 Fellow delegates elected him their President for the reconvened session of February 1863 (because Congress required the new state's constitution to contain an antislavery provision, which President Abraham Lincoln approved in December 1862).On March 26, voters overwhelmingly ratified the new Constitution (28,321 to 572), so President Lincoln soon acknowledged the revision as adequate thus creating the state of West Virginia.When West Virginia's first legislature divided Tyler County in to districts in 1863, Sistersville was in the Lincoln District.