On June 20, 1863, West Virginia became the thirty-fifth state in the Union. The land that formed the new state formerly constituted part of Virginia. The two areas had diverged culturally from their first years of European settlement, as small farmers generally settled the western portion of the state, including the counties that later formed West Virginia, while the eastern portion was dominated by a powerful minority class of wealthy slaveholders. There were proposals for the trans-Allegheny west to separate from Virginia as early as 1769. When Virginia seceded from the Union in 1861, the residents of a number of contiguous western counties, where there were few slaves, decided to remain in the Union. Congress accepted these counties as the state of West Virginia on condition that its slaves be freed. "Montani semper liberi," "mountaineers always freemen," became the new state's motto.What is interesting about West Virginia is the way in which in became a state. Abraham Lincoln and many in the North did not believe that states had the constitutional right to secede. So, in 1861, when states in the South began seceding from the Union, the North viewed this as an unconstitutional act. Lincoln had support from the North to save the union. The support for ending slavery would come later.
Those in the western regions of Virginia opposed their state's secession in 1861 as illegal. Throughout the year they met and the voters in the western counties voted to create their own state. In 1862, the new state approved a new constitution and on June 20, 1863 Congress admitted West Virginia into the Union under condition that slavery would be abolished in West Virginia.
The irony of history is that the Union said states could not secede (i.e. leave the Union) but allowed West Virginia to seceded from Virginia and the Confederacy.
For more information:
History of West Virginia website
Summary of Statehood for West Virginia
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