APPENDIX A.

A DECLARATION OF THE PEOPLE OF VIRGINIA,

REPRESENTED IN CONVENTION, AT THE CITY OF WHEELING,

THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 1861.

The true purpose of all government is to promote the welfare and provide for the protection and security of the governed, and when any form or organization of government proves inadequate for, or subversive of this purpose, it is the right, it is the duty of the latter to abolish it. The Bill of Rights of Virginia, framed in 1776, reaffirmed in 1830, and again in 1851, expressly reserves this right to a majority of her people. The act of the General Assembly, calling the Convention which assembled at Richmond in February last, without the previously expressed consent of such majority, was therefore a usurpation; and the Convention thus called has not only abused the powers nominally entrusted to it, but with the connivance and active aid of the executive, has usurped and exercised other powers, to the manifest injury of the people which, if permitted, will inevitably subject them to a military despotism.

The Convention, by its pretended ordinances, has required the people of Virginia to separate from and wage war against the government of the United States, and against citizens of neighboring States, with whom they have heretofore maintained friendly, social, and business relations:

It has attempted to subvert the Union founded by Washington and his co-patriots, in the purer days of the republic, which has conferred unexampled prosperity upon every class of citizens, and upon every section of the country:

It has attempted to transfer the allegiance of the People to an illegal confederacy of rebellious States, and required their submission to its pretended edicts and decrees:

It has attempted to place the whole military force and military operations of the Commonwealth under the control and direction of such confederacy for offensive as well as defensive purposes:

It has, in conjunction with the State executive, instituted wherever their usurped power extends, a reign of terror intended to supress the free expression of the will of the people, making elections a mockery and a fraud.

The same combination, even before the passage of the pretended ordinance of secession, instituted war by the seizure and appropriations of the property of the Federal Government, and by organizing and mobilizing armies, with the avowed purpose of capturing or destroying the Capital of the Union:

They have attempted to bring the allegiance of the people of the United States into direct conflict with their subordinate allegiance to the State, thereby making obedience to their pretended ordinances, treason against the former.

We, therefore, the delegates here assembled in convention to devise such measures and take such action as the safety and welfare of the loyal citizens of Virginia may demand, having maturely considered the premises, and viewing with great concern the deplorable condition to which this once happy Commonwealth must be reduced unless some regular adequate remedy is speedily adopted, and appealing to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe for the rectitude of our intentions, do hereby, in the name and on the behalf of the good people of Virginia, solemnly declare that the preservation of their dearest rights and liberties and their security in person and property, imperatively demand the reorganization of the government of the Commonwealth, and that all acts of said Convention and Executive, tending to seperate this Commonwealth from the

United States, or to levy and carry on war against them, are without authority and void; and that the offices of all who adhere to the said Convention and Executive, whether legislative, or executive or judicial, are vacated.

APPENDIX B.

AN ORDINANCE FOR THE REORGANIZATION OF THE STATE GOVERNMENT.

(Passed June 19, 1861.)

The People of the State of Virginia, by their Delegates assembled in Convention at Wheeling, do ordian as follows:

1. A governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general for the State of Virginia, shall be appointed by this convention, to discharge the duties and exercise the powers which pretain to their respective offices by the existing laws of the state, and to continue in office for six months, or until their successors be elected and qualified; and the general assembly is required to provide by law for an election of governor and lieutenant-governor by the people as soon as in their judgment such election can be properly held.

5. A council, to consist of five members, shall be appointed by this convention, to consult with and advise the governor respecting such matters pretaining to his official duties as he shall submit for the consideration, and to aid in the execution of his official orders. Their term of office shall expire at the same time as that of the governor.

3. The delegates elected to the general assembly on the twenty-third day of May last, and the senators entitled under existing laws to seats in the next general essembly, together with such delegates and senators as may be duly elected under the ordinances of this convention, or existing laws, to fill vacancies who shall qualify themselves by taking the oath or affirmation hereinafter set forth, shall constitute the legislature of the State, to discharge the duties and exercise the powers pretaining to the general assembly. They shall hold their offices from the passage of this ordinance until the end of the terms for which they were respectively elected. They shall assemble in the city of Wheeling on the first day of July next, and proceed to organize themselves as prescribed by existing laws, in their respective branches. A majority in each branch of the members qualified as aforesaid, shall constitute a quorum to do business. A majority of the members of each branch thus qualified, voting affirmatively, shall be competent to psss any act specified in the twenty-seventh section of the fourth article of the constitution of the state.

4. The governor, lieutenant-governor, attorney general, members of the legislature, and all officers now in the service of the state, or of any county, city or town thereof, or hereafter to be elected or appointed for such service, including the judges and clerks of the several courts, sheriffs, commissioners of the revenue, justice of the peace, officers of the city and municipal corporations, and officers of militia; and officers and privates of volunteer companies of the State, not mustered into the service of the United States, shall each take the following oath or affirmation before proceeding in the discharge of the several duties:

"I solemnly swear (or affirm,) that I 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 constitution and laws of the state of Virginia, or in the ordinances of the convention which assembled at Richmond on the thirteenth of February, eighteen hundred and sixty-one, to the contary notwithstanding; and that I will uphold and defend the government of Virginia as vindicated and restored by the convention which assembled at Wheeling on the eleventh day of June, eighteen hundred and sixty-one."

5

If any elective officer, who is required by the preceding section to take such oath or affirmation, fail or refurse so to do, it shall be the duty of the governor upon satisfactory evidence of the fact, to issue his writ declaring the office to be vacant, and providing for a special election to fill such vacancy at some convenient and early day to be designated in said writ; of which due publication shall be made for the information of the persons entitled to vote at such election; and such writ may be directed, at the discretion of the governor, to the sheriff, or sheriffs of the proper county or counties, or to a special commissioner or commissioners to be named by the governor for the purpose. If the officer who fails or refuses to take such oath or affirmation be appointed by the governor, he shall fill the vacancy without writ, but if such officer be appointed otherwise than by the governor or by election, the writ shall be issued by the governor, directed to the appointing power, requiring it to fill the vacancy.

G. L. Cranmer, Secretary.

ARTHUR I. BOREMAN, President.

APPENDIX C.

CONSENT OF THE LEGISLATURE OF VIRGINIA IN THE
AND ERECTION OF A NEW STATE WITHIN THE
JURISDICTION OF THIS STATE,

(Passed May 13, 1862.)

1. Be it enancted by the General Assembly, That the consent of the Legislature of Virginia be and the same is hereby given to the formation and erection of the State of West Virginia, within the juristiction of this State, to include the counties of Hancock, Brooke, Ohio, Marshall, Wetzel, Marion, Monongalia, Preston, Taylor, Tyler, Pleasants, Ritchie, Doddridge, Harrison, Wood, Jackson, Wirt, Roane, Calhoun, Gilmer, Barbour, Tucker, Lewis, Braxton, Upshur, Randolph. Mason, Putnam, Kanawha, Clay, Nicholas, Cabell, Wayne, Boone, Logan, Wyoming, Mercer, McDowell, Webster, Pocahontas, Fayette, Raleigh, Greeenbrier, Monroe, Pendleton, Hardy, Hampshire, and Morgan, according to boundaries and under the provisions set forth in the constitution for the said State of West Virginia and the schedule thereto annexed, proposed by the convention which assembled at Wheeling, on the twenty-sixth day of November, eighteen hundred and sixty-one.

2. Be it further enacted, That the consent of the Legislature of Virginia be, and the same is hereby given, that the counties of Berkeley, Jefferson, and Frederick, shall be included in and form a part of the State of West Virginia whenever the voters of said counties shall ratify and assent to the said constitution, at an election held for the purpose, at such time and under such regulation as the commissioners named in the said schedule may prescribe.

3. Be it further enacted, That this act shall be transmitted by the executive to the senators and representatives of the commonwealth in congress together with a certified original of the said constitution and schedule, and the said senators and representatives are hereby requested to use their endeavors to obtain the consent of congress to the admission of the State of West Virginia into the Union.

4. This act shall be in force from and after its passage.

APPENDIX D.

ACT FOR THE ADMISSION OF WEST VIRGINIA INTO THE UNION, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES.

Whereas the people inhabiting that portion of Virginia known as West Virginia did, by a convention assembled in the city of Wheeling, on the twenty

sixth of November, eighteen hundred and sixty-one, frame for themselves a constitution, with the view of becoming a separate and independent State; and whereas at a general election held in the counties composing the territory aforesaid, on the third day of May last, the said constitution was approved and adopted by the qualified voters of the proposed State; and whereas the Legislature of Virginia, by an act passed on the thirteenth day of May, eighteen hundred and sixty-two, did give its consent to the formation of a new State within the jurisdiction of the said State of Virginia to be known by the name of West Virginia, and to embrace the following named counties, to-wit: Hancock, Brooke, Ohio, Marshall, Wetzel, Marion, Monongalia, Preston, Taylor, Tyler, Pleasants, Ritchie, Doddridge, Harrison, Wood, Jackson, Wirt, Roane, Calhoun, Gilmer, Barbour, Tucker, Lewis, Braxton, Upshur, Randolph, Mason, Putnam, Kanawha, Clay, Nicholas, Cabell, Wayne, Boone, Logan, Wyoming, Mercer, McDowell, Webster. Pocahontas, Fayette, Raleigh, Greenbrier, Monroe, Pendleton, Hardy, Hampshire and Morgan; and whereas both the convention and the legislature aforesaid, have requested that the new State should be admitted into the Union, and the constitution aforesaid being Republican in form, Congress doth hereby consent that the said forty-eight counties may be formed into a separate and independent State; Therefore,

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the State of West Virginia be, and is hereby, declared to be one of the United States of America, and admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever, and until the next general census shall be entitled to three members in the House of Representatives of the United States; Provided, always, That this act shall not take effect until after the proclamation of the President of the United States hereinafter provided for.

It being represented to Congress that since the convention of the twenty-sixth of November, eighteen hundred and sixty-one, that framed and proposed the constitution for the s aid State of West Virginia, the people thereof have expressed a wish to change the seventh section of the eleventh article of said constitution by striking out the same and inserting the following in its place, viz. The children of slaves born within the limits of this State after the fourth day of July, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, shall be free; and that all slaves within the said State who shall, at the time aforesaid, be under the age of ten years, shall be free when they arrive at the age of twenty-one years; and all slaves over ten and under twenty-one years shall be free when they arrive at the age of twenty-five years; and no slave shall be permitted to come into the State for permanent residence therein:" Therefore,

SEC. 2. Be it further enacted, That whenever the people of West Virginia shall, through their said convention, and by vote to be taken at an election to be held within the limits of the said State, at such time as the convention may provide, make and ratify the change aforesaid, and properly certify the same under the hand of the President of the convention, it shall be lawful for the President of the United States to issue his proclamation stating the fact, and thereupon this act shall take effect and be in force from and after sixty days from the date of said proclamation.

APPROVED December 31, 1862.