West Virginia is the state that seceded where others failed. When in 1861 the South broke away from the US to form the Confederacy, the Mountain State in its turn left Virginia to remain within the Union. The electoral process by which it did this was highly irregular, and its accession to the Union could be considered illegal and unconstitutional. But in wartime, legal niceties count for less than tactical advantage, and West Virginia became a full-fledged member of the United States in 1863. The wrangling about West Virginia’s secession stopped only in 1939, when it paid the final installment of its share of the pre-Civil War state debt to Virginia.
Possibly to annoy the Virginians even more, the first name proposed for the new state wasn’t West Virginia but Kanawha, after the river of the same name (1). But since the delegates to the state’s constitutional convention thought that to name the state thus would unnecessarily raise confusion with the county of Kanawha within the state, a new name was sought. Vandalia, Columbia, Augusta, Allegheny, New Virginia and Western Virginia were a few of the alternatives that bounced around the room. The delegates finally settled on West Virginia, in part also to reflect their Virginian heritage.
That decision was taken in December of 1861, so this map can be of no later date, since it still shows the seceding part of Virginia as Kanawha (as yet still without its eastern panhandle and some of its southeastern territory). It is a Map of the States of Virginia, Maryland and Delaware, as Proposed To Be Re-Organised by the Secretary of War. In this proposal, Delaware expands to include all of the Delmarva peninsula, including its Virginian part in the south, but more importantly, Maryland annexes all of Virginia between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the sea. As a consolation prize, Virginia gets Maryland’s western protrusion, making Hagerstown a Virginian city. But then there’s Kanawha seceding, leaving what remains of Virginia proper to look like an unseemly leftover.
The Secretary of War mentioned must be Simon Cameron, president Lincoln’s first appointee to that post. Clearly, Cameron’s proposal was meant to give Virginians the heebie-jeebies, as it is almost wiped off the map. Maybe this was a ploy to scare Virginians against voting for secession? The Convention that deliberated Virginia’s secession, was in session from February 13 to April 15 of 1861, and its decision to secede wasn’t ratified until May 23, 1861. This map was likely drawn up in the intervening months…
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Intriguing. Thank you for this.
Comment by Dwight Williams — January 18, 2009 @ 4:04 pm
This would also make the District of Columbia an enclave within Maryland, which would be certain to tick off Virginia and the other southern states even more.
Comment by mark — January 18, 2009 @ 4:54 pm
The law of unintended consequences would bite here. As I like to say when people talk about the northern US states leaving the US and joining Canada(1), “Who, exactly, would be annexing who?”
The part of Virginia being taken by Maryland was roughly as populous as all of Maryland proper in 1865. Maybe even a little more so. The North would have been risking two states with the majority of citizens having Southern attitudes instead of one.
(1) I imagine there’ll be a lot less of that starting January 20th.
Comment by pauldrye — January 18, 2009 @ 5:00 pm
Rather than scaring Virginians into remaining with the Union, I think a plan like this would have just the opposite effect and encourage people to secede.
Comment by dziban — January 18, 2009 @ 5:33 pm
You said that “…since the delegates to the state’s constitutional convention thought that to name the state thus would unnecessarily raise confusion with the county of Kanawha within the state, a new name was sought.”
Confusion? I have the suspicion that those founding fathers did nor regard the Native American name of Kanawha acceptable for an American State. Choosing West Virginia they rather reflected their White Anglo-saxon heritage instead.
BTW Kanawha means ‘big brother’ for the river of the same name in the Catawba tribe dialect.
Comment by Joam — January 18, 2009 @ 5:59 pm
Don’t forget that Maryland is south of the Mason-Dixon line, and nearly seceded itself. If not for the placement of DC, they quite likely would have joined the Confederacy.
Comment by TimThompson — January 18, 2009 @ 6:02 pm
Confusion? I have the suspicion that those founding fathers did nor regard the Native American name of Kanawha acceptable for an American State.
I doubt that was the problem, considering how many other states have names derived from Native American sources, such as Ohio, Mississippi, Kansas, Alabama, Massachusetts, etc.
Comment by Paper Hand — January 18, 2009 @ 6:54 pm
Only 28 States have a Native American names and all are corrupted versions from the original languages. The rest are names given by the colonists honoring their own cultural and racial heritage, as this is a clear case of that.
Comment by Joam — January 18, 2009 @ 7:37 pm
@Joam: “Only” 28 states. So, more than 50%, or a majority, in other words? ;)
Comment by David Kendall — January 18, 2009 @ 8:14 pm
Too bad no one brought up the “confusion” argument when the decision was made to give the state in the NW corner of the USA the same name as the nation’s capital city. Sheesh.
Comment by Rey Fox — January 18, 2009 @ 8:23 pm
I could be wrong, but I think this map actually depicts two different organizational schemes on top of the current one: a more proximate one that just involves the separation of Kanawha, and then a more speculative one in which Kanawha is included as part of the new, reorganized, Appalachian Virginia (judging by the way the emboldened name “Virginia” stretches across the Kanawha territory).
Comment by Lazar — January 18, 2009 @ 10:34 pm
If the point was to annoy Virginia, why not name it Promiscuia?
Comment by Kim Hartveld — January 18, 2009 @ 10:41 pm
[...] you’re new To TOCWOC, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!Strange Maps blog posts a period map relating to the secession of western Virginia in 1861. West Virginia [...]
Pingback by The Seceded State of Kanawha — January 19, 2009 @ 4:11 am
re comment 10: The initial draft of the bill establishing government north of the Columbia River named it the Territory of Columbia, but this was changed to Washington to (I’ve read somewhere) avoid confusion with the District of Columbia.
Comment by Dan Milton — January 19, 2009 @ 4:14 am
Odd that the delegates were concerned about confusion coming from counties and states sharing the same name. My first child was born in Utah County, Utah; my second was born in New York County, New York.
It’s not that hard folks.
Comment by Mark B. — January 19, 2009 @ 6:10 pm
This may have been mentioned before, but Virginia was to have extended to the Pacific Coast at one time.. the area to the west of the Blue Ridge was known as Fincastle County.
Comment by boscodagama — January 20, 2009 @ 1:12 pm
We West Virginians have had plenty of time now to regret the stupid last-minute decision of our first legislature to name the state West Virginia rather than Kanawha. To remove confusion??? In fact it’s resulted in 145 years of “Oh, you’re from West Virginia! Do you know N, he’s from Virginia too.”
In 1963, the centennial year, there was a move to rename the state Lincoln. But then … “Oh, do you know N, he’s from Omaha.”
As for the other plan on the map, it reminds me of that remade Middle East you posted a while ago. Maybe better in an ideal sense, but sure to infuriate nearly everybody who’d actually have to live with it.
Comment by Rodger — January 20, 2009 @ 3:50 pm
Joam – you should just give this one up. Your premise is just plain wrong.
State etymologies:
28 Native American
6 English
5 Latin
1 Basque
4 French
5 Spanish
1 Hawaiian
White anglo saxon account for 12% of the state names.
Comment by Art — January 20, 2009 @ 6:10 pm
Art (comment 18), I am interested. What name is Basque?
Comment by Watson Waterstone — January 20, 2009 @ 10:21 pm
[...] "Kanawha and A Landlocked Virginia" [Strange Maps] (tags: West_Virginia) [...]
Pingback by Life of Alan » links for 2009-01-20 — January 21, 2009 @ 4:01 am
Intriguing map. This would lead to a number of interesting outcomes and possible outcomes:
1: DC would have become an enclave of Maryland, and thus INELIGIBLE for staying the nation’s capital (as the capital had to touch at least two state areas)
2: Political maps of the Delmarva peninsula would be much easier to draw (one state instead of three).
3: It’s entirely possible that the new state of Virginia (including the Kenahwa section would have stayed Union. In general, it was the eastern portion of the state that was pro-confederacy (pro-slavery) whereas the western side of the state opposed slavery.
4: Could the Union side have held the whole of the new Maryland? I can easily see the capital moved to New York City or Philadelphia by dint of necessity (both established entities, both bordering other states). And would New Delaware have stayed Union as well, now that it had contact with a Confederate State?
Comment by godozo — January 21, 2009 @ 4:15 am
From Wikipedia:
There is some disagreement over the proper etymology of the name “Arizona.” Some scholars believe the name is simply an abbreviation of the Spanish phrase arida zona, “dry region”, although the phrasing is atypical for Spanish.
Others reject this derivation as capricious favoring explanations such as the Basque phrase aritz ona, “good oak,”[12][13] or the O’odham phrase alĭ ṣonak, “small spring”.[14]
The Basque etymology is the one preferred by Arizona state historian Marshall Trimble, among other specialists. The name Arizonac was initially applied to the silver mining camp, and later (shortened to Arizona) to the entire territory.
Comment by Art — January 21, 2009 @ 3:48 pm
Are any of you familiar with the would be State of Franklin. It nearly succeeded in being admitted to the Union but was finally rejected.
If you haven’t done so already, might be interesting to feature that as a map.
From Wikipedia:
The spirit of the American Revolution was still very much a part of the frontier world view, and increasing dissatisfaction with the government of North Carolina by citizens in the territory west of the Alleghenies led to calls for the establishment of a separate state. On August 23, 1784, delegates from the North Carolina counties of Washington (that at the time included present day Carter County), Sullivan, Spencer (now Hawkins) and Greene — all counties in present-day Tennessee — convened in the town of Jonesborough and declared the lands independent of North Carolina.
On May 16, 1785, a delegation from these counties submitted a petition for statehood to the United States Congress. Seven states voted to admit the tiny state under the proposed name Frankland. Though a majority, the number of states voting in favor fell short of the two-thirds majority required to admit a territory to statehood under the Articles of Confederation. In an attempt to curry favor for their cause, leaders changed the name to “Franklin” after Benjamin Franklin, and even initiated a correspondence with the patriot to sway him to support them. Franklin politely refused.
Comment by marisbo — January 21, 2009 @ 4:19 pm
@18 (Art): Your list doesn’t actually disprove Joam’s claim. Joam didn’t say 28 states have native American names and the rest were intended to reflect White Anglo-Saxon heritage. Joam said the name *West Virginia* was chosen to reflect White Anglo-Saxon heritage, and said separately that names of the states not having Native American names “are names given by the colonists honoring their own cultural and racial heritage”. Showing that other states have Latin, Spanish, etc. names doesn’t disprove that, particularly given the specific histories (Florida is a Spanish name for a state that was once a Spanish colony, “Carolina” is the Latin form of an English king’s name, etc.)
Mind you, that doesn’t change the fact that “only 28″ doesn’t make a lot of sense. But the problem comes from referring to “only” 56%, not from the fact that not all of the other 22 states have English etymologies.
Comment by Daniel — January 21, 2009 @ 5:32 pm
@21 (Godozo): Since when does the federal capital have to touch two states? Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to create a federal capital district not exceeding ten miles square, but it says nothing about having to touch multiple states. For that matter, it doesn’t even say Congress *has* to do this, just that it *can*. I see no legal reason the nation’s capital couldn’t be a city located deep within the interior of a state, and not separate from that state.
Comment by Daniel — January 21, 2009 @ 5:42 pm
Daniel – Joam stated: “I have the suspicion that those founding fathers did nor regard the Native American name of Kanawha acceptable for an American State.”
This clearly implies that the founding fathers did not approve of Native American names for states, period, which is false.
To belabor the point – he said “not…acceptable for AN AMERICAN state” – not “for THIS state” That clearly means he claims an anti native bias for state naming and worse – one directed from the halls of power – which is plain absurd.
Besides the fact that all the founding fathers were long since dead at this point.
Comment by Art — January 21, 2009 @ 6:38 pm
@Art (#26)
Presumably the phrase “these founding fathers” refers to the delegates to the state’s constitutional convention, not the Founding Fathers of the US.
Nevertheless, Joam’s claim is almost certainly invalid, since Kanawha would have bordered two established states with Native American names.
Comment by Alurin — January 22, 2009 @ 8:37 pm
It should be remembered that West Virginia was not created by the will of its people, who mostly wanted to still be Virginians. As one of the Wheeling Union delegates, Chapman J. Stuart, said on Dec. 10, 1861 “Now, Mr. President, to show you, and it needs but to look at the figures to satisfy the mind of every member, that even a majority of the people within the district composed of the thirty-nine counties have never come to the polls and expressed their sentiments in favor of a new State. In a voting population of some 40,000 or 50,000 we see a poll of only 17,627 and even some of them were in the [Union] army.”
Comment by Bob A. — January 23, 2009 @ 7:58 am
[...] — the only state to successfully secede from the United States. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)I’m Lord Voldemort, [...]
Pingback by Friday finds « STEVENHARTSITE — January 23, 2009 @ 10:32 am
The map comes from a report Secretary of War Cameron prodeuced on December 1, 1861. This was months after Virginia voted for secession and well after the fighting had started. So the idea that it was ‘meant’ to give Virginians the heebie-jeebies or that it was “a ploy to scare Virginians” just isn’t so.
As for the creation of West Virginia, seems constitutional to me and the ‘wrangling’ seems to have been over rather quickly after the war, certainly by 1871 with the Supreme Court case of Virginia v. West Virginia.
Comment by Will Keene — January 23, 2009 @ 1:00 pm
thought you would like this one
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Comment by Rafael Alves — January 23, 2009 @ 4:13 pm
Tennessee was on the list to get split into two parts, one Union, one Confederate, I believe. It was captured by the Union before that happened, however
Comment by Art — January 23, 2009 @ 4:34 pm
#30 Will Keene: Article IV section III of the Constitution sez:
…no new States shall be formed or erected within the
Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed
by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States,
without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States
concerned…
The creation of West Virginia was consented to by the “reorganized” Virginia legislature at Wheeling. It was attended only by members from the west – 33 members of the original Virginia legislature, and some 70 others chosen in irregular ways.
While this consent nominally satisfied the Constitutional forms, the authority of this assembly to act as the legislature of Virginia was questionable.
However, the repudiation of secession (and separation from Virginia) appears to have been overwhelmingly popular through most of the future state.
The Democrats might have tried to abolish this “Republican creation”. But though the state was Unionist during the War, it was not Republican afterwards: Democrats won the governorship in 1870, 1876, 1880, and 1884.
Comment by Rich Rostrom — January 23, 2009 @ 10:55 pm
28, you’re on to a point that most people miss. Aside from the constitutional arguments, the manner in which counties “voted” to seceed from VA was very suspect. In the pro-Union areas near PA and OH, there wasn’t a problem with passage, so they held fairly regular elections. In much of the central part of the state, which was where most military operations were occurring, they’d often hold county referendums in Union Army camps (since they were often voice vote, not many locals would be willing to show up to vote nay) and often soldiers from other states would cast votes. In much of what is now southern and eastern WV, where sympathies were generally pro-VA and pro-CSA, they generally just wouldn’t actually hold county elections–the Wheeling Conventions would just seat self-appointed representatives who sometimes had no ties to the counties they were supposed to represent or were refugees from their home counties for being pro-Union (Pocahontas County’s rep was in this category). What people don’t realize today is that, due to terrain and river directions, the southern and eastern parts of WV were much more interconnected with VA than with northern WV or OH and PA. Also, at the time, population patterns were very different and Wheeling, in the northern panhandle, was by far the largest city and southern WV, before the coal boom, was very sparsely populated. Anyway, it is an interesting subject about which there are a lot of misconceptions (many perpetuated by the state in the years after the Civil War and by industrialists who swept in to essentially colonize the state).
Comment by Iceman — January 23, 2009 @ 11:08 pm
33, I think I’ve read that when the Democrats came back into power after the civil war they actually tried to dissolve the state and rejoin VA, but the reconstruction government of VA would have nothing to do with it.
Comment by Iceman — January 23, 2009 @ 11:14 pm
#33 [Rich Rostrom] — I know what the constitution “sez” and, as you point out, ‘this consent nominally satisfied the Constitutional forms’ or as I put it “seems constitutional to me.”
I think you are also mistaken about the composition of the legislature. It did not contain ’some 70 others chosen in irregular ways’ and though mostly composed of western delegates, the legislature did include members from places in eastern Virginia like Fairfax and Alexandria.
Comment by Will Keene — January 24, 2009 @ 2:56 am
Art: So ‘aritz’ means ‘oak’? That’s interesting, there are people with that as their first name.
Comment by Watson Waterstone — January 24, 2009 @ 11:27 am
36, the original idea for the state (or one of them) is that it’d be a Union VA with an arm all along the Potomac and including the VA portion of Delmarva. This idea presupposed that the country would remain divided. It was, of course, a geographical absurdity that died in practice.
Iceman, you’re right, eastern WV was always very disputable. The map of “Kanawha” as given above is really a more logical version of the state.
By the way, in case anyone’s wondering why WV doesn’t include that long southwest arm of VA, it’s because of the Richmond-Knoxville Railroad, completed just before the war. Without that, WV would have extended to TN, and East TN might have become a separate state itself.
Comment by Rodger — January 24, 2009 @ 5:06 pm
Historians overlook the Democratic takeover of the state in 1870. Some more acute historians consider it a “counter-revolution” which was facilitated by the removal of voting restrictions on former Confederates. The state constitution was destroyed, and a new one written along old Virginia lines, and it was presided over by the former Confed. Lt. Gov. of Virginia, Samuel Price. The Wheeling government may have been successful in creating a new state, but they didn’t get to run it, their old enemies did. WV was the first state to elect an ex-Confederate to the US Senate, Allen Caperton, in 1876.
Comment by Bob A. — January 27, 2009 @ 6:45 pm
[...] the article: Possibly to annoy the Virginians even more, the first name proposed for the new state wasn’t [...]
Pingback by Kanawha we hardly new ye | grant_me_access — January 28, 2009 @ 9:47 pm
Lincoln started out as the village of Lancaster, which was founded in 1856, and became the county seat of the newly created Lancaster County in 1859. The capital of Nebraska Territory had been Omaha since the creation of the territory in 1854; however, most of the territory’s population lived south of the Platte River. After much of the territory south of the Platte considered annexation to Kansas, the legislature voted to move the capital south of the river and as far west as possible. The village of Lancaster was chosen, in part due to the salt flats and marshes.
Comment by Faust — January 29, 2009 @ 6:38 pm
Staten Island and Richmond County
Comment by Faust — January 29, 2009 @ 6:39 pm
Events, dear boy, events. British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, when asked what is most likely to drive a government off course.
Comment by Faust — January 29, 2009 @ 6:46 pm
Let us talk about US states.
Like Delaware.
Why was it the First State?
Comment by Faust — January 29, 2009 @ 7:07 pm
[...] While you’re on Strange Maps, check out their 1861 map of West Virginia, when it was known as “Kanawha.” [...]
Pingback by Waldo Jaquith - It’s all X to me. — February 27, 2009 @ 3:27 am
I need to proudly point out that I was born in a place called Kanawha, a little town in Iowa. I wish I knew why it was named that, maybe given in the 1860s by those in solidarity with the Unionists? Or natives of that river’s banks?
Comment by Bert — March 7, 2009 @ 4:51 pm
Kanawha sounds very close to the Russian word for “ditch” – kanavah канава. Somehow very appropriate for one of the poorest states in the US.
Comment by zioshech — September 12, 2009 @ 7:33 am
#44: Delaware is the First State because it was the first state to ratify the Constitution. Ironically, Delaware only became completely independent from Pennsylvania on June 15, 1776, making it arguably the youngest of the 13 colonies.
Comment by Yinzer — October 23, 2009 @ 8:12 pm
When “Kanawha” broke from Virginia, they immediately petitioned the US for statehood. The US refused, sent in a general – Pope I think – and turned the region in to an occupied territory, and refused to call it by the local name. (As per Churchill’s “Civil War”) Pope treated the West Virginians as if they were traitors, and many of them were so outraged they ran off to join the Confederate Army.
The reasons for this aren’t entirely clear, but my own theory is that early on in the war, before it became dragged out, Lincoln was hoping to give it back to Virginia after the war, hence not wanting them to get too used to having their own name. As the war grew more and more vicious, this became less and less likely, and they pushed through statehood for it, by this point, probably specifically to hurt Virginia.
Technically speaking, statehood for W. Virgina was unconstitutional, since Virginia opposed it, and the US government never admitted that Virginia had actually left the Union, therefore it’s violating the clause in the constition about not subdividing states in to new states without the express concent of the state that’s being divided, but after 750,000 people died, probably no one was really willing to press that point anymore.
Incidentally, Tennessee wasn’t going to be split up. It was (Breifly) two separate states/territories, but that was back in the 1780s, long since resolved and forgotten by the time of the Civil War.
Comment by Republibot 3.0 — October 24, 2009 @ 2:58 pm
Republibot 3.0 wrote: “Technically speaking, statehood for W. Virgina was unconstitutional, since Virginia opposed it, and the US government never admitted that Virginia had actually left the Union, therefore it’s violating the clause in the constition about not subdividing states in to new states without the express concent of the state that’s being divided”
Technically, Virginia did approve the creation of West Virginia, and therefore satisfied the requirement of the Constitution. There was a group of pro-US Virginia legislators that started meeting in Wheeling and declared themselves the true legislature of Virginia. Congress recognized them as such. Thus when they approved the splitting of the state, technically it was done Constitutionally. We may not like that process or may wonder if that legislature was legitimate, but in a technical sense it satisfied the Constitutional requirement.
Oh, and Pope was never in West Virginia.
Comment by Will Keene — October 24, 2009 @ 8:11 pm
I’m certainly not arguing about it, just pointing out that it was of questional legality. If a token bunch of tame Virginians were recognized by the Union as the ‘lawful’ government-in-exile of a state in rebellion…eh, agian, it’s of questionable legality. I could claim to be the government-in-exile of Federated Micronesia, but there’s no reason anyone would or should pay attention to that, and my signature on documents probably shouldnt’ be accepted as legally binding in an honest sense.
Not arging, just pointing out the “Technical” nature of the situation.
As to Pope – sorry about that. I did say I wasn’t entirely sure it was him.
Comment by Republibot 3.0 — October 24, 2009 @ 8:39 pm