I've always wondered about the legality of West Virginia seceding from the rest of the state, to be honest. I understand it was during wartime, but the Union never acknowledged the CSA as being independent. How then does it justify altering state borders? I'm genuinely curious, before a South-North flame war commences.
Northern Colorado wants to secede, form new state
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madviking
north american scum
you can keep your cousin marrying, coal mining, and moonshine running hillbillies to yourself
The justification for altering the state's borders rested with the creation of the so-called "Restored Government of Virginia", a group of politicians largely elected by the counties of northwestern Virginia, who claimed that Virginia's state offices had been vacated by the unrecognized secession - and, therefore, treason - of the state's legislators in Richmond. This Restored Government, which was seated in Wheeling (as mentioned earlier), eventually authorized a plebiscite in the counties of western Virginia to create a new state, West Virginia. The plebiscite passed, Congress approved the new state, and Lincoln signed the bill of West Virginian statehood into office in the winter of 1862.
Yea those radiant yellow stained teeth, rioting mobs, and obsession with sports you all are terrible at have nothing to do with why people dislike the English, superiority complexes, etc.
As opposed to dazzlingly white teeth that clearly aren't natural, 150 million people who believe that Evil Science is lying to us, an obsession with various 'world' sports that only you play and a manifest destiny complex?
That really doesn't seem legal. Wouldn't any government voted for by the constituents of only one small section of a state be, by definition, invalid, thus rendering any motions passed by that government invalid? And obviously a plebiscite in that region would be even more illegal.
If your teeth can't blind passing motorists, you're doing it wrong.As opposed to dazzlingly white teeth that clearly aren't natural, 150 million people who believe that Evil Science is lying to us, an obsession with various 'world' sports that only you play and a manifest destiny complex?
Cryptic_Snow
Prince
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Government is force. Period.
useless
Social Justice Rogue
Well you could move to Somalia if you honestly feel the pressure of the government's jackboot on you.
Wow. You've really been studying political philosophy, haven't you?
useless
Social Justice Rogue
You know what's also force? Military. The army.
Better get rid of them then!
Better get rid of them then!
Rashiminos
Fool Prophet
West Virginia is a precedent.
Cryptic_Snow
Prince
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What does being ruled over by tribes have to do with anything? That's just different form of authoritarianism.
Cryptic_Snow
Prince
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"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
~George Washington
If I remember right he kicked your ass at Yorktown.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
I suppose the issue is whether or not the people in the rest of the state had the opportunity to vote.
Not really "small section". The voters of the western Virginia counties, at the time, comprised about a third of the total Virginia electorate. (Had slaves been counted, of course, the proportion would've shrunk rather dramatically. But they weren't.)
But I don't see how it could have been not legal. Insurgents, terrorists, and traitors prevented the due election of American state government officials in most of the Commonwealth of Virginia; the United States Army ensured that it was possible to elect them in the rest of it. That does not make those elections that did successfully take place any less valid or legal. Had the inhabitants of the traitor counties of Virginia been even remotely interested in influencing the question of West Virginia's statehood or lack thereof, their inhabitants could've, I dunno, not tried to secede, and actually participated in state government.
Finally, after a late-1860s dispute over the status of two of West Virginia's border counties, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that those two counties were, by rights, West Virginia's, and in the process confirmed the legality of West Virginia's creation in the first place. So there's that, too.
They were denied that opportunity by the Confederacy.
Rashiminos
Fool Prophet
*Clap*
A little iron in the diet today.
If Colorado were the OT, then I think I know what the answer would be.
madviking
north american scum
Most states of reasonable size have this folks of this mindset. See the NorCal "state" of Jefferson, for example.
There's a probably good case for a realignment of various state boundaries on geographic, resource, or socio/cultural needs, but they're never of this crackpot type stuff and would never happen anyway.
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