Wheeling Convention

The 1861 Wheeling Convention was an assembly of Southern Unionist delegates from the northwestern counties of Virginia, aimed at repealing the Ordinance of Secession, which had been approved by referendum, subject to a vote.

William B. Zinn, who had represented Preston County many times in the Virginia General Assembly, was elected chairman.

Chester D. Hubbard of Ohio County ended the debate by proposing the creation of a committee on representation and permanent organization.

Carlile's motion was condemned as revolutionary, and most at the convention instead supported resolutions offered by the Committee on State and Federal Resolutions, which recommended that western Virginians elect delegates to a Second Wheeling Convention to begin on June 11 if the people of Virginia approved the Ordinance of Secession.

Delegate Mason Mathews from Greenbrier County instead attended the Virginia General Assembly in Confederate Richmond.

[3] Many of the delegates at the Convention believed that the differences between eastern and western Virginia were irreconcilable and supported some sort of separation.

Carlile, however, though he had called for a similar plan during the First Convention, persuaded the delegates that constitutional restrictions made it necessary for the formation of a loyal government of Virginia, whose legislature could then give permission for the creation of a new state.

On June 14, he expanded on his view of state and federal relations: "the people of Virginia in establishing government for themselves deemed it best to create two agents.

The plot was one that was conceived in perjury at Washington, and carried out by falsehood throughout the country, attended by coercion, intimidation, insult and a reign of terror, which was equally concerted throughout Virginia, as well as in the other Southern States."

"For several days before the Convention passed the Ordinance of Secession, it was absolutely besieged; members were threatened with being hung to the lamp posts; their lives were jeopardized; the mob was marching up and down the streets, and surrounding the Capitol, and everything was terror and dismay.

In those parts of the State freedom of election was completely suppressed, and men who dared to vote against secession done it at the hazard of their lives.