From: "Strong, Lee" <StrongL at MTMC.ARMY.MIL>
To: "'WSFA members'" <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: West Virginia
Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2002 08:24:08 -0500
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

	Ah, Ron, you have touched on another of my obscure hobbies:
alternate United States.  Among the many proposals for states that never
materialized were Westsylvania in modern western Pennsylvania and Ohio,
Vandalia in Ohio-Indiana, Franklin in modern Tennessee, Jefferson (I) in
Colorado, Jefferson (II) in northwestern Texas, Sequoyah in eastern
Oklahoma, Lincoln (I) in southern Texas, and Lincoln (II) in Idaho.  Back in
the '70s a guy named Pearcy proposed revising the entire 50 United States to
have only 38 states, all with new names.  Under this proposal, northern
Virginia (and D.C.) would join Maryland to form the new state of Chesapeake.
During the Civil War, the Confederates attempted to organize territories of
Arizona and New Mexico within in the former New Mexico Territory.  However,
their proposed territories were long and narrow like Tennessee rather than
the current squarish models.  The idea was never effective and was
suppressed entirely when the California National Guard invaded Texas.
	One of the major historical reasons for the differences between
Virginia and West Virginia was that West Virginia was colonized primarily by
Marylanders moving west thru Harper's Ferry while central Virginia was
colonized primarily by Tidewater Virginians moving west thru Richmond.

-----Original Message-----
From: ronkean at juno.com [mailto:ronkean at juno.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 03, 2002 5:10 PM
To: WSFAlist at keithlynch.net
Subject: [WSFA] West Virginia

On Wed, 03 Apr 2002 11:08:52 -0500 "Michael Walsh"
<MJW at mail.press.jhu.edu> writes:
> U.S. Constitution, Article IV, Section 3:
> "New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no
> new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any
> other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more
> states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of
the
> states concerned as well as of the Congress."
>
> So . . . West Virginia?  Ok, it was wartime and the legislature of
> Virginia really wasn't in a position to object . . .
>
> mjw

In a nutshell.  The counties west of the Alleghany ridge had their
markets to the west, and had long felt separate from the rest of VA,
including the attitudes toward slavery.  After VA passed the ordinance of
secession in 1861, unionists met at Wheeling and formed the state of
'Kanawha'.  Congress admitted the state as West Virginia on June 20,
1863.

So we might have had a state named Kanawha.  Other state names which did
not make it include Westmoreland (part of PA), and Franklin (which ended
up as Kentucky, I think).  But Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
merits a lame' whoopie cushion.

Ron Kean