Seceding from Secession: The Civil War, Politics, and the Creation of West Virginia by Eric J. Wittenberg, Edmund A. Sargus Jr., and Penny L. Barrick (review)

The appearance of a new book on West Virginia's formation excites students of this understudied subject. Few books on the topic have emerged since Richard Orr Curry's work sixty years ago. In Seceding from Secession, three Ohio lawyers, one of whom (Wittenberg) is a reputable Civil War historian, trace the legal controversies generated by northwestern Virginia's unusual course toward statehood. The constitutional process of creating a new state out of an existing one alone justifies the authors' interest. They add consideration of the little-known postwar but decisive Supreme Court case, Virginia v. West Virginia, to this mix, Thus seeking "to provide a better understanding and appreciation of the process by which West Virginia joined the union and the constitutional issues underlying those events" (xiv). The result, however, will disappoint those hopes. The book's lack of analysis and poor writing gives it little historiographic innovation. These shortcomings considerably weaken the book's value to scholars and the public.

The problems begin with the authors' approach to the history of West Virginia's creation. They use unanalyzed block quotes on almost every page. Without understanding a source's importance, readers must guess their value. This deficiency becomes most apparent in the coverage of the 1861 Richmond and Wheeling conventions and in the authors' discussion of Lincoln's cabinet opinions on the West Virginia statehood bill in December 1862. Lawyers at both events produced copious documentation capable of sustaining the trio's legal inquiry. Yet, the authors speed through these documents with little comment. The result merely repeats the same century-old story about long-standing cultural, economic, and political differences motivating the northwest's separation. The authors' sole innovation of adding federal interest in protecting the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad as the catalyst for statehood barely stands out. The book also contains numerous avoidable factual errors. For example, Henry Wise came from eastern Virginia, not western Virginia (30); and the authors place Congress's acceptance of the Reorganized Government in July 1861, after the fledgling state drafted its constitution in November 18XX (74). Without much analysis, the authors' interpretation of West Virginia statehood changes little about the subject.

The final three chapters on Virginia's unsuccessful 1870 Supreme Court lawsuit, Virginia v. West Virginia, likewise disappoint. Revived conservativism in the Old Dominion, the authors claim, led the state to recover Berkeley and Jefferson counties from its new neighbor. The authors' legal skills should have shone here, but they provide only mixed benefits. Their analysis of the top federal court reveals its problems in dealing with the war's lingering issues. Radical Republicans, the authors rightly say, interfered with the court's structure and authority to impose their Reconstruction policies. Likewise, Chief Justice Chase should have recused himself from this affair, given his previous cabinet service (177). However, the authors' dissection of the majority and minority opinions, which ruled in favor of West Virginia, amounts to mere summary. Amazingly, they place the similar if less famous 1911 debt case between the two states in the conclusion rather than including it earlier. Although the authors cover these cases more than previous scholars do, they offer few new insights into the legal history of the Civil War and Reconstruction or of West Virginia's genesis.

Seceding from Secession falls short of its goals. Its many problems stem from poor writing and lack of analysis. The authors' lengthy block quoting may work when writing court briefs, but it fails as history. Without an analysis of the cited sources, readers will not understand their historical importance. Despite the wealth of legal information available, the authors' account of West Virginia statehood repeats the same old story. Their coverage of the Supreme Court case adds little to the debate. They generally prove their point that legal...