of those who possess most property? Would not these be the topics of argument by which the cause of B would be advocated on this floor?

It is not my purpose to fatigue the Committee or occupy its time by giving, in reply, the answers which might be adduced in A's behalf. This question is settled in the mind of every gentleman in the Convention: it is settled by the general septiment of this nation by the deep, the universal, and, I trust, the changeless feeling, which attaches us all to our free and happy institutions; a feeling which has its source in the conviction of the equality they maintain among the citizens of the Republic, and the justice which flows from that equality.

If I am right in this, can the House have any difficulty in adopting the resolution? What does it ask? Nothing but what, in the practical administration of the Government, already actually exists: But it proposes to give a Constitutional sanction to what does indeed exist in fact, but which the Constitution does no where guarantee and secure. I pray you to refer to the existing Constitution. I say, that although in fact equality of suffrage does exist, it rests on sufferance merely. I wish it not only to exist, but to have a Constitutional consecration.

The only clause in the Constitution which bears upon the subject is this brief sentence: The right of suffrage shall remain as it is exercised at present." I would not be hypercritical in examining this declaration; but to me it does appear to provide against taking away any rights already possessed and exercised, and not to regulate the equality of suffrage among the voters. All it prohibits is the stripping those of the right of suffrage, who now hold it no more: it does not take from the Legislature the power of determining the relative effect of votes between the voters themselves. Yet, surely in a matter of such vital importance, nothing ought to be left to doubt and uncertainty. If the existing Constitution does what this resolution purports to do, all the effect of the resolution will be to confirm the declaration of the Constitution but if it does not, then this resolution will supply the deficiency, and it is proper that the question should be settled now. Such are some of the considerations which unite to recommend the adoption of this resolution.

:

There are two others, the third and fourth, which have reference to representation; that is, to the effect of the elective franchise, when exerted.

The third resolution seems to be only a corollary from the first: it affirms, especially as now modified, nothing more than that the uniformity of individual suffrage shall be extended to its effect, that is, to representation.

The fourth resolution is nothing more than a corollary to the second. It is only the expansion and application of the same principle to representation, which is proposed to the voters themselves: i. e. that representation shall be uniform, that like numbers shall confer like rights of representation, without regard to the disparity of fortune which may exist in the aggregate.

One would think there could be no difficulty in admitting a conclusion like this. Representation is but the effect of a number of suffrages. It, then, the suffrages are all equal, it would seem perfectly plain that equal numbers of equal suffrages should produce an equal aggregate amount; and so equal representation. Would any gentleinan here hesitate to adopt such a principle, except in a particular mode of its operation?

I stated a case supposed to exist in one county. Now imagine the same case to exist in every county. Is there any reason why fifty voters should outvote two hundred and fifty in one county rather than in another? Locality cannot alter right. If fifty voters are to do this in the county of Norfolk, then fifty voters should do the same in the county of Brooke; and in every other county in the State. There is no difference of opinion as to making the effect equal within any one county or district. On this, all are agreed. Where, then, does the difficulty arise in assenting to the principle? When you consider its operation not within any district, but between different districts, then only do gentlemen differ from me. But shall any one district, by any arrangement whatever, introduce a principle which you all repudiate within a County? Shall it give an effect to property when in extensive combinations, which is denied to property in a more limited field? Suppose you divide your district into three counties, containing each nine hundred voters. There is not one gentleman here who will hesitate to say, that a majority of qualified voters shall give the rule of election within each of these counties. But suppose, again, that in laying out your district boundary, you take the other rule, and say that property shall elect: what will the operation of such a principle be?

But the proposed compound ratio wholly disregards this principle of equality of right in the organization of districts. Let me illustrate this:

Three counties in Eastern Virginia, such as I have described before, are formed into a district, and the nine hundred qualified voters becoine entitled to one representative. In another part of the State, nine hundred other qualified voters claim similar representation. But it is found that in

the first district the nine hundred voters pay each say $1 tax, And that there are one hundred and fifty persons among the nine hundred who pay beyond the others the sum of

Making an aggregate of taxes

The other nine hundred

persons who claim a representative, are also (like the seven hundred and fifty of the first district) all qualified voters, and pay $1 each,

Leaving a difference of

900

600

$1,500

900

$ 600

This difference is wholly produced by the superior wealth of the one hundred and fifty persons in the first district. To equalize the district, the compound ratio proposes to throw a qualified voter into the scale to counterbalance this wealth.

Thus, then, said he, one county will contain nine hundred men, the other fifteen hundred; you add six hundred men to make up for the difference of property. And is the evil less, because it is disguised? Disguise it as you will, this is not equal representation; and if the principle of all our free Republican institutions cries out against fifty men electing a candidate against two hundred and fifty in a single county, why not in more extended portions of the State? You give to wealth in a district a power you refuse to it in a county, though the district is but a collection of counties. While there, it lies dormant; exerts no power at all: but the moment you go beyond the county line, it then receives vigour and effect; I fear, a pernicious vigour, and an effect fatal to freedom. Pray, let me be understood. I disclaim, in these remarks, the least possible disrespect toward gentlemen, who differ from me in sentiment: but in my judgment it is an oligarchical principle; it gives the minority power to control the majority, although admitted to be equal participants in political power. And, if you would consider this as an oligarchical principle, if introduced into counties, I conjure you to consider how you give to wealth, when in large masses, what you refuse it in the elements of which those very masses are all composed. If the principle be wrong in itself, it is only the more dangerous from being concealed. The danger which I know, courage may enable me to brave, or skill to elude; but if the danger approach unseen, if it assails me unwarned and unprepared, it only the more certainly destroys. Masses of men act with an effect not in exact proportion to their numbers. The effect increases more rapidly than the number. A single grain of gunpowder may explode in a lady's boudoir, without producing any effect sufficient to wave one of her lightest plumes; but when aggregated masses of those grains are exploded, castles topple to their foundations, and towers fall before its resistless power. Do not say the principle is harmless, because it operates on masses only as you aggregate men into masses, instead of diminishing, you increase the mischief. I say that this principle, of giving the power to wealth, corrupts and vitiates the very persons it is intended to benefit. The safety of our free institutions, consists in the profound conviction of their justice and equality of operation. Destroy this conviction; weaken it; lead the people to doubt the salutary operation of those principles, and what will be the result? You have taken the first step in the downward road that has conducted all the free nations in the world, first to faction; then to convulsions; and finally to the sword, and a monarch, for protection. Oh, then, let no consideration induce us to weaken, in the slightest degree, that feeling of sacred regard towards free institutions, which is the best safeguard of their perpetuity. When you say, that nine hundred men in one district, and fifteen hundred men in another, shall have but the same representation in the Government, you bribe and tempt the honest simplicity of your fellow-citizens, to commit a fraud upon their brethren. You make them the instruments, willing instruments, if you please, by which the influence of property is brought to bear upon political power and civil liberty. Thus, you prepare them more readily to yield, whenever the influence of wealth, within their own county, shall advance its claims to the same power, it enjoys without the county line.

Men of property within all our counties, are deeply interested in this question. Let me remind such men, that the Chieftain in the border war who tempted their kinsmen and retainers, to pass the line and foray for spoil upon the land of their neighbours, destroyed their loyalty, corrupted their fidelity, lost their attachment; and at last have been actually compelled to pay black-mail to their own vassals for protection. We are all interested in preserving the great principles of Republican freedom: Men of property not less than others: It is to these principles that our most valuable institutions owe their being and preservation, and our people their national happiness. Give me leave to ask of gentlemen one question. Representation; what is it? It is the effect of suffrage. Suffrage is the cause, representation the effect: Suffrage is the parent, representation only its offspring. What then ought to follow? What ought the relation to be between the cause and its result? What the similitude between parent and child? Should there be no family likeness? No correspondence between him

who represents, and him who confers the power of representation? Is there to be in the Delegate no principle of resemblance to the individual who sends him? Surely the representative is but the mirror, which, if true, throws back the just image of the voters who gave him his place. Representation, to be perfect, must throw back such an image of the people represented, in all their proportions, features, and peculiarities. I hope gentlemen will excuse me for a remark, which may not correspond with their views and feelings; but to me it appears inconceivable, how there can be a representa tive without constituents: and how can there be constituents, without power to delegate? How can a man be a constituent, and him he creates not be his delegate. Property cannot vote; it cannot delegate power; and yet we are told that it is to have a representative. The voter surely, and the voter only is the representative, when we speak of representatives.

I hope, said Mr. T. that the Committee will perceive, that I have had no other object hitherto but merely to explain the nature and the effect of the resolutions I have proposed; that I am offering but little argument; relying as I do upon their own intrinsic truth. I have purposely avoided all answer to the objections, which may be urged against them: and I am led to adopt this course by two considerations: First, my object in only explaining, is that the undivided attention of the House might be drawn to the principles themselves: but I have another reason; I thought it decorous, fair and honorable, to allow to gentlemen who differ from me in sentiment, the advantage of presenting their own views in their own form; that those views may produce their entire effect upon the House. If in the progress of debate, it shall become necessary, I may pray the House to indulge me in reviewing the most important objections, when they shall have been made; and in fortifying my original resolutions, if I shall be able. To my course in this respect, there is but one exception; and that has reference to the fifth resolution :

[Here Mr. T. read the resolution.]

It refers to taxation; and I will own that I introduced it in connexion with the other subjects for the purpose of asserting what the true principle of taxation is; but I combined this principle of taxation, with the resolutions respecting representation, to show that one should have no influence in regulating the other. The one looks to property only; the other to qualified, voters only. In the resolution, a proposition is affirmed in the first member of it; then, a fact is affirmed; and the last clause is an inference from the two, though not in strict syllogistic form. Some may think the premises are false; but none will deny that it is unjust to require each citizen chargeable with taxes, to pay an equal amount. What would be the effect of such a principle! Evidently this; that in time of foreign war or domestic need, be the exigencies of the State what they may, no greater sum can be raised by taxation, than the amount which the very poorest man in the community is required to pay, multiplied by the total number of the citizens of the State. You can lay nothing more on the richest man, than on the poorest; if each is to pay an equal sum; and thus the wealth of its citizens would be totally useless and unproductive to the Commonwealth, though the Republic be in danger.

Whence does the obligation to public contribution arise? Whence but from the consideration that each individual is bound to pay to the public for the protection of his property. The Government itself, I mean by its moral as well as physical force, is in fact the underwriter of all the property in the community and each individual should pay for the general protection in proportion to the risk incurred; that is, according to the amount of property he has to be insured. The principle is founded in the eternal nature of justice; which requires that contribution should be in proportion to the good received. I think that even if my resolution should be convicted of false logic, and that neither the major nor the minor members of the syllogism were true, and that the conclusion did not follow; still, the proposition itself, contained in the conclusion, must be acknowledged by all to be true and evident. None doubts the fact, that property is unequally distributed; nor do I see how any can deny the principle, that each man ought to pay to the State in proportion to his ability to pay. "I do not say in proportion to his capital, or to the profits upon his capital; but in proportion to his "ability to pay." I put the proposition in the broadest terms: and in such a form as will apply to any system of political economy, gentlemen may respectively think fit to adopt.

If the ground I have taken, be tenable, then we have arrived at the true sources of representation and taxation; they are not two twin streams, which have their common source in the same distant glen; which chance may have separated for a time, and which afterwards re-unite: they issue from different fountains; flow to different oceans, and never can be united but by some power which perverts the object for which nature destined them. When you look to representation, you look to men: when you look to taxation, you look to the ability to pay, and to the property from which this payment is to be made.

Mr. Taylor concluded by a short peroration; apologising for the time he had occupied, disclaiming all intention to offend, and deprecating such an imputation; and professing his readiness to renounce his views as soon as convinced they were untrue. He then moved that the resolutions be received and added as an amendment to the Bill of Rights.

The question being on the adoption of the first of Mr. Taylor's resolutions,

Mr. Green of Culpeper, said, that he should vote against all the resolutions, although he approved of some of the principles they contained; and he should do so because he thought their proper place was not in the Bill of Rights, but, if any where, in the Constitution of the State.

Mr. Nicholas of Richmond, said, that he did not rise to discuss the resolutions which had been submitted, although there were various considerations in respect to them, which forcibly struck his mind. Any man who had turned his attention much to politics must know, that in those matters, there was no such thing as abstract truth. Political maxims were valuable, only as applying to the actual circumstances of the country, and must always be considered as in connexion with them. It would notdo to apply principles, suited to one state of society, to a state of things entirely dif ferent. He understood the gentleman from Norfolk, as having said that he had brought forward these propositions with a view to settle the great question which the Convention was called to decide. Mr. N. said, he was unwilling to decide that question in this way. That question grew out of various considerations in the state of the country, and must be considered as applying to them. He was willing to admit the abstract truth of some of the gentleman's propositions; there were others of them which he should be disposed to deny, and the two were so far blended that he could not assent to the resolutions. It seemed strange to him, that instead of waiting for the discussion of the report of the Legislative Committee, the Convention was, at this stage of its proceedings, called to decide upon doctrines in the abstract, without any attempt at applying their practical bearing. If they were adopted and added to the Bill of Rights, their effects would all have to be discussed again, when the other report came before the Convention. Cui bono? why go over the same matters twice? Besides, the Bill of Rights was drawn up by some of the wisest, most virtuous and most patriotic men this country had ever produced; it was truly a noble production, and it declared truth so well, that he felt unwilling to add to it, or substitute another in its room. But, surely the Convention should not attempt to decide on so great a question; a question, which would go to produce an entire revolution in the condition of the State without knowing something more of the effects of their decision. The gentleman had much better reserve his resolutions, till the Legislative report should come up. He would not be excluded, and that opportunity would be a more fit one. Mr. N. said he should have said nothing, but observing, that no other gentleman seemed disposed to rise, he had given briefly the reasons which would induce him to vote against the resolutions.

Mr. Johnson moved to lay the resolutions upon the table, but professed his willingness to withdraw the motion, if any member of the Convention was desirous of submitting his views. He was satisfied some gentlemen would vote against the resolutions now, who would vote for them when they should hear their practical application discussed. The proper time for that discussion would be when the report of the Legislative Committee should come up for discussion.

Mr. Taylor observed in reply, that he had not the least objection that the resolutions should be laid upon the table: but the gentleman had thought this was not the proper time to discuss these principles. He differed entirely on that point, and considered this as the "accepted time." If gentlemen thought the resolutions should be acted upon at all, it should certainly be in connexion with the Bill of Rights. What was the object of the Bill of Rights? It was to settle the very abstractions, to which the gentleman seemed so averse; to settle principles; to set up certain landmarks for the framing of a Constitution. It prescribed the general rules which it was the purpose of the Constitution to develope and expand. Its use was to familiarise the people to a consideration of these great principles of free Government, and thereby to control the action of the Legislature. If the principles he had brought forward were right in themselves, and worthy of adoption in any form, it should be in the Bill of Rights. Let them stand there as touch-stones, to try with what fidelity the Constitution should be drawn, and the legislation of the State carried on under it.. Gentlemen object to abstractions: the Bill of Rights declares all men to be born by nature, free and equal. Does the gentleman call that an abstraction? Why is it any more so, when by another declaration, the equality of men is stated, not as in a state of nature, but as in a state of political society? It was but carrying out the object of that instru ment. He could not agree with gentlemen, who thought the proper time for fixing such principles, would be when the report of the Legislative Committee came up for consideration.

On motion of Mr. Johnson, the resolutions were then laid on the table.

On motion of Mr. Doddridge, the Convention proceeded to consider the report of the Committee on the Legislative Department of Government. The report was read at the Clerk's table, and the first section having then been read by the Chairman for amendment, as follows:

"Resolved, That in the apportionment of representation in the House of Delegates, regard should be had to the white population exclusively."

Mr. Green moved to amend it by striking out the word "exclusively," and adding in lieu thereof the words " and taxation combined."

And the question being on this amendment:

Mr. Green stated, there were some documents expected momently from the Auditor, which had a bearing on the amendment; and he therefore wished the action of the House suspended till they should be received; and he, thereupon, moved that the Committee rise.

It arose accordingly, and the President having resumed his seat, Mr. Barbour reported, that the Committee had, according to order, had the subjects referred to them under consideration, and had made some progress therein; but had come to no conclusion thereon.

And then the Convention adjourned till to-morrow, eleven o'clock.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1829.

The Convention met at eleven o'clock, and was opened with prayer by the Rev. Mr. Parks, of the Methodist Church.

On motion of Mr. Scott, it then proceeded to the Order of the Day, and again went into Committee of the Whole, Mr. P. P. Barbour in the Chair.

And the question lying over from yesterday, being on the amendment proposed by Mr. Green of Culpeper, to the first resolution reported by the Committee on the Legislative Department of Government, viz: To strike out the word "exclusively,” in the resolution, (which declares "that in the apportionment of representation in the House of Delegates, regard should be had to the white population exclusively,”) and insert in lieu thereof, the words " and taxation combined."

Mr. Green observed, that he had proposed this amendment with a view to bring up the whole subject for discussion; so that both sides of the great question in relation to the basis of representation, might be before the Committee: and it was under the impression that the whole field being thus opened, some gentleman would enter upon the subject, by stating the grounds on which it was desired to introduce a new principle of representation into the Constitution. He now hoped that some gentleman, who was friendly to the change, would present to the Committee his views.

After a short pause,

Mr. Leigh of Chesterfield, said, that he did hope that the friends of the proposition reported by the Legislative Committee, would assign their reasons in support of a plan which proposes, in effect, to put the power of controlling the wealth of the State, into hands different from those which hold that wealth; a plan, which declares that representation shall be regulated by one ratio, and contribution by another: that representation shall be founded on the white population alone, and contribution on a ratio double, treble, and quadruple in proportion. He hoped the friends of these new propositions, new at least in our State, if not new throughout the world, would give to those who differed from themselves, some reasons in support of their scheme; some better reasons than that such principles were unknown to our English ancestors, from whom we have derived our institutions; better than the rights of man as held in the French school; better than that they were calculated in their nature to lead to rapine, anarchy and bloodshed, and in the end, to military despotism: a scheme, which has respect to numbers alone, and considers property as unworthy of regard. Gie us, said Mr. L. some reasons; reasons which may excuse us in our own self-esteem, for a tame submission to this (in my opinion) cruel, palpable and crying injustice. Let uз have at least some plausible reason; something which has at least the colour of reason, which may excuse us to ourselves: something which may gild the pill and disguise its bitterness: something to save us from the contempt of this present time, and the assured curse of posterity, if we shall betray their interest. Give us something which we may at least call reasons for it: not arithmetical and mathematical reasons; no mere abstractions; but referring to the actual state of things as they are; to the circumstances and condition of this Commonwealth; why we must submit to what I cannot help regarding as the most crying injustice ever attempted in any land. F call upon gentlemen for these reasons.

Mr. Cooke of Frederick, rose in reply.