ging the admission of the new State were Edwards, Blair,
Stevens, and Bingham. Edwards asserted that the two questions
presented had to do with (1) the constitutional power of Congress to
admit the State and (2) the question of expediency. Blair, while
urging the admission of the new State, took occasion to inform Mr.
Crittenden, of Kentucky, that the people of the proposed new State of
West Virginia had bound themselves to pay a just proportion of the
public debt owed by the State of Virginia, prior to the passage of the
Ordinance of Secession. Thaddeus Stevens held that the act of the
legislature of Virginia assenting to the division of the State was
invalid as such, but that West Virginia might be admitted under the
absolute power that the laws of war give to Congress under such
circumstances. "The Union," he said, "can never be restored under the
Constitution as it was," and with his consent, it could never be
restored with slavery to be protected by it. He was in favor of
admitting West Virginia because he "found in her constitution a
provision which would make her a free state."[117]

Perhaps no man in the House opposed more vigorously the admission of
the State under the bill being considered than did Mr. Segar.
According to his point of view, the people of the proposed new State
had made a pro-slavery constitution; they had retained their former
slave status, merely prohibiting the coming in for permanent residence
of additional slaves and free Negroes. The bill presented here, he
argued, requires them to strike out the provision that they have seen
fit to make with reference to slavery; Congress has made for them a
constitution of fast emancipation, one of virtual anti-slavery
variety. "This," said he, "is nothing less than a flagrant departure
from the doctrine that the States may of right manage their domestic
affairs and fashion their institutions as they will."[118] During the
course of his remarks, he found occasion to deny the constitutionality
of the legislature, by whose authority he held his seat in Congress.

Concluding the debate, Mr. Bingham, who had advocated the admission of
the State throughout the course of its consideration by the House,
summed up in succinct form, first, the positions taken by the
preceding speakers; and second, citations and arguments to show the
constitutionality of the proceedings. Continuing, he urged the
expediency of admission; he asserted that the chief objection to
a