Is the existence of West Virginia legal?

[Sol]

Well?

[brucejoel99]

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."

[KaiserDave]

No, but that's good and I don't care.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Dismembering one of the Slavers' Rebellion states was the compromise.

[politicallefty]

I'm inclined to say No. Congress had the Guarantee Clause at its disposal, but it was not used. However, as noted above, there is a reason for what we call superprecedents. The Civil War and what came after cannot be so easily reduced to the constitutional principles as we know them. The Reconstruction Amendments fundamentally transformed the Constitution.

[Senator Incitatus]

Dismembering one of the Slavers' Rebellion states was the compromise.

That’s a generous interpretation but probably wrong. Given that Unionists could have easily controlled a unified Virginia during post-war Reconstruction, the real reason we kept them separate was probably just to ensure more Republican Senators.

[Fuzzy Bear]

My paternal ancestors said "No!"

Somewhere in my archives, I have a letter from one family member to another, written in 1864, written from "Bethany, Virginia".  At that time, WV had already seceded from VA so the correct dateline would be "Bethany, West Virginia".  Either (A) news travelled slow, (B) old habits are hard to break, or (C) Great-Great-Great Granny was making some kind of statement.

[Skill and Chance]

Yes, once it had seceded from the Union, Virginia didn't exist as a legal entity with any borders the Union was obligated to respect or any elected representatives the Union was obligated to recognize, so they were perfectly within their rights to instead recognize a Unionist government in exile as the legislature.  Essentially, it became a foreign country which was then gradually reconquered.

In retrospect, state suicide theory should have been broadly applied to protect Deep South African-Americans, South Texas Tejanos, and Unionist mountain people in East Tennessee as well as in West Virginia.

[Birdish]

"You were rebelling so shut up" - SCOTUS to Virginia after The Civil War - History Matters

[E_querilous_unum]

Absolutely.  Surprises me that anyone says no.

Providing more than a yes or no answer…

1) Constitution includes a clause about process for adding states
    -   before 1861 there had been several precedents for doing this (see Maine for example)

2) Constitutional process identifies two actors in process: Congress and “Legislatures of the States concerned”
- in 1861 there was no question of to who was Congress
- rebellion did create uncertainty as to who was the Legislature of Virginia
- however  Supreme Court ruling from decades earlier (Luther v Borden) ruled on the question of how Congress could decide between competing entities claiming to be the state government
- and the loyalist legislature had been recognized by Congress in 1861
- and the rebel legislature claimed not to be within the jurisdiction of the US anyway

As such, when loyal Legislature voted in 1862 for the creation of the new state it met the Constitutional process

[E_querilous_unum]

Yes, once it had seceded from the Union, Virginia didn't exist as a legal entity with any borders the Union was obligated to respect or any elected representatives the Union was obligated to recognize, so they were perfectly within their rights to instead recognize a Unionist government in exile as the legislature.  

It went down a little different. It was never considered a foreign country.  Secession was considered a null action; Virginia was still considered a legal entity with borders of the US with representatives to be respected and recognized. The “legislature” in Richmond had declared it was not bound by the US constitution, so had no standing in the eyes of Congress, but a small group of state legislators met in Wheeling (not really in exile as it was still within the state), swore allegiance to the state AND to the US constitution and nominated two gentleman to be seated as US Senators (at the time Senators in Virginia were not elected by popular vote but by the legislature); Congress accepted these two into the Senate thus legitimizing the legislature in Wheeling.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

Dismembering one of the Slavers' Rebellion states was the compromise.

There is no such penalty for a state choosing to commit treason in effort to protect slavery as doubling its representation in the nations upper chamber.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Dismembering one of the Slavers' Rebellion states was the compromise.

That’s a generous interpretation but probably wrong. Given that Unionists could have easily controlled a unified Virginia during post-war Reconstruction, the real reason we kept them separate was probably just to ensure more Republican Senators.

Dismembering one of the Slavers' Rebellion states was the compromise.

There is no such penalty for a state choosing to commit treason in effort to protect slavery as doubling its representation in the nations upper chamber.

I was joking.

[Senator Incitatus]

I was joking.

I figured (or should have if I saw you were the author) but wanted to make a point about Virginian unionism regardless.