On the sixth of August, the adjourned Convention reassembled, as provided, at Wheeling. The principal work of this convention was the adoption of an ordinance to provide for the formation of a new State out of a portion of the State of Virginia.[60] It provided also for an election to be held on the twenty-fourth of October (1) to ratify the ordinance there adopted and (2) to select delegates to a convention to frame a constitution for the new State, in case a majority of the voters should decide in favor of formation. The vote at this election was 18,408 for ratification and 481 for rejection. Accordingly, upon certification of the same to the governor, he issued his proclamation, calling the delegates elected to a constitutional convention to meet in Wheeling on the twenty-sixth of November.[61] The Constitutional Convention met at the scheduled time in the United States Court room at Wheeling.[62] Thirty-four delegates of the forty chosen were present. No time was lost in effecting a permanent organization of the Convention, in order that the momentous problems to be solved might be brought before that august body. Not the least important one of these questions was that of the disposal of slavery. The questions of the hour were these: Was the new State to be a free or a slave State? Would the Union admit another slave State? It was on the fourteenth day of the Convention that Robert Hagar, a Methodist preacher from Boone county, offered a resolution to the effect that the convention inquire into the propriety of making the new State free, by incorporating into the Constitution a clause for gradual emancipation.[63] A counter proposal was offered on the same day by Mr. Brown, an ardent pro-slavery advocate, from Kanawha. His resolution asserted that it was "unwise and impolitic to introduce the question of slavery into the Convention."[64] Despite the fact that the organic law of the new State was then being framed, this pro-slavery champion deplored any attempt of the body to discuss or decide upon the question of slavery, the most vital question of economic policy with which the people would be concerned. There were present, however, other men who were determined to champion the cause of freedom. On the sixteenth day of the convention the courageous Mr. Gordon Battelle, a delegate from Ohio county, offered for reference the following proposition:[65] (1) "No slave shall be brought into the State for permanent residence after the adoption of this constitution. (2) "The legislature shall have full power to make such just and humane provisions as may be needful for the better regulation and security of the marriage and family relations between slaves, for their proper instruction, and for the gradual and equitable removal of slaves from the State.