West Virginia University: Symbol of Unity in a Sectionalized State

Chapter 1: "Add to Your Faith Virtue, and to Virtue Knowledge"

Chapter 1 1862-1867 Alexander Martin April 3, 1867- August 12, 1875 "Add to Your Faith Virtue, and to Virtue Knowledge" AFTER TWO DECADES of regional agitation and experimentation in behalf of vocational or polytechnical education by farmers, industrial workers, and professional educators, Congress passed during the Civil War years the Morrill Land-Grant College Act. Although approved by Republicans in 1862 as a party measure, the educational statute was, in spirit, a reflection of the earlier Jacksonian Democracy because of its emphasis upon the common man. The legislation created, in the words of educational historians, "Democracy's Colleges," institutions of higher learning in each state for those capable of learning, and not for only those who could afford either the tuition charges or the classical curriculum of the private schools. States received an endowment either in land or in land scrip of 30,000 acres for each of their senators and representatives. Congress , in carefully limited language, specified in its first comprehensive education act that the subsidy would support and maintain "at least one college where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific or classical studies, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the 3 4 "ADD TO YOUR FAITH VIRTUE, AND TO VIRTUE KNOWLEDGE" mechanic arts, in such manner as the legislatures, of the States and Territories may respectively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life." Abraham Lincoln showed neither objection nor enthusiasm toward the Morrill Act, although he did approve it. Later in the same year, he granted permission for the admission of West Virginia as a state into the war-torn Union. Although he characterized its creation from an old Confederate dominion as a "certain and irrevocable encroachment upon the cause of rebellion ," he also could have explained the Morrill Act as a comparable expediency. The 1862 educational legislation consolidated the interests of agriculture and labor helpful to the new Republican Party; it devised a political strategy particularly effective in the older West and throughout the agricultural regions of the East. It also highlighted a policy that had been looked upon with misgivings by the Confederate South, which viewed the act as an extension of centralized government, and the new West, which pictured the legislation as reserving some of its best lands for the benefit of the older states. Toward both novel and unconventional measures, the Morrill Act and the admission of West Virginia, Lincoln could have explained his executive approval with greater political precision if such acts had not been questioned as to their legitimacy. But Lincoln then was enmeshed in creating a national "free" state rather than confirming the existence of a federal "slave" government , and both measures, constitutional or unconstitutional, obviously promoted the interests of "free soil" nationalism. With the Chief Executive's signature, the Congressional Land-Grant Act became law on July 2, 1862. With its first Governor, Arthur I. Boreman, expounding upon the unredressed grievances against its mother state, West Virginia became a state on June 20, 1863. On October 3, 1863, West Virginia made known its acceptance of the terms of the Morrill Act. To make certain of its own eligibility for an act that became law when it was not then in the Union, the Legislature petitioned Congress to confirm or grant West Virginia the necessary retroactive rights and benefits. Responding to the request on April 9, 1864, Congress specifically extended the provisions and terms of the Morrill statute to West Virginia and authorized a two-year period of grace for the acceptance by other newly created state sovereignties. Once assured that it fell under the terms of the Morrill Act, West Virginia petitioned Congress for more educational benefits. Finding itself near bankruptcy from the start, an unhesitant West Virginia asked Congress in a joint resolution of January 24, 1867, for an additional grant of 60,000 acres for each West Virginia senator and representative, a grand total of 300,000 more 1862- 1867 5 acres. To this plea, Congress proved unresponsive. If West Virginia wanted a college, it would have to extract sufficient funds from its citizens who were paying nominal taxes and from concerns like the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, which was then totally tax-exempt. With two senators and three representatives, West Virginia thus acquired a grant of land scrip entitling...