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their title on the same basis is only one-third of the entire number, viz : to seventy-one. During this whole time, therefore, while all these doleful complaints have been uttered, they have been in the practical enjoyment of representation ten per cent. greater than they can justly claim. Now, Sir, I do not bring this as a matter of reproach, or an item of debit or credit, but my sole object is to disabuse their minds and free them from the influence of imaginary grievances, and then bring them to the real questions before this body with all that spirit of conciliation, harmony and good will which a frank correction of errors, is calculated to produce; cherishing, as I do, the earnest hope that the result of the labors of the Convention may conduce to the future good feeling, confidence and affection of different parts of the State. I do this that I may expel that festering sore, that they may be convinced that they have misconceived their own situation, that no wrong has been done them on their own principles, and that power has been meted to them by their own scales and by their own weights.

In the same spirit, and swayed by similar influences, I will now advert to the statement of the gentleman from Augusta, to show that on the very foundation he laid, if we disregard means and look only to results, the question is, in fact, reduced to a mere form of words.

But before I go to that, let me bring to the notice of the gentleman from Augusta the influence of the principle when reduced to practice, according to the terms of the resolution of the Legislative Committee, as explained by his coadjutor from Loudoun (Mr. Mercer,) viz: the principle of representation on the basis of white population. The gentleman from Loudoun took this process. He did not controvert the proposition contained in the resolutions of the gentleman from Norfolk, but maintained the report of the Legislative Coinmmittee, on the ground that the two were equivalents. He claimed that equal amounts of population would produce equal numbers of qualified electors. On this postulate, he assumed, that the total numbers of white persons in any region of the State was a fair exponent of the number of voters it would furnish, and the numbers of population and of voters, having the same ratio, however different their sum, the result would be the same, whichever should be resorted to, in making the apportionment of representation. If one hundred of gross population, wherever situated, gave ten voters and in that proportion, it would be just as accurate to take a gross population for your computation of the amount of representation, as to take the voters.

The gentleınan from Augusta, does not deal with these equivalents, or go on these postulates. He has tried the effect, and has not conjectured that if a given nuinber of whites, in one part of the State, furnish a certain number of voters, the same number of whites in any other part would furnish a like number of voters. He has found the postulate of the gentleman from Loudoun to be fallacious, and the result shows one of the most striking and irresistible proofs of the sagacity with which my friend from Chesterfield seized the true criterion of the question in debate. Though in its form his proposition was supposed to be revolting to the feelings of the West, the result of these calculations furnishes demonstrable proof of its correctness.

I need not go into an examination of the classifications of the gentleman from Augusta, inade of the quantum of power to each portion of the State, deduced by his different processes. The necessity of this is removed by the fact that we have the amount in gross, and that the question is between the two sections of the State, divided by the Blue Ridge.

On the basis of qualified voters, on the Commissioners' books, the Western district has nine more meinbers than its due in the lower House, and one more in the upper. The gentleman shakes his head when I designate the Blue Ridge as separating the rival interests of the State. Be it so. But let me tell him, that it is a matter of some little value to us, to lools to any line. We can advance one step with the aid of the elements of apportionment we have obtained from his estimate, by first taking this primary division of the State. We can say these are to be the estimated amount of representatives beyond the Blue Ridge, and leave the sub-division to them. Leave that estimated for the East to us, and we will easily sub-divide. There will be no difficulty on this score. But, look to the estimated amounts for the sub-divisions of the State. What are they ? I could not take down the results of the gentleman's calculations, and so cannot speak with precision, as to the particular sums ; but, I received this impression from the whole, that taking the whole number of those who pay land tax in the East and West, divided by the Ridge, and giving them representation in proportion, and then making a re-partition between the two sections of the East, and the two sub-divisions of the West, I think the difference between the results of this, and an apportionment on the ratio, that the amendment under consideration supplies, will not amount to an unit. The gentleman may say, whether or not I am right. That the numbers do very nearly approximate, is certain. How much the difference may be, is unworthy serious deliberation. Here, then, the gentleman from Augusta, and the gentleman from Loudoun, stand on a ground of apportionment,

which leaves the four grand divisions of the State, almost as they will stand on the mixed basis.

If you take the Federal number and work by that rule, it will bring you to nearly the saine result. Now, it deserves to be mentioned as a inemorable fact, that this concurrence of three different processes, all leading to the same result, shows the justice and sagacity of the scheme of the gentleman from Culpeper (Mr. Green.)

He resorted to the plan of a mixed basis of taxation and representation, not arbitrary nor with a view to claim and to conquer power, but on mature deliberation, weighing various interests as they exist-and not from mere speculation—and it does happen, such is the influence of the slave property, (which is not property nerely, but men) on the other classes of persons and property, in the community, as to render it indispensable that they should be considered in the ratio. And it is another and most striking evidence of the sagacity and wisdom of those who originated the Federal number. It acts on the just principles of political economy. The slave population acts, not only as the laboring power of society, but it takes the place of men. Wherever slavery exists, and you look to the freenren of society for its government, and there is any property qualification, you arrive at the same object, or very nearly so, by adding three-fifths of the slave population, as by ascertaining all the voters, and apportioning your representation according to numbers.

This view of the subject is consoling. It presents us a point where all the processes meet and coincide: and then the only question is (seeing this is the result by either calculation,) not which ratio shall be employed just this moment, but what shall be fixed upon as the rule of future apportionments. On that subject, every consideration of wisdom and of convenience, requires that we discard at once, other modes of calculation, and take the easy, simple, practical plan of the Federal number, and make our apportionment by that.

Why are we to take this? Not arbitrarily, but because it agrees with the other processes, and because, if any other is resorted to, for the future rule, you force an artificial state of things, by holding out to politicians and individuals, inducements to produce it, with a view to an unequal distribution of political power. If you take taxation as your rule, legislation may be moulded, not by right principles, but sinister views to it; influence on political power and taxation may be managed, so as merely to affect the balance of that power.

If you take the rule of qualified voters only, then you encounter the difficulty of accurately determining their number. The very element of calculation is wanting. If you go to the Commissioners books, you encounter the toil and expense of registering all the lawful voters throughout this land: and you encounter, besides, the active principle alluded to by the gentleman from Augusta, leading men to make a false and fraudulent representation of the number of those votes, and give an artificial exaggeration of it; and thus you will have on your books, a host of men of straw, who disappear at the polls. You do more. And I wonder that the strong and masculine inind of the gentleman from Augusta, did not see this danger, and repudiate the rule. If I understood him aright, there is no one who regards, with a stronger feeling of foreboding and solicitude, that part of our duty which consists in prescribing the qualification of voters, than the gentleman. I have the authority of his whole political life, (and the life of no man can be more confidently appealed to, to deter. mine the future from the past,) for this assertion. And what must be the consequences, if he adopts this principle as a future test of political power?

The very first effect of it, will be to turn the thoughts of this Convention, not to the consideration of the reasons which legitimately belong to the subject, but to its influence on the grand question of power.

The effect will be, that you interpose a barrier to a fair, candid, and judicious decision of the questions affecting the limits of the Right of Suffrage. I am not sure that I am exempt myself from the operation of such an influence. I fear that my mind may be turned away, from considerations justly belonging to those questions, by the important and decisive influence of whatever principles we adopt, to regulate the Right of Suffrage, on the all-absorbing question now under consideration.

This is the inevitable effect of fixing upon the ratio of voters, as a principle of future action. But, what will be the effect in future? Fraud and simulation in fixing the number of voters. Insuperable difficulty will arise in getting at the real number of voters. And allowing you to get at it first, what will be the result hereafter? We propose, by the resolution in the report of the Legislative Committee, to extend the Right of Suffrage, so as to include many new classes of voters. We embrace all who are house-keepers, and have been assessed for, and have paid revenue taxes. I know not if it will be carried to that extent-but that has been proposed. But, assuming that that rule shall obtain, what is the number of qualified voters when we look to the numbers, not now, but in after time? When we fix the time the Census shall be taken, we cannot look to a former Census, but to that taken in the same year the apportionment shall be made; and that is to be the foundation of the allotment.

Well. And what is the expense at which the ascendancy of political power may be purchased? Aye, purchased?-put up to auction-and you the offerers. The delinquents in the payment of a county levy shilling tax will probably average one hundred and fifty or two hundred for each county, and they, it may be presumed, have not taxable property. The number of voters at this time, taking as the criterion of suffrage, the payment of a revenue tax, are probably about 35,000 West of the Ridge; and by the calculation of gentlemen on the other side, there are 15,000 or 20,000 more above the age of twenty-one, who either have no property at all, or no taxable property. You, Sir, well know, as every member of this Convention knows, that from the manner in which the assessments are made, every individual, by his own mere ipse dixit, may qualify himself to vote, so far as that qualification depends on having his name on the commissioner's book, and an assessment of a tax on property. Suppose the case of a contractor or manufacturer who has in his employ five hundred day-labourers, every one of them subject to his beck and call-though not one of them may own a dollar's worth of taxable or other property, yet every one of then may at pleasure, when called on by the commissioner, affect to own a horse or some property not subject to a higher tax than four cents, and give in that as property owned by him and liable to a revenue tax; and this tax being paid, he ranks as a voter, and more than that, he will enter into the computation when representation is to be apportioned. By this process, 20,000 may be added to the number of voters, at an expense of $800, and the addition of this 20,000 may, nay, will change the entire balance of political power. You would thus put up that balance at a wretched auction, and sell it for a miserable pittance. Will gentlemen close their eyes to this view of the subject? If we are to proceed in this downward course, let us go the whole length at once, and not require these petty frauds to bring upon us all the practical consequences of the utmost extreme to which we may go in extending the Right of Suffrage. Let us at once adopt the plan of Universal Suffrage-admit paupers and all to the polls. Let us give full efficacy to the so much loved principle of numbers to its whole extent. Let us no longer struggle with each other under vain disguises, but consent like men in the face of day, that we will take Universal Suffrage as one of the principles of the Constitution.

I appeal to the gentleman from Fairfax, (Mr. Fitzhugh,) the gentleman from Augusta, (Mr. Johnson,) the gentleman from Brooke, (Mr. Doddridge,) and to all the gentlemen on that side the House, if they do not render this almost inevitable; if they resort to such a principle as is now proposed, not for the present only, but for all future times, as the rule for the apportionment of representation: and then I solemnly ask them, are they prepared with their opinions on the subject of Suffrage, to incur this consequence?

Sir, I renounce it. I call on others, and especially the gentlemen to whom I have appealed, to join me in renouncing it, and to unite to furnish some ground on which all can meet, and this vexed question be terminated, at least, so far as results are concerned. Let us renounce all our processes. This I hold out to our antagonists as an olive branch-I tender it as a peace-offering-let us renounce all our processes, and take results and fix them in the Constitution, and wrangle no longer about a forin of words. Let us endeavor to fix on some principle to guide us in all our future changes. But if we cannot do this, then let the Constitution be silent, as to the rule to govern in future, and leave to future times to provide for future exigencies. Not that I prefer or approve the omission in the Constitution of some rule applicable in such exigencies. I would acquiesce in it, however, rather than continue the tedious and pernicious struggle in which we are engaged. If our brethren in the West will discharge from their minds imaginary injuries, and unseasonable fastidiousness, there is a principle in which we all might meet, simple, practicable, already established, and sustaining a most important interest of the State: a principle which adapts itself to all changes and which, if the prospects held out in the West, be not the creations of fancy, but the prophetic augury of wise observation, will carry there, along with its increasing prosperity and population, the power which is its due.

I have already adverted to the principles on which I became a member of this Convention. They were known to the public before I became a depository of the trust I hold here, and permit me to say to the gentlemen of the West-brethren of the same community, if my wishes shall prevail, brethren of the same community, we will remain in all time to come; for I will not permit my mind to indulge even in the hypothetical anticipation of a state of things that would reconcile me to a separation of the State, or to a disunion of the United States. In that term DISUNION, are included all the master ills that can affect a people or a State. Though we may, and certainly will, suffer less by the separation than the West, how heart-sickening is this estimate, not of blessings, but of woes! Come disunion when it may, it is due to the candour of this debate, to say, that strong as we are, it will bring to us a measure of evil, at least equal to that which our Northern neighbours will suffer. Nay, I fear, that if the extremity of suffering to which the several parts of the Union would be

exposed by so disastrous an event, could be accurately guaged, the painful pre-eminence of superior suffering would be found to belong to the Southern States.

I have not myself, been indifferent to the interests of the West. I am a friend to internal improvement. I have manifested it not by professions merely, but by acts in discharge of my solemn duties as a member of the Legislature. To the gentleman from Loudoun, (Mr. Mercer,) I allow the meed of praise, of being the author of the law which established the Board of Public Works, and munificently endowed it. To his zeal and influence, its success is mainly to be ascribed-If praise it be, I may claim for myself, that which belongs to an humble but earnest ally in the same cause. It had my support-and therein, I think I gave no indication of hostility to Western interests. I still continue the friend of internal improvement within those limits which its true friends are disposed to assign to it. I am hostile to gorgeous and visionary schemes, calculated only to delude the public mind, to play before the imagination the image of a great but unattainable good, or if not unattainable, to be accomplished only at a cost more than all the benefit it can yield will counterbalance. The true test of the expediency of attempting improvements of every kind, is that which was laid down by my friend from Augusta, (Mr. Johnson.) Let that be always applied, and with caution and care. When I see presented to me a scheme for any work for improving the state of the country, and I find it to be such, that those who receive the aid will be able themselves to return the sum expended, or a reasonable interest on it, I shall always be willing to advance for their aid the treasure and credit of the State. And let me add, that this is not a singular sentiment by any means in the Eastern portion of the State and nothing can exterminate that feeling and turn all the kindly and wholesome affections of the people of the East, to gall and bitterness, but a callous indifference to the mighty interests they hold, and the tremendous dangers to which those interests are exposed, and expose those who hold them. If the East shall find or have just cause to suspect that callous indifference, not to their property merely, but to their happiness and their safety; not to a matter of pence and farthings, but to their existence itself; the effect will be a state of constant inquietude, of uninterrupted apprehension-a total destruction of quiet and happiness. If to this indifference shall be added a grasping and intractable spirit—a resort to themes of angry declamation to overbear by passion and prejudice, and delusion, instead of weighing with candour their claims, and estimating them with the kindness of fraternal feeling-then, that will be done in the East, which some gentlemen think has been done in the West. There will be concert and combination. Stimulated by the feelings produced by that most intolerable evil, and ever-present sense of insecu rity, they will regard the inexorable authors of it, with fierce and angry hostility, and every collision will heat the blood, and tend to melt into one common mass, all their interests and passions, and then the two divisions of the State will stand confronted with each other; with passions aroused; fraternal feelings exasperated into bitterness; and then the minority in the East, impelled by one feeling, and directed by common will, will, (as the gentleman says that of the West has done,) practically control the power of the majority. The tendency of the claims so inexorably urged in total disregard of the rights and security of the East, is to break the cement which has heretofore so consolidated Western feelings and interests, and to fuse all the people of the East, as it were, into one body having but one soul.

I invoke gentlemen to take this view-I ask them, whether they can think of acting so as to produce this violent wrenching of all the feelings which ought to bind us as members of one political family, and plant a thorn in the wound made by the violent divulsion which will rankle for all time to come, and as an eloquent advocate of American rights said, in the British Parliament, in an analogous case, produce that immedicabile vulnus, for which time has no lenitive, and no physician a cure.

Mr. Stanard having resumed his seat, the question was propounded from the Chair, and after a pause, seemed likely to be taken, when

MR. RANDOLPH rose, and addressed the Committee as follows:

Mr. Chairman: It has been with great disappointment, and yet deeper regret, that I have perceived an invincible repugnance on the part of gentlemen representing here, a large portion of the Commonwealth, extending from Cape Henry to the Mountains, along the whole length of the North Carolina line, that portion of it in which my own district is situated, to take a share in this debate-a repugnance not resulting-I say so from my personal knowledge of many of them-not resulting from any want of ability, nor from the want of a just, modest, and manly confidence in the abilities they possess. I have looked to Norfolk; I have looked to Southampton; I have looked to Dinwiddie; I have looked to Brunswick, for the display of talent which I knew to exist: but, Sir, I have looked in vain.

And it is this circumstance only-I speak it with a sincerity, I have too much selfrespect to vouch for, which has induced me to overcome the insuperable aversion; insuperable until now; that I have felt, to attract towards myself the attention of the Committee.

As long as I have had any fixed opinions, I have been in the habit of considering the Constitution of Virginia, under which I have lived for more than half a century, with all its faults and failings, and with all the objections which practical men—not theorists and visionary speculators, have urged or can urge against it, as the very best Constitution; not for Japan; not for China; not for New England; or for Old England; but for this, our ancient Commonwealth of Virginia.

But, I am not such a bigot as to be unwilling, under any circumstances, however imperious, to change the Constitution under which I was born; I may say, certainly under which I was brought up, and under which, I had hoped to be carried to my grave. My principles on that subject are these: the grievance must first be clearly specified, and fully proved; it must be vital, or rather, deadly in its effect; its inagnitude must be such as will justify prudent and reasonable men in taking the always delicate, often dangerous step, of making innovations in their fundamental law; and the remedy proposed must be reasonable and adequate so the end in view. When the grievance shall have been thus made out, I hold him to be not a loyal subject, but a political bigot, who would refuse to apply the suitable remedy.

But, I will not submit my case to a political physician; come his diploma.from whence it may; who would at once prescribe all the medicines in the Pharmacopoeia, not only for the disease I now have, but for all the diseases of every possible kind I ever might have in future. These are my principles, and I am willing to carry them out; for, I will not hold any principles which I may not fairly carry out in practice.) Judge, then, with what surprise and pain, I found that not one department of this Governinent-no, not one-Legislative, Executive or Judicial-nor one branch of either, was left untouched by the spirit of innovation; (for I cannot call it reform.) When even the Senate, yes, Sir, the Senate, which had so lately been swept by the besom of innovation-even the Senate had not gone untouched or unscathed. Many innovations are proposed to be made, without any one practical grievance having been even suggested, much less shown.

Take that branch of the Government which was so thoroughly reformed in 1816, and even that is not untouched. Sir, who ever heard a whisper, ab urbe condita to this day, that the Senators of Virginia were too youthful? I never heard such a sentiment in my life. And in the House of Delegates, what man ever heard that the members-I speak of them, of course, in the aggregate-that the members were too young? Yet, even there-it is to be declared, that all men who might be elected to that body between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-four, are to be disfranchised; and as regards the Senate, all between the ages of twenty-one and thirty. Yes, Sir, not only the spring and seed-time, but the summer and harvest of life; that delightful season which neither you, Sir, nor I can ever recall; the dearest and the best portion of our lives: during this period of nine years, the very prime of human life, men are to be disfranchised. And for what? For a political megrim, a freak-no evĺ is suggested. The case is certainly very rare, that a man under thirty is elected a member of the Senate. It will then be said, there is no privation, and, therefore, no injury. But, Sir, there is a wide difference between a man's being not elected, and a fundamental law stamping a stigma upon him by which he is excluded from the noblest privilege to which no merit or exertion on his part can restore him. But, all this, I suppose, is in obedience to the all-prevailing principle, that vox populi vox dei; aye, Sir, the all-prevailing principle, that Numbers and Numbers alone, are to regu late all things in political society, in the very teeth of those abstract natural rights of man, which constitute the only shadow of claim to exercise this monstrous tyranny. With these general remarks, permit me to atteinpt-(I am afraid it will prove an abortive attempt) to say something on the observations of other gentlemen, to which I have given the most profound attention I am capable of. Sir, I have no other preparation for this task, than a most patient attention to what has been said here, and in the Committee, of which I was a member, and deep, intense, and almost annihilating thought on the subjects before us. This is all the preparation that 1 have made. I cannot follow the example which has been set ine. I cannot go into the history of my past life, or defend my political consistency here or elsewhere. I will not do this for this reason: I have always held it unwise to plead 'till I am arraigned, and arraigned before a tribunal having competent and ample jurisdiction. My political consistency requires no such defence. My claim to Republicanism rests on no patent taken out yesterday, or to be taken out to-morrow. My life itself is my only voucher, a life spent for thirty years in the service of the most grateful of constituents. The gentleman from Augusta, who occupies so large a space, both in the time and in the eye of the House, has told us that he fought gallantly by the side of his noble friend from Chesterfield, so long as victory was possible, and that it was not until he was conquered, that he grounded his arms. The gentleman farther told us that, finding his native country and his early friends on this side the mountain, on whose behalf he had waged that gallant war-he found he hesitated what part to take now, until his constituents, aye, Sir-and more than that, his property, on the other side-and he

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