11 counties to vote on seceding from Colorado because it's too liberal

[Neil]

Canada got rid of the penny, so the US should do the same.  After all, Canada is a better place than the US.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Is there really any question about the legality of West Virginia?

Virginia illegally seceeded from the Union. The Richmond state government was, by definition, no longer a government of a state of the United States.

So an alternative government was formed, which was duly recognized by the United States, and said government approved of the division of the state.

Sounds pretty straightforward to me, at least as straighyforward as rebellion can be....

I'm not sure how a few counties in northwestern Virginia can duly be regarded as a proper Republican government for the entire State. That's basically what happened--and the Constitution requires and in fact guarantees each State a republican form of government.

[grumbler]

Well, if those in charge want to get rid of the penny, then I think that that is a pretty powerful argument to keep it, no?

Not really.  Money exists to facilitate economic activity.  Pennies do not only not do that, they cost the US economy and government a lot of money.  So why keep dumping money into a failed policy?  If people want pennies around for sentimental reasons there are billions out there.

You did an excellent job of missing the point entirely.  The italicized point. 

Garbo completely missed it as well, but that's what I would expect.  In your case, I was responding directly to your choice of words.

[garbon]

Well, if those in charge want to get rid of the penny, then I think that that is a pretty powerful argument to keep it, no?

Not really.  Money exists to facilitate economic activity.  Pennies do not only not do that, they cost the US economy and government a lot of money.  So why keep dumping money into a failed policy?  If people want pennies around for sentimental reasons there are billions out there.

You did an excellent job of missing the point entirely.  The italicized point. 

Garbo completely missed it as well, but that's what I would expect.  In your case, I was responding directly to your choice of words.

Okay so what is the should have been obvious meaning of "those in charge"?

[grumbler]

Okay so what is the should have been obvious meaning of "those in charge"?

I'm not sure what you mean.  "Those in charge" seems pretty self-explanatory.

My post was more about the credibility of "those in charge," based on how things are going nationally.

[garbon]

On a different note why is this smiley () called glare? That ain't a glare.

[katmai]

On a different note why is this smiley () called glare? That ain't a glare.

That was what it was called back on old board, i didn't change names when we added them here.

[Admiral Yi]

Looks like a glare to me.

[garbon]

On a different note why is this smiley () called glare? That ain't a glare.

That was what it was called back on old board, i didn't change names when we added them here.

What about the Garbon?

@Yi - Looks like annoyed eyes looking askance to me.

[MadImmortalMan]

At what point did Maine split off? Pre-constitution?



Anyway, everything east of the Denver airport is basically Kansas.

[garbon]

At what point did Maine split off? Pre-constitution?

Missouri Compromise.

[CountDeMoney]

At what point did Maine split off?

Sometime around 9:40pm, I think.

[Berkut]

Is there really any question about the legality of West Virginia?

Virginia illegally seceeded from the Union. The Richmond state government was, by definition, no longer a government of a state of the United States.

So an alternative government was formed, which was duly recognized by the United States, and said government approved of the division of the state.

Sounds pretty straightforward to me, at least as straighyforward as rebellion can be....

I'm not sure how a few counties in northwestern Virginia can duly be regarded as a proper Republican government for the entire State. That's basically what happened--and the Constitution requires and in fact guarantees each State a republican form of government.

I'm not sure how one can regard any other proposed government as the "proper Republican government" for the entire state though. The one that was in rebellion is certainly not an option by their own admission.

You can't rebel against the Constitution and then turn around and whine that it isn't being followed to your liking.

Of course, there is an obvious remedy - if you feel that the action taken was not Constitutional, the Constitution itself provides an obvious remedy. The US Supreme Court is the arbiter for such things. What did they say about the formation of the state of West Virginia?

[OttoVonBismarck]

I would be surprised if Virginia ever filed suit on the matter, as a condition of them being given Congressional representation again they were required to include in the 1869 Virginia Constitution a provision that retroactively authorised the creation of West Virginia. Since the SCOTUS especially in that time would be very deferential to the State Constitution in question when it was a State issue, it's unlikely the State would rule in favor of a Virginia suit that in itself was in violation of the Virginia Constitution. It would probably in fact be unconstitutional in Virginia for an officer of the commonwealth to even pursue such a suit, which would preclude the matter even reaching Federal court.

That doesn't change the reality, that in contravention of the plain wording of the Constitution a small portion of northwestern Virginia was able to seize all of the counties west of the Appalachians ("trans-Allegheny Virginia") not to mention the counties by Maryland that follow the Potomac.

All of the counties basically south of Clarksburg/Bridgeport in Modern Day West Virginia did not vote in favor of secession from Virginia. When the referendum was held, they rejected it, but they were outvoted by the Northern counties. There's a complex history at play. Trans-Allegheny Virginia by and large had no slavery because it is extremely karstic and there simply isn't the geography to support the sort of plantation farming that requires slaves.

Unlike today, where Virginia is significantly larger in population than West Virginia, in the 1860s the population of the Trans-Allegheny counties and the eastern counties were much, much closer. When you exclude slaves, who were viewed as chattel by the government of Virginia, the white population in Trans-Allegheny Virginia was actually larger than in eastern Virginia. However, mirroring the situation at the Federal level, Virginia counted slaves as population for purposes of drawing State legislative districts, at 3/4ths of a person (so more favorable than at the Federal level.) This put what many Trans-Allegheny Virginias saw as unfair advantage in the east. They mostly used this to their advantage in crafting taxation bills as well. So for property taxes, taxation was done based on the full assessed value of holdings. If you were a farmer in Trans-Allegheny Virginia that meant all your land, improvements etc were assessed and taxed. However slaves were given a special exemption, and their assessment was capped at $300, even though only the most undesirable slaves (typically older slaves with no skills such as blacksmithing etc) would be genuinely valued that low. Many slaves were worth 5x more than that or even higher. So slave holders (overwhelmingly eastern Virginians) paid a far smaller share of their assets in property taxes.

This created a long term resentment in Trans-Allegheny Virginia, but to my mind much of this had been rectified in the Constitutional Convention in the 1850s that addressed many of these concerns and gave more fair political representation to Trans-Allegheny Virginia. In the 1860s it was basically a cabal of Wheeling area businessmen who opportunistically decided to split from Virginia, in large part based on past grievances (that had mostly been settled by the 1850s Constitutional rewrite.)

When they actually hatched their scheme, only the northern counties of Trans-Allegheny Virginia actually voted to break away. Basically the counties around Bridgeport/Clarksburg and North, including the Northern panhandle, about 13,000 people voted to break away from Virginia. Out of 70,000 registered voters in the whole of Trans-Allegheny Virginia. A central band of counties, stretching from east to west roughly along the borders of the current West Virginia 2nd Congressional District, cast some votes (5,000) in favor of secession, but a very small number. Most of the votes that came in from voters in those counties were actually cast from other counties.

The Southern counties didn't vote at all. Most of the population in the central counties did not vote at all. Why? Because they did not consider themselves citizens of the United States, so they had  no interest in the "restore Government of Virginia's" statehood vote. They saw it as an illegitimate political exercise. Further, even if we accept it was legitimate, we typically have trouble accepting things like Puerto Rican statehood votes with very low turnout, and this vote had very low turnout.

As a final insult to injury, I'll note that the West Virginians serving in the Union Army were permitted to fill out absentee ballots and vote in this election. West Virginians serving in Confederate armies were not.

What's strange to me is we would let this small northwestern portion of Virginia vote to breakaway, and take with it a large portion of people who did not vote for it. Why not give them all of Virginia except for Richmond? Or some other ludicrous example.

Even stranger, the counties of the eastern panhandle of Virginia, including Harper's Ferry and etc, that follow the Potomac river were not even part of all of this in June of 1863 when West Virginia officially got started as a state. But when the Union armies took that land, Lincoln basically said "this is an important strategic area, I'm going to make it part of West Virginia to better protect it." So it was straight up taken by "right of conquest" which I don't see anywhere in the U.S. Constitution. Now, there was some business where the "restored government of Virginia" voted to "annex the counties of Berkeley and Jefferson" to West Virginia. But there are several problems I have with that:

1. Those counties were never considered part of Trans-Allegheny Virginia. In fact that are east of the mountains, and had always been culturally part of the rest of Virginia. Even today they are much nicer counties, and I'd be glad to have them back. They are mostly made up of people that commute into D.C. and consequently they are prosperous counties. [I would not take the rest of Virginia back, but I'd accept a large settlement in the billions of dollars for all the coal severance taxes we missed out on over the past 150 years.]

2. The governor of the "Restored Government of Virginia" was from Wheeling, present day West Virginia. He created the scheme to actually create West Virginia. When the scheme was completed, instead of becoming the First Governor of Virginia (as many expected) he kept his job as Governor of the Restored Government of Virginia and moved his capital to Alexandria, where he ruled the rest of the Federal-occupied portions of Virginia until after the Civil War. I don't see that he was acting in good faith on behalf of Virginia. After June 1863, his position would have been that West Virginia was now a State, and not the State for which he was governor. Why would the governor of Virginia approve sending counties to a different State? The only explanation is, he was acting on behalf of the part of Virginia he was actually born in, and was not acting as an agent in good faith for the people of Virginia.

3. They did hold a vote in the two counties in question, but they were basically depopulated as most of the men had gone off to fight for the Confederacy, and the elections were, ala Zimbabwe or something overseen by Federal troops, invalidating their result.

[Berkut]

Damn,I had no idea that the US government didn't allow soldiers actively engaged in treason and rebellion to vote in absentee in an election under the political control of a nation they had rejected.

That changes my view on this completely.