Considering the proposition in the light of expediency, the question was asked: "What do the best interests of the people of West Virginia require from the persons assembled to frame the organic law?" In reply thereto there was developed the theme that labor was fundamental to the material prosperity of the commonwealth; that slave labor and free had always been and would doubtless always be unharmonious and inconsistent in purpose. Since slave labor, it was pointed out, was competent to perform only the crudest work and most menial tasks, it followed that free labor was indispensable to the material progress of the new State. "Slave labor," Battelle said, "drove out free labor and tended to make all labor undignified and despised. It should, therefore, be dispensed with." In reply to the assertion that since the system was destined to die a quick and certain death no action on the part of the State was necessary, Mr. Battelle urged that "if that be true, it furnished an additional reason for the incorporation into the constitution of a provision terminating slavery." "Such action would be but just to all parties--to both the proponents and the opponents of the present system." The argument closed with an exposition, first, on slavery as the fundamental cause of the then current distress in Virginia and in the nation; and second, on the propriety of such an act at that particular time. This argument doubtless had an unexpected effect in preparing the minds of the people of the State for the acceptance of the plan of gradual emancipation, the condition on which West Virginia was finally admitted.[77] SLAVERY AND THE ADMISSION OF WEST VIRGINIA Waitman T. Willey, a member of the Senate from Virginia, having obtained the permission of that body to do so, presented on May 29th a certified original of the constitution together with a copy of an Act of the General Assembly of Virginia, of May 13, 1862, under the Restored Government, giving its permission for the formation of a new State within the commonwealth of Virginia. He presented at the same time the memorial of the General Assembly requesting Congress to admit the State of West Virginia into the Union. Following the receipt of these documents they were referred to the Committee on Territories, of which B. F. Wade, of Ohio, was the Chairman.[78]