which
will only last end in a defeat and entail upon its framers the cold
distrust of the only friends they have in the world. The loyal masses
of the free States who are fighting the great battle of Constitutional
freedom, who are endeavoring to stay the absorbing and consuming
demands of slavery upon this continent, will never consent that in the
very midst of them it shall burst out, in a new place, with the
extraordinary demands that its present representation of a state in
their Senate shall be doubled.... We say then to the members of our
convention that before you waste your time and money on a constitution
you look to its probable fate."[67]

That this prophetic message from the _Intelligencer_ reflected the
opinion of the people of Western Virginia and the state of mind of the
Congress, was clearly shown by subsequent events. On the nineteenth
day of the Convention an adroit attempt was made to have West Virginia
become a slave State.[68] Thomas Harrison, of Harrison county, offered
a resolution providing that the making of a new constitution be
dispensed with for the present, and that the Virginia Constitution be
referred to a Committee of Five with instructions to modify it to suit
the needs of the proposed new State. Significant among the provisions
of the Virginia Constitution was one altered at the Richmond Secession
Convention to the effect that the General Assembly should have power
to prohibit the future emancipation of slaves. By its provisions,
therefore, the slave could never become free during his residence in
the State. On motion of Mr. Van Winkle, the Convention voted that
action on the resolution be indefinitely postponed.[69]

Battelle, persistent in his efforts to make some provision in
reference to the freedom of the slaves, decided to submit emancipation
to the people. Accordingly, therefore, on the twelfth of February,
1862, he offered the following:[70]

(1) "Resolved. That at the same time when this Constitution is
submitted to the qualified voters of the proposed new state to be
voted for or against, an additional section to article----, in
the words following: 'No slave shall be brought or free person of
color come into this state for permanent residence after this
constitution goes into operation, and all children, born of slave
mothers after the year 1870 shall be free, the males at the age
of twenty-eight years, and the females at the age of