the war used to explain secession, but it really doesn’t apply to West Virginia. The Wheeling government did everything they could to keep emancipation out of their constitution. When they were forced to put in an emancipation clause by Congress, they very cleverly wrote one of the least generous clauses you could imagine, the Willey Amendment. When West Virginia became a Union state on June 20, 1863, not a single slave was freed by the amendment, only newborns after July 4, 1863 would be born free. There was no clause which would free slaves over the age of 21, so technically slavery could have existed in WV into the 20th Century.
The mistake in maps like this is in comparing west and east Virginia in slaveholding. First of all, west Virginians, then as today, did not have a lot of money to buy slaves. In the 4 counties of the northern panhandle there were only 247 slaves. Compared to east Virginia that is not a lot. But compared to Ohio, just a stones’ throw across the river, or to Pennsylvania, equally distant, the northern panhandle was a veritable Egypt.
David Grimstead in “American Mobbing, 1828-1861: Toward Civil War ” stated that most of the anti-abolitionist violence in Virginia occurred in west Virginia. A mob even crossed the Ohio River into Ohio to kidnap a man in order to tar & feather him for aiding runaways. For whatever reasons people think the state of West Virginia was created, it was not for abolition.
As for secession, according to Richard O. Curry’s vote reconstruction on secession from his 1964 book “A House Divided”, as I figured it regionally rather than as a lump sum vote, secessionists outnumbered Unionists until you get to the counties around the B&O railroad line, which is basically just south of the cities of Clarksburg, Grafton and Parkersburg. This explains why the guerrilla war in West Virginia lasted even past Lee’s surrender.
Robert Moore
January 19, 2011
Thanks for your comment. It’s interesting, but I posted this in a way to generate discussion. As you point out, it’s not that simple… and I agree… that it is complicated. Thanks also for some details that help explain some of the complexities of the discussion on secession in West Virginia.
Robert Moore
January 19, 2011
I will add, however, that I don’t necessarily agree with your suggestion that slavery could have existed in West Virginia into the 20th century. That, too, is more complicated.
Robert Moore
January 19, 2011
“or to Pennsylvania, equally distant”
Not exactly. The eastern panhandle bordered Washington and Frederick counties in Maryland… where slavery could still be found.