[94] The Congressional approval of West Virginia's admission occurred in December 1862, but it was not until June 1863 that President Lincoln proclaimed the admission of the new State and approval of its constitution. [95] Fairfax County Court Minute Book, 1863-1867, p. 2. [96] _Ibid._ Minutes of a meeting of the court on January 19, 1863. [97] _Ibid._ The practical effect of this order has been questioned, however, since Mt. Vernon was sold out of the Washington family in 1859 to the Mt. Vernon Ladies' Association of the Union, and the Washingtons had, by 1863, moved to Fauquier County, leaving neither relatives or property in Fairfax County. Interview with Judge James Keith, April 1972. [98] As described in William Hemphill, Marvin Schlegel and Sadie Engelberg, _Cavalier Commonwealth: History and Government of Virginia_, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1957), 339-340, this constitution contained various new provisions, such as the abolition of slavery and denial of suffrage to all men who held office under a Confederate government. [99] Eugene E. Prussing, _The Estate of George Washington, Deceased_, (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1927) pp. 39-40. "Martha Washington's Will and the Story of its Loss and Recovery by Fairfax County," _Yearbook of the Historical Society of Fairfax County, Virginia_, II (1952-53) 40-62. [100] "Martha Washington's Will," p. 61. CHAPTER V THE YEARS OF REBUILDING: 1865-1903 With the end of the war the formidable tasks of rebuilding both state and local governments were begun. President Abraham Lincoln's view of reconstruction had been that the government which took Virginia out of the Union should be the one to bring her back into the Union,[101] and President Andrew Johnson generally sought to follow this principle. Others, mainly the Radical Republican leaders, argued that Virginia had forfeited her sovereignty by rebellion, and so could not return to the Union except on new terms.[102] In this respect, President Johnson found that the presence of Governor Pierpont in Richmond--purporting to govern under the constitution which his government had drafted and ratified in Alexandria in 1864--was a complicating factor. Not only was the legitimacy of this constitution questioned, but all evidence pointed to the conclusion that the state's leaders who had served the Confederacy could not and would not accept it.