Oh, please. Rowdee is right, you guys want it both ways. This is what we mean when we say that your side has only one principle: "we win!"
Well, you're wrong, you're palpably and nakedly wrong, and you would do a whole lot better to save yourself the embarrassment of standing up for these fictions, and just admit that Congress broke the Constitution when it dealt with a rump, phone-booth convention.
The West Virginians did not have sovereignty. The People, viz. the whole people of Virginia, acting within their rights as Sovereign, exercised their right to revolution after 30 years of discussion and five months of exploration of last-minute alternatives, by assembling in convention and voting as the People to take their sovereign State out of the Union.
Virginia, as a State, had the right to secede from the Union. Western Virginia, as something less than a State, had no equivalent right to break away from Virginia -- and everyone in Congress knew it, they just broke the Constitution to pack the Senate with a couple more Unionist-Abolitionist votes.
Thank you for putting this into words much better than I did. Why in hell does the 'right' believe they are righteous when they desecrate the Constitution, and whine, bitch, moan and groan, when the 'left' does it!
BTW, I agree with your home page.....and perhaps go a bit further.....I believe Maggie Thatcher could well be THE only man in Europe!!
So you admit it was Revolution. Good. Now we are getting somewhere. Am I legally obligated to participate in your Revolution? Do I not have a right to refuse to participate and maintain my previous allegiances? When Richmond refused to acknowledge Federal authority it did not revert to being the Royal Colony of Virginia. It became an entirely new entity and had no legal claim to sovereignty over any land or any loyalty from the residents of that land unless those people agreed to it. How could the Revolutionaries in Richmond compel the people of Wheeling to participate in Revolution other than by force of arms?
The people of the Western counties refused to participate in Richmond’s revolution. Congress recognized their loyalty and after the Constitutional requirements for statehood were met, recognized the western counties as a new state. Show me one thing in the Constitution that was violated in the admission of West Virginia. One thing.