I find it odd that state like West Virginia be so conservative when it was founded as a breakaway state from Virginia to avoid being a slave state.
West Virginia broke off from its parent-state because it wished to stay in the Union. Like Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, it entered the Union as a slave state -but it entered as a loyal slave state.
Also, western Virginia had been wanting to separate from Richmond even before the Civil War. Ideally, when Kentucky was split off of Virginia, it should have had everything on the other side of the eastern Continental divide and maybe even split into two additional states instead of one. However, Virginia wanted to keep access to the Ohio, so that didn't happen.
However. while West Virginia wished to enter as a loyal slave state, to get Congress to approve their statehood, they had to do so as a free state.
