"West Virginia was the child of the storm," concluded early Mountaineer
historian and Civil War veteran, Maj. Theodore F. Lang. The northwestern
third of the Commonwealth of Virginia finally broke away in 1863 to form
the Union's 35th state. In Seceding from Secession: The Civil War,
Politics, and the Creation of West Virginia, authors Eric J.
Wittenberg, Edmund A. Sargus, and Penny L. Barrick chronicle those
events in an unprecedented study of the social, legal, military, and
political factors that converged to bring about the birth of the West
Virginia.
President Abraham Lincoln, an astute lawyer in his own right, played a
critical role in birthing the new state. The constitutionality of the
mechanism by which the new state would be created concerned the
president, and he polled every member of his entire cabinet before
signing the bill. Seceding from Secession includes a detailed
discussion of the 1871 U.S. Supreme Court decision Virginia v. West
Virginia, in which former Lincoln cabinet member Salmon Chase presided
as chief justice over the court that decided the constitutionality of
the momentous event.
Seceding from Secession is grounded in a wide variety of sources and
persuasively presented. Add in a brilliant Foreword by Frank J.
Williams, former Chief Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court and
Chairman Emeritus of the Lincoln Forum, and it is an indispensable
source for everyone interested in understanding the convergence of
military, political, social, and legal events that brought about the
birth of the state of West Virginia.
