100% yes. After the seceders constituting VA's government vacated their offices by engaging in insurrection, remaining Unionist Virginians successfully petitioned the federal government to be recognized as succeeding the seceders in their now-vacated offices as the legitimate government of VA, & then used their position as the legally-recognized legitimate government of VA to organize a referendum on a long-desired Western Virginian separation from Richmond, certify their consent to the creation of such a new state out of itself if/when West Virginian statehood won its referendum, & proceed to remain in existence in Alexandria after WV separated (& took most Union-held territory with it). Clearly, they knew which i's to dot & t's to cross to make it constitutionally legal for the inevitable future challenge that'd arise once a reconstructed VA returned into the fold, which is exactly what happened within a year of its readmission into the Union, with SCOTUS' 1871
Virginia v. West Virginia ruling now rendering modern WV status-challengers nothing more than extremist loons. Even True Originalist ACB is
on-the-record as believing that, while originalists can arguably conclude that WV is an unconstitutional state, it nonetheless stands as a superprecedent the Court must abide by "when it makes eminent sense to recognize that the correctness of a decision is a secondary (or far less important) consideration than its permanence."
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