important remarks: (1) that the proposed new State had
voluntarily fixed the marks of extermination of the institution of
slavery; (2) that the principal men of the commonwealth had told him
that the first legislature to convene would do away with the whole
institution, as fast as the nature of the case would permit; (3) that
he believed the efforts of West Virginia were constitutional; (4) that
it was just and expedient to admit her; (5) that he did not favor the
inclusion in the commonwealth of the pro-slavery counties of the
Valley; (6) that he did not want a provision saying that a person born
one day should be a slave forever, and that one born the next day
should be free; and finally (7) that he would like to see an
amendment, providing that "all children who, at the time this
constitution takes effect, are fifteen or sixteen years of age, shall
be free upon arriving at the age of twenty-one or thirty-five years,"
i.e., a provision for gradual emancipation that will enable some of
those born before as well as all of those born July fourth, 1863, to
obtain their freedom.[87]

Mr. Fessenden, of Maine, prefacing his remarks with the statement that
he had not examined the question, proceeded to make the following
observations: (1) that he wished to be assured that the State could be
admitted constitutionally; (2) that considering the position of the
State, the feeling of the people about the matter, the small number of
slaves there at the present time, he believed it not only the duty,
but the entire right of the body (Congress) to prescribe before the
State comes in that she shall put herself in a proper and irreversible
position on the subject of the gradual abolition of slavery; (3) that
when a definite and fixed date is given for the termination of
slavery, the State becomes in point of fact a free State; (4) that he
was glad to know (according to Mr. Wade) that the people of West
Virginia concurred in opinion with the principles sponsored by
himself; and (5) that the interests of the State itself and those of
all of the States in the Union demanded an irreversible agreement on
the whole matter.[88] Further consideration of the bill was then
postponed.

Shortly after an unsuccessful attempt on the part of Mr. Willey to
have the consideration of the bill continue,[89] it was brought up
again on the fourteenth of July by Senator Wade. The pending question
was the amendment of Mr. Sumner. The vote was taken and th