But now, by the chances of war, the same men who desired to create the new State were wielding the entire political power of Virginia, and they would naturally grant permission to themselves to erect a State that would be entirely free from the objectionable jurisdiction which for the time they represented.
Blaine explains how the political power dynamics shifted in Virginia, allowing for the creation of West Virginia.
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All these provisions are made to protect the States, not to authorize an attack by one part of the country upon another; to preserve the peace, and not to plunge them into civil war.
The right of the General Government to preserve itself in its whole constitutional vigor by repelling a direct and positive aggression upon its property or its officers cannot be denied.
If this view of the subject be correct, as I think it is, then the Union must utterly perish at the moment when Congress shall arm one part of the people against another for any purpose beyond that of merely protecting the General…
But this is a totally different thing from an offensive war to punish the people for the political misdeeds of their State Government, or to enforce an acknowledgment that the Government of the United States is supreme.
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