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the truth of the proposition assumed, what security, they would enquire, is there against the injustice of the freeholders? How is the assertion made good, that they can pass no law affecting the rights of others without more injuriously affecting their own They cannot do this, it is said, because they possess, in common with other citizens, all personal rights, and, in addition, the rights pertaining to their peculiar property. And if this be a satisfactory reason, then phe land-holder in each county or district would suffice to elect the representative body; or, the impossibility of in juring others being shewn, a single land-holder in the Commonwealth might sta more conveniently exercise the sovereign power. But, not the proposition obvi qusly false? What is there to prevent their imposing upon others undue burthens, and conferring on themselves unjust exemptions? Supplying the public exigencies by & capitation or other tax exclusively or oppressively operating on the other portions of the community? Exacting from the latter, in common with slaves, menial services? Placing around their own persons and property.more efficient guards? Providing for their own injuries speedier remedies? Denying to the children of all other classes admission to the public seminartes of learning? Interdicting to all but their own order, indeed, the power to elect, and the right to be elected, are most intimately if not inseparably united; all offices of honor or emolument, civil or military? Why can they not do all this, and more? Where is the impossibility? It would be unjust: admirable logic! Injustice can be predicated only of non-freeholders.

•Still it is said, the non-treeholders have no just cause of complaint. A freehold is – easily acquired. The right of suffrage, moreover, is not a natural right. Society may grant, modify, or withhold it, as expediency may require. Indeed all agree that certain regulations are proper: those, for example, relating to age, sex, and citizenship. - At best, it is an idle contest for an abstract right whose loss is attended with no practical evil,

If a freehold be, as supposed, so easily acquired, it would seem highly impolitic, to say no more, to insist on retaining an odious regulation, calculated to produce no other effect than to excite discontent. But the fact is not so. The thousanda expell. ed from the polls too-well attest the severity of its operation. It is by no means easy ce or convenient for persons whom fortune or inelination have engaged in other than agricultural pursuits, to withdraw from those pursuits, or from the support of their families, the amount requisite for the purchase of a freehold. To compel them to do this, to vest that sum in unproductive property, is to subject them, over and above the original cost, the assessments upon it, and the probable less by deterioration, to an annual tax, equivalent to the profits they might have derived from the capital thu unprofitably expended. What would be thought of a tax imposed, or penalty inflict ed, upon all voters, for exercising what should be the unbought privilege of every citizen? How much more odious is the law that iinposes this tax, or rather, it may be said, inflicts this penalty, on one portion of the community, probably the larger and least able to encounter it, and exempts the other?

The right of suffrage, however, it seems, is not a natural right. If by natural, is meant what is just and reasonable, then, nothing is more reasonable than that those whose purses contribute to maintain, whose lives are pledged to defend the country, should participate in all the privileges of oitizenship. But say it is not a natural right. Whence did the freeholders derive it? How become its exclusive possessors? Will they arrogantly tell us they own the country, because they hold the-land? The right by which they hold their land is not itself a natural right, and by consequence, nothing claimed as incidental to it. Whence then did they derive this privilege'? From grant or conquest? Not from the latter. No war has ever been waged to assert it. If from the former, by whom was it conferred? They cannot, if they would, recur to the Royal instructions of that English monarch, of infamous memory, who enjoined it upon the Governor of the then Colony of Virginia, "to take care that the members of the Assembly be elected only by the freeholders, as being more agreeable to the custome of England:" he might have added more congenial also with monarchical institutions. If Colonial fegulations might properly be looked to, then the right, not of freeholders merely, but of freemen, to vote, may be traced to a more dis tant antiquity, and a less polluted source. But, by our ever-glorious revolution, the Government whence these regulations emanated. was annulled, and with it all the political privileges it had conferred, swept away. Will they rely on the Constitutional provision? That was the act of men delegated by themselves. They exercised the very right in question in appointing the body from whom they profess to derive it, and indeed gave to that body all the power it possessed. What is this but to say they generously conferred the privilege upon themselves? Perhaps they may rely on length of time to forestal enquiry. We acknowledge no act of limitations against the oppressed. Or will they disdain to shew any title; and, clinging to power, rest on force, the last argument of Kings, as its source and its defence? This were, doubts less, the more politic course.

Let us concede that the right of suffrage is a social right; that it must of-necessity be regulated by society. Still the question recurs, is the existing limitation proper? For obvious reasons, by almost universal consent, women and children, aliens and slaves, are excluded. It were useless to discuss the propriety" of a rule that scarcely admits of diversity of opinion. What is concurred in by those who constitute the society, the body politic, must be taken to be right. But the exclusion of these classes for reasons peculiarly applicable to them, is no argument for excluding others to whoni no one of those reasons applies.

It is said to be expulent, however, to exclude non-freeholders also. Who shall judge of this expediency? The society: and does that embrace the proprietors of certain portions of land only Expedient. for whom? for the freeholders. A harsir appellation would he deserve, who, on the plea of expediency, should take from ano ther his property : `what, then, should be said of hun who, on that plea, takes from another his rights, upon which the security, not of his property only, but of his life and liberty depends?

But the non-freeholders are condemned for pursuing an abstract right, whose privation occasions no practical injury.

Your memorialists do not, perhaps, sufficiently comprehend the precise import of this language, so often used. The enjoyment of all other rights, whether of person or property, they will not deny, may be as perfect among these deprived of the privilege of voting, as among those possessing it. It may be as great under a despotism, as under any other form of Government. But they alone deserve to be called tree, or have a guarantee for their rights, who participate in the formation of their political institutions, and in the control of those who make and administer the laws. To such as may be disposed to surrender this, or any other immunity, to the keeping of others, no practical mischief may ensue from its abandonment; or if any, none that will-not be justly merited. Not so with him who feels as a freeman should; who would think for himself and speak what he thinks; who would not commit his conscience or his liberty to the uncontrolled direction of others. To im the privation of right,.of that especially, which is the only safeguard of freedom, is practically wrong. So thought the fathers of the republic. It was not the oppressive weight of the taxes imposed by England on America: it was the assertion of a right to impose any burthens whatever upon those who were not represented; to bind by laws those who had no share, personal or delegated. in their enactment; that roused this continent to arms. Have the principles and feelings that then prevailed, perished with the conflict to which they gave birth If not, are they not now grossly outraged? The question is submitted to your candor and justice.

Never can your memorialists agree that pecuniary burthens or personal violence are the sole injuries of which men may dare to complain. It may be that the freeholders have shewn no disposition greatly to abuse the power they have assumed. They may have borne themselves with exemplary moderation. But their unrepresented brethren cannot subint to a degrading regulation which takes from them, on the supposition of mental inferiority or moral depravity, all share in the Government under which they live. They cannot yield to pretensions of political superiority founded on the possession of a bit of land, of whatever dunensions. They cannot acquiesce in political bondage, because those who affect to sway over them the rod of empire, treat them leniently. The privilege which they claim, they respectfully insist, is theirs as of right; and they are under no obligation to assign any reason whatever for claiming it, but that it is their own.

Let the picture be for a moment reversed. Let it be imagined that the non-freeholders, possessing the physical superiority which alone can cause their political influence to be dreaded, should, at some future day, after the manner of the freeholders, take the Government into their own hands, and deal out to the latter the same measure of justice they have received at their hands. It is needless to enquire into the equity of such a proceeding; but would they not find for it in the example set them at least a plausible excuse, and to the freeholders' remonstrance retort the freeholders' argument? That argument your memorialists will not now recapitulate; they leave it to others to make the application.

Your memorialists have thought it due to the magnitude of the question, to examine at some length the grounds on which their political proscription is usually defended. If they have occasionally been betrayed into warmth of expression, the transcendant importance of the franchise they claim, and the nature of the objections they have been compelled to meet, will plead their apology. Deep would be their humiliation in now addressing you, delegated as you have been by those who hold them in political subjection. did they not but too well remember, it is their brethren to whom they impute their wrongs, and from whom they solicit reparation. Never, indeed, can they cease to protest against the measures which have made you, not the representatives of the people, but the organ of a privileged order. Still they approach you as the guardians of the public weal, however so constituted; as dispensers of the

public justice; as an assemblage of distinguished citizens wielding the power, however irregularly conferred, of new-modelling the fundamental institutions of the State. They bow with respectful deference to the virtues and talents which have raised you to the eminent station you now occupy. They appeal, through you, to the justice of their country, and confidently trust, under your auspices, to assume that equal rank. m the community, to which they conceive themselves justly entitled, and which, until they shall indeed be unworthy to enjoy it, they can never willingly re

nounce.

In behalf of the meeting,.

Teste,

JOHN B. RICHARDsox, Secretary.

WALTER D. BLAIR, Chairman.

Mr. Marshall said that, however gentlemen inight differ in opinion on the question discussed in the memorial, he was sure they must all feel that the subject was one of the deepest interest, and well entitled to the most serious attention of this body. He therefore moved its reference to tire Committee on the Legislative Department of Government.

The motion was agreed to, and the memorial referred accordingly.

Mr. Mercer then presented a memorial, which, he said, came from a highly respectable body of citizens in Fairx county. Its purport and tenor were very similar to that which had just been read; and he moved its reference to the same Committee.

The motion was agreed to, and the reading of the memorial having been dispensed with, it was referred to the Legislative Committee.

On motion of Mr. M'Coy, the House then adjourned, to meet to-morrow at one o'clock.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1829.

The Convention met at one o'clock, and its sitting was opened with prayer by the Rev. Mr. Taylor, of the Baptist Church.

No business presenting itself,

Mr. M'Coy moved an adjournment, but withdrew his motion in favor of Mr. Doddridge, who moved a recess of the House till four o'clock, hoping that the First Auditor might have had time to prepare and lay before the House the documents which had been ordered by the Convention.

The President then laid before the House the following letter from the Auditer:

AUDITOR'S OFFICE,

13 OFFICE,}

SIR-In compliance with one of the resolutions adopted by the Convention on the 10th inst. I have the honor to transmit a statement of the number of persons in each county, and corporate town, within this Commonwealth, eharged with State tax on moveable property, for the year 1828. The documents called for by the other resolutions will be furnished as soon as they can be prepared.

I have the honor to be, Sir,

With great respect and consideration,
Your obedient servant,

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JAMES E. HEATH, Auditor of Public Accounts.

Mr. Doddridge moved to lay the communication on the table and print.it, and that the Auditor should deliver the residue when prepared to the public printer.

The motion was agreed to.

Mr. Johnson, with a view to give the Committees more time, moved that when the House adjourned, it adjourn to meet at two instead of one o'clock, which being agreed to, on motion of Mr. Doddridge, the Convention adjourned.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1829.

The Convention met at two o'clock, agreeably to adburnment, and was opened with prayer by the Rev. Mr. Kerr, of the Baptist Church.

Mr. Anderson presented a memorial from the non-freeholders of Shenandoah, praying the extension of the right of suffrage; which, on Mr. Anderson's motion, was referred to the Legislative Committee.

Mr. M'Coy rose to observe, that having no disposition to sit there, or see others sit there, without having something to do, he moved that the Convention rise;. which was agreed to without opposition.

And then the Convention adjourned until to-morrow, two o'clock.

FRIDAY. OCTOBER 16, 1829.

The Convention assembled at two o'clock, and was opened with prayer by the Rev. Mr. Taylor, of the Baptist Church:

-And (having no business before them) on Mr. Nayler's motion, the Convention adjourned till to-morrów, twa p'ołock.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1829:

The Rev. Mr. Kärr offered up a prayer: after which, the Convention was called to order..

No business being yet ready to be laid before the Convention, Mr. Doddridge moved that the Convention adjourn; he stated that some additional documents had been prepared by the Auditor of Public Accounts, which would be placed in the hands of the public printer under a previous resolution of that body,

The motion to adjourn prevailed without opposition; and the, Convention accordingly adjourned til Monday, two o'clock.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 19, .1829.

The Convention met at two o'clock, and its. Sitting, was opened with prayer by the Rev. Mr. Armstrong, of the Presbyterian Church.

Mr. Fitzhugh, from the Committee on Compensations, made the following farther report, in part:

The Committee appointed to enquire into the compensation proper to be allowed the officers of the Convention, have agreed to the following resolution:

Resolved, That the sum of sixteen dollars be allowed the Sergeant at Arms for 10tifying William K. Perrin of his election to the Convention.

The report was adopted..

Mr. Taylor of Chesterfield, from the Committee on the Bill of Riglits, &c. made the following report:

The Committee to whom was referred the Bill or Declaration of Rights, and all such parts of the present Constitution as are not referred to the, Committees on the Legislative, Executive and. Judicial Departments of the Government, have had the subjects to them referred, under their consideration, and have in part performance of the duties devolved on them, agreed upon the following resolution:

"Resolved, That in the opinion of this Committee the Bill or Declaration of Rights, &e requires.no amendment."

The report was laid upon the table.

Mr. Harrison of Rockingham, presented a memorial from the non-freeholders of that county of a similar general inrport to those heretofore presented; and which was, his motion, referred without reading to the Legislative Committee.

on

No farther business being before the Convention, on motion of Mr. Mercer, the House adjourned.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1829.

The Convention met at two o'clock, when its sitting was opened with prayer by the Rev. Mr. Hamner, of the Presbyterian Church.

Mr. Marshall, from the Committee on the Judiciary Department of Government, made the following report from the Committee:

1. Resolved, That the Judicial power shall be vested in a Court of Appeals, in such Inferior Courts, as the Legislature shall from time to time ordain and establish, and in the County Courts. The jurisdiction of these tribunals shall be regulated by law. The Judges of the Court of Appeals and of the Interior Courts, shall hold their offices during good behaviour, or until removed in the manner prescribed in this Constitution; and shall, at the same time, hold no other office, appointment, or pullic trust: and the acceptance thereof, by either of them, shall vacate his judicial office. No modification or abolition of any Court, shall be construed to deprive any Judge thereof of his office; but such Judge shall perform any judicial duties which the Legislature shall assign him.

2. Resorced, That the present Judges of the Court of Appeals, Judges of the General Court, and Chancellors remain in office until the expiration of the first session of the Legislature, held under the new Constitution, and no longer. But the Legislature may cause to be paid to such of them, as shall not be re-appointed, such sum as, from their age, infirinities, and past services, shall be deemed reasonable.

3. Resolved, That Judges of the Court of Appeals and Interior Courts, except Justices of the County Courts, and the Aldermen or other Magistrates of Corporation Courts, shall be elected by the concurrent vote of both Houses of the General Assembly, each House voting separately, and having a negative on the other; and the members thereof voting ricu roce. The votes of the members shall be entered on the Journals of their respective Houses. Should the two Houses, in any case, fail to concur in the election of a Judge, during the session, the Governor shall decide the election, by appointing one of the two persons who first received a majority of votes in the Houses in which they were respectively voted for. But if any vacancy shall occur during the recess of the General Assembly, the Governor, or other person performing the duty of Governor, may appoint a person to fill such vacancy, who shall continue in office until the end of the next succeeding session of the General Assembly.

4. Resolved, That the Judges of the Court of Appeals, and of the Inferior Courts, shall receive fixed and adequate salaries, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.

5. Resolved, That on the creation of any new county. Justices of the Peace shall be appointed, in the first instance, as may be prescribed by law. When vacancies shall occur in any county, or it shall, for any cause be deemed necessary to increase their number, appointments shall be made by the Governor, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, on the recommendation of their respective County Courts. 6. Resolved, That the Clerks of the several Courts shall be appointed by their respective Courts, and their tenure of office be prescribed by law.

7. Resolved, That the Judges of the Court of Appeals and of the Inferior Courts, offending against the State, either by mal-administration, corruption. or neglect of duty, or by any other high crime or misdemeanor, shall be impeachable by the House of Delegates, such impeachment to be prosecuted before the Senate. If found guilty by a majority of two-thirds of the whole Senate, such persons shall be removed from office. And any Judge so impeached shall be suspended from exercising the functions of his office until his acquittal, or until the impeachment shall be discontinued or withdrawn.

8. Resolved, That Judges may be removed from office by a vote of the General Assembly but two-thirds of the whole number of each House must concur in such vote, and the cause of removal shall be entered on the Journals of each. The Judge

against whom the Legislature is about to proceed shall receive notice thereof, accompanied with a copy of the causes alleged for his removal, at least twenty days before the day on which either House of the General Assembly shall act thereupon.

The report having been read, on motion of Mr. Marshall, it was laid upon the table.

Mr. Giles, from the Committee on the Executive Department of Government, made the following report, which was read, and on his motion, laid upon the table. The Committee appointed on the Executive branch of the Constitution, have, according to order, had under consideration the subjects referred to them, and have come to the following resolutions thereupon:

1. Resolved, That the chief Executive Office of this Commonwealth, ought to be vested in a Governor.

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