Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/559

 �IRGINIA . WEST �IRGiNIA. ' 533. 209 U.S. Argumt for Defendant. State of West Irrna, and when these three steps shall have been taken, and the two items charged, and the one item cred- ited, the sum which it was agreed between the two States. should constitute a just proportion of the debt of the Com- monwealth of Virginia prior to January 1, 1861, which West Virginia assumed, will have been ascertained. These provi sions are not "arbitrary and inconsequential items." They are the items which Virginia herself framed and re- quired to be accepted by the proposed new State as a condition of aent to her separation and admission into the Union. There is but one item in �-defining the manner in which the account should he taken in order to ascertain the propor- tion of the debt to he taken upon herself by the proposed new State--left at all indefinite, and that is item (b), "'a just proportion' of the ordinary expenses of the state government, since any part of said debt was contracted." This involves  determi,tion of the basis upon which a "just proportion" of the aggregate ordinary expenses of the state government during the said period is to he ascertained. Shall it be popula- tion or territory, or both, or taxable values? Defendant con- tends that it should be based upon population, since "govem- ment"--including the administration of justice, .the making and adminstering of the laws, the educatior{ of the .children through a system of common schools, academies and a state university, the maintenance of state institutions, the support of prisoners, the care of the insane and paupers, and the like-- is for people, not acres. Defendant suggest there heuld be added to defendant's draft, in respect of an ascertainment of the aggregate ordinary expenses of the State, a direction to the master to find alternatively certain fac substantially as follows: "For the purpo of enabling the cour to determine the just proportion of the aggregate of the ordinary expenses of the state government of the Commonwealth of Virginia prior to January 1, 1861, and since any part of said indebted- ness was contracted, said master shall ascertain and report the population during the said period of the counties now con-

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