1863 West Virginia gubernatorial election

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1863 West Virginia gubernatorial election

← 1859 (Virginia) May 28, 1863 1864 →
 
Nominee Arthur I. Boreman
Party Union
Popular vote 25,797
Percentage 99.99%

County results
Boreman:      
No votes:      

Elected Governor

Arthur I. Boreman
Union

The 1863 West Virginia gubernatorial election was the first gubernatorial election, held on Thursday, May 28, 1863. Unionist Arthur I. Boreman was elected virtually without opposition. This was the first of two gubernatorial elections held in West Virginia during the American Civil War; 17 counties were occupied by Confederate military forces on Election Day and did not participate in the balloting.

In a contested convention held at Parkersburg, West Virginia, the Union Party nominated Judge Arthur I. Boreman over his nearest rival, Peter G. Van Winkle. Despite fissures within the statehood movement driven by the Willey Amendment, an abolitionist proposal backed by U.S. Senator Waitman T. Willey, no challenge to the Union ticket emerged from either the radical or conservative ends of the party. Secessionists loyal to the Confederacy did not recognize the legitimacy of the new state and consequently did not participate in the campaign.

Boreman received over 99 percent of the vote in 33 participating counties against only three votes for other candidates. Voter turnout was anemic, and newspapers complained of the slowness of the returns; however, by June 13, sufficient returns had been received for officials to certify Boreman's election. He was inaugurated as the first governor of West Virginia on June 20, 1863, in a ceremony at the Linsly Institute in Wheeling alongside other officers of the new state government.

Background

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Map showing the distribution of the slave population of the United States, compiled from the census of 1860. Enslaved and free people of color cumulatively comprised just 5% of the population in the counties that became West Virginia, while exceeding a majority in the wealthy Tidewater region.[1]

Cultural, economic, and regional differences had long separated Western Virginia from the eastern Tidewater counties that dominated political and economic life in Antebellum Virginia. Slavery dominated the Tidewater, while it had a substantially weaker presence in the western counties, which remained economically underdeveloped.[2] By 1830, the disparity between the sections was such that Western Virginia would have elected a majority of members in the General Assembly if representation were allocated in proportion to the free population, (the "white basis,") but the Three-fifths Compromise and the mass disenfranchisement of lower-class whites allowed eastern slaveholders to dominate the Assembly and state offices, although a minority of the overall population.[3][4] After 1830, the political orientation of the Shenandoah Valley shifted eastward as the region became more closely linked to slavery, while Northwestern Virginia grew increasingly alienated from the Tidewater.[5]

Following the election of Abraham Lincoln and the commencement of hostilities between the United States and the Confederacy, the Virginia Secession Convention voted to secede from the Union on April 17, 1861; 26 of the 31 northwestern delegates voted against the ordinance. Western unionists convened the First Wheeling Convention on May 13 to discuss options for resistance in the event of Virginia's secession; following approval of the secession ordinance by a popular referendum on May 23, the Second Wheeling Convention issued the "Declaration of the People of Virginia" condemning secession as unconstitutional and treasonous, declared all state offices vacant, and installed Francis H. Pierpont as head of the Restored Government of Virginia. The success of the Western Virginia campaign established Union military control over the region and enabled unionist leaders to adopt and ratify a dismemberment ordinance between August 20 and October 24, beginning the process of formally separating from Virginia.[6]

Although broadly popular in the Trans-Allegheny counties that had voted against secession, the new state movement divided Unionist leaders. Conservatives in the Union Party privately opposed dismemberment and attempted to undermine the statehood movement by annexing a number of secessionist southwestern counties to the proposed State of Kanawha. Ultimately, fifty counties would comprise the new State of West Virginia; counties that had voted against the secession ordinance contributed 60 percent of the population of the new state, while 40 percent lived in secessionist counties, several of which remained under Confederate military occupation.[7]

Unionists were further divided by the requirement, introduced by Congress, that West Virginia abolish slavery as a condition for statehood. Despite the opposition of such prominent Unionists as John S. Carlile, the Willey Amendment (so named for its author, U.S. Senator Waitman T. Willey of Morgantown, West Virginia) was ratified by voters in March 1863, and West Virginia duly entered the Union on June 20. Nevertheless, the battle over the Willey Amendment permanently divided West Virginian Unionists. Those who had supported the amendment became known as Unconditional Unionists and eventually provided the cornerstone of the Republican Party in West Virginia, while Carlile and others who argued in defense of slavery in 1863 joined forces with Copperheads in the Democratic Party to oppose Lincoln's reelection in 1864.[8]

Union Party

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Convention

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From May 6 to 7, 1863, the Union Party's state convention was held to nominate candidates for multiple political offices. Each county delegation was awarded a number of votes equal to its total white population. For the party's gubernatorial nomination Samuel Crane was nominated by James G. West, Boreman was nominated by E. M. Norton, and Peter G. Van Winkle was nominated by Ben Smith.[9][10]

On the first ballot Van Winkle received a plurality of the vote, but did not receive the nomination due to a majority being required. West withdrew Crane's nomination before the second ballot in which Boreman defeated Van Winkle.[9]

Candidates

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Results

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1863 West Virginia Union gubernatorial convention[11]
Candidate First ballot Second ballot
County
units
Votes % County
units
Votes %
Arthur I. Boreman 8.317 80,886 26.67 23.002 181,185 59.70
Peter G. Van Winkle 16.950 135,528 44.70 16.998 122,291 40.30
Samuel Crane 14.532 84,144 27.74
James W. Paxton 0.200 2,636 0.87
TOTAL 40 303,194 100.00 40 303,476 100.00

General election

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On May 28, 1863, Boreman won the gubernatorial election without opposition.[12]

Results

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1863 West Virginia gubernatorial election[13]
Party Candidate Votes %
Union Arthur I. Boreman 25,797 99.99
Various Others 3 0.01
Total votes 25,780 100.00%

Results by county

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County Arthur I. Boreman
Union
Total
Votes Percent
Barbour 770 100.00 770
Berkley Did not participate
Boone 102 100.00 102
Braxton 212 100.00 212
Brooke 678 100.00 678
Cabell Did not participate
Calhoun Did not participate
Clay Did not participate
Doddridge 742 100.00 742
Fayette Did not participate
Gilmer 289 100.00 289
Greenbrier Did not participate
Hampshire 135 100.00 135
Hancock 418 100.00 418
Hardy 91 100.00 91
Harrison 2,037 100.00 2,037
Jackson 534 100.00 534
Jefferson Did not participate
Kanawha 655 100.00 655
Lewis 1,184 100.00 1,184
Logan Did not participate
Marion 1,428 100.00 1,428
Marshall 2,067 100.00 2,067
Mason 747 100.00 747
McDowell Did not participate
Mercer Did not participate
Monongalia 1,585 100.00 1,585
Monroe Did not participate
Morgan 261 100.00 261
Nicholas Did not participate
Ohio 2,905 100.00 2,905
Pendleton 161 100.00 161
Pleasants 239 100.00 239
Pocahontas Did not participate
Preston 1,639 100.00 1,639
Putnam 232 100.00 232
Raleigh Did not participate
Randolph 239 100.00 239
Ritchie 667 100.00 667
Roane 177 100.00 177
Taylor 867 100.00 867
Tucker Did not participate
Tyler 720 100.00 720
Upshur 879 100.00 879
Wayne 289 100.00 289
Webster Did not participate
Wetzel 870 100.00 870
Wirt 375 100.00 375
Wood 1,603 100.00 1,603
Wyoming Did not participate
TOTAL 25,797 99.99 25,780

References

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  1. ^ Foner, Eric (2014). Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (Updated ed.). New York: HarperPerennial. p. 38.
  2. ^ McPherson, James M. (1988). Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 297–98.
  3. ^ Simpson, Craig (October 1975). "Political Compromise and the Protection of Slavery: Henry A. Wise and the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850-1851". Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 83 (4): 387–405. JSTOR 4247978.
  4. ^ Chandler, Julian A. C. (1896). Representation in Virginia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. pp. 38n1.
  5. ^ Curry, Richard Orr (1969). "Crisis Politics in West Virginia, 1861–1870". In Curry, Richard Orr (ed.). Radicalism, Racism, and Party Realignment: The Border States during Reconstruction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. p. 87.
  6. ^ McPherson, 298–99.
  7. ^ Curry, 83–84; 89–90.
  8. ^ Curry, Richard Orr (December 1962). "A Reappraisal of Statehood Politics in West Virginia". Journal of Southern History. 28 (4): 407, 419–20. doi:10.2307/2205406. JSTOR 2205406.
  9. ^ a b "The Nominations". The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer. May 9, 1863. p. 2. Archived from the original on June 21, 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ^ "Letters of Acceptance". The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer. May 26, 1863. p. 2. Archived from the original on June 21, 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ^ "Parkersburg Convention". Daily Intelligencer. May 9, 1863.
  12. ^ "West Virginia 1863 Gubernatorial election". Civilian and Telegraph. June 25, 1863. p. 2. Archived from the original on June 21, 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ^ "Official Returns of the Vote for Officers of the State of West Virginia". Daily Intelligencer. June 13, 1863.