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 n do 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 instrument. 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 ull they should be received; and he, thereupon, moved that the Committee rise.

It arose accordingly, and the President having resumed his seat, Mr. Barbour reBorted, 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. Give 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 us have at least some plausible reason; something which has at least the colour of reawhich 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. I call upon gentlemen for these reasons.

son,

Mr. Cooke of Frederick, rose in reply.

Mr. COOKE said, that he could not but express his unfeigned astonishment, that the able gentleman from Chesterfield (Mr. Leigh) should have ventured to say to that assembly, that the principle of representation: recommended by the Legislative Committee, was "new to him, and new in the history of the world." Can the gentleman have forgotten, (said Mr. Cooke,) that the principle which he treats as a novelty, and an innovation, is asserted in the "Declaration of the Rights of the people of Virginia?" And does he not know, that when the Convention of 1776 promulgated, in that instrument, the principles of Government on which their infant Republic was founded, they did but announce, in solemn form, to the people of Virginia, principles which had received, a century before, the deliberate sanction of the most enlightened friends of liberty, throughout the world?

Sir, the fathers of the Revolution did but reiterate those great and sacred truths which had been illustrated by the genius of Locke, and Sydney, and Milton: truths for which Hampden, and a host of his compatriots, had poured out their blood in vain.

Driven from Europe, by Kings, and Priests, and Nobles, those simple truths wer received, with favour, by the sturdy yeomanry who dwelt on the western shores of the Atlantic. The love of liberty, aye, Sir, and of equality too, grew with the growth, and strengthened with the strength, of the Colonies. It declared war, at last, not only against the power of the King, but against the privilege of the Noble, and laid the deep foundations of our Republic on the sovereignty of the people and the equality of

men.

The sacred instrument, for sacred I will dare to call it, notwithstanding the sneers which its very name excites in this assembly of Republicans, the sacred instrument in which those great principles were declared, was ushered into existence under circumstances the most impressive and solemn. The "Declaration of the Rights of the people of Virginia," was made by an assembly of sages and patriots, who had just involved their country in all the horrors of war, in all the dangers of an unequal contest with the most powerful nation on earth, for the sake of the noble and elevated principles which that instrument announces and declares. For the sake of those principles, they had imperilled their lives, their fortunes, their wives, their children, their country; and, in one word, all that is dear to man. For the sake of those principles, they had spread havoc and desolation over their native land, and consigned to ruin and poverty a whole generation of the people of Virginia.

And for what did they make these mighty sacrifices! For wild "abstractions, and metaphysical subtleties!" No, Sir. For principles of eternal truth; as practical, in character, as they are vital, in importance; for principles deep-seated in the nature of man, by whose development, alone, he can attain the happiness which is the great object of his being. Those principles are,

"That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people." "That all men are, by nature, equally free." And

"That a majority of the community" possesses, by the law of nature and necessity, a right to control its concerns.

These are the principles which the gentleman from Chesterfield regards as "wild and visionary;" as "abstractions and metaphysical subtleties;" and which are contemptuously styled by others, who think with him, " mere abstract principles." Passing by, without comment, the curious fact, that these "abstract principles" received but yesterday the sanction of an unanimous vote of this body (so far, at least, as a nemine contradicente vote can be called unanimous): passing by the fact, I say, that the resolution of a special Committee declaring that the Bill of Rights requires no amendment, was but yesterday adopted, without a dissenting voice, I will pause, for a moment, to enquire what these gentlemen mean by their favourite phrase, "mere abstract principles?" If I rightly apprehend the import of the term "abstract," when applied, in a disparaging sense, to any general principle, it means that the principle, though true, as expressed, is, nevertheless, expressed in terms so general, that when an attempt is made to apply it to any given subject, it is almost always found that the subject is included, not within the principle itself, but within one or other of those exceptions, which detract from the universal correctness of all general principles. That the principle is an unmeaning generality, and scarcely susceptible of application to the every-day business of men. In short, that it is wild, visionary and unpractical.

Let us see, then, whether the principles which are announced by the Declaration of Rights, as the "basis and foundation of Government," are of this wild and visionary character. Let us see whether they do not, on the contrary, come home to the "business and bosoms of men."

It declares, then, in the first place," that all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people."

Look to the situation and circumstances of those who made this declaration, to the occasion on which it was made, and to its bearing and operation on the existing insti

tutions of Virginia, and then say whether it was not a practical principle, and one too, of great pith and nioment. The colonies had long been smart.ng under the tyrannical exercise of power, not derived from the people: Under the exercise of power assumed, by the King and Parliament of Great Britain, without the consent of the people. Here, then, is a bold denunciation of this usurped authority; an abolition of kingly power; a declaration that the propie of Virginia are the only sörereigns of Virginia, and that they would tolerate, in all time to come, neither foreign Parliaments, nor Kings, nor Cæsars. A declaration that the only legitimate Government, is a Government of magistrates, deriving their power from the people, and responsible to the people. With whatever colour of plausibility this might have been called an abstract principle, in Europe, in the time of Locke and Sydney, who first maintained and supported it, thanks to the indomitable spirit of our ancestors, it became practical in Virginia, in 1776; was gallantly sustained through all the vicissitudes of the war, and received the sanction of royalty itself, at the peace which ensued. It was then that the slavish doctrine of the jus derinam of Kings, openly supported, but a century before, in the country from whence we sprung, received its practical refutation; and it might have been hoped, in Virginia at least, its final doom. From the period of the revolution till the meeting of this Convention, the doctrine that all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people," was considered a great practical truth. Now, it is an "abstract principle," a wild and visionary speculation !

But again, Sir. The Bill of Rights declares, that all men are, by nature, equally free." And this is considered an abstraction par excellence; the very abstraction of abstractions. It is even pronounced to be absurd on the face of it," because it amounts, as it is said, to a declaration, that "all men, all women, and all children, are entitled to an equal share of political power."

I shall briefly examine this principle, Sir, in connexion with that which stands by. its side in the Declaration of Rights, which is, in effect, that the sovereign power, the supreme control of its affairs, is vested in the majority of every free community. And I hesitate not to say, that taken in connexion, and they must be taken in connexion, they are so far from being speculative and abstract truths, much less absurd speculations, that they constitute in fact, a compendium of the whole law of rational and practical liberty, and were peculiarly appropriate and practical in their application to the actual condition of Virginia. Taking first the insulated proposition, that "all men are, by nature, equally free;" I pronounce it to be a great practical truth; a selfevident proposition; the primary postulate of the science of Government. Sir, what does this proposition mean, but that no one man is born with a natural right to control any other man; that no one man comes into the world with a mark on him, to designate him as possessing superior rights to any other man; that neither God nor nature recognize, in anticipation, the distinctions of bond and free, of despot and slave; but that these distinctions are artificial; are the work of man; are the result of fraud or violence. And who is so bold as to deny this simple truth?

But is it a mere "abstract" truth? Was it not, when declared by the authors of the Declaration of Rights, replete with practical meaning? What was their actual situation? The Government of England, against which this principle was directed, was incumbered with privileged orders; there was the King with his hereditary prerogative, and the noble with his hereditary privilege. The colonists had found, to their cost, in the earlier stages of their struggle, that prerogative and privilege, derived from birth, were the sworn and mortal foes of liberty. In announcing and reinstating the original equality of men, they declared war against both, and from that time, neither privilege nor prerogative derived from birth, have been tolerated in the Commonwealth which they established. And is there nothing practical in this? Is this a mere abstract principle; a mere "metaphysical subtlety?"

But it is said, that if it be true that "all men are by nature equally free," then all men, all women, and all children, are entitled to equal shares of political power; in other words, that they are all entitled to the right of suffrage, which is, practically, political power.

Sir, no such absurdity can be inferred from the language of the Declaration of Rights. The framers of that instrument did not undertake to write down in it all the rules and all the exceptions which constitute political law. They did not express the self-evident truth that the Creator of the Universe, to render woman more fit for the sphere in which He intended her to act, had made her weak and timid, in comparison with man, and had thus placed her under his control, as well as under his protection. That children, also, from the immaturity of their bodies and their minds, were under a like control. They did not say, in terms, that the exercise of political power, that is to say, of the right of suffrage, necessarily implies free-agency and intelligence; free-agency, because it consists in election or choice between different men and different measures; and intelligence, because on a judicious choice depends the very safety and existence of the community. That nature herself had therefore pronounced, on women and children, a sentence of incapacity to exercise political power. They did

not say all this; and why? Because to the universal sense of all mankind, these were self-evident truths. They meant, therefore, this, and no more: that all the members of a community, of mature reason, and free agents by situation, are originally and by nature, equally entitled to the exercise of political power, or a voice in the Government.

But at the same time that they recognized and expressed the general principle, the general right, they recognized and expressed a limitation of that general right imposed by nature and necessity. In affirming and declaring the jus majoris to be the law of all free communities, they did but declare the simple and obvious truth, that the essential character of a free Government, of a Government whose movements are regulated by numbers, involves the necessity of a submission by the minority to the majority. For the right of deliberation and election necessarily involves some decision between the men or the measures which are the subject of deliberation and election. All deliberation must come to a close, and every exercise of the right of election must terminate in a choice. To bring deliberation to some close, and ection to some choice, it must of necessity be adopted as a rule, either that the majority or the minority must put an end to the deliberation, by pronouncing a decision: And the necessity of adopting the rule that the majority shall so pronounce, is founded on the necessity of a sanction to every law, on the fact that the majority possesses, in its superior physical force, that sanction, and on the certainty that it would not permanently submit to the opposite regulation. I say, permanently: Because, though the majority may be deluded for a time, by the artificial and vicious institutions of society, into a submission to the voice of the minority, they will arise, at last, and assert and enforce their natural superiority.

Neither did the framers of the Declaration.of Rights carry out the jus majoris into certain other plain and obvious results: for they were not writing a treatise on political law, but merely announcing, in a brief and compendious form, its leading principles. They declared, for example, that the majority of every community has a right to adopt such a form of Government, and such a fundamental law, as to them seems best. They left unexpressed the plain and obvious propositions, that in forming that fundamental law, the inajority have a right to act, and ought to act, on the principles, that the safety of the people is the supreme law; that the legitimate object of all Government, is to promote the greatest happiness of the greatest number; and that the perfect and entire protection of life, property, and personal liberty, constitutes the essential basis of the greatest happiness of the greatest number. That to effect these essential objects, the major have a perfect right to prescribe, by a fundamental law, still further limitations to the universality of the right of suffrage. That they have a right to exclude, and ought to exclude, by their fundamental law, from the exercise of the right of suffrage, all those, who in the honest and deliberate opinion of the majority, cannot safely be entrusted with the exercise of it; or in other words, all those whose exercise of this right would be, in the honest and deliberate opinion of the majority, incompatible with the safety and well-being of the community, which is the supreme law. They did not set down, in express terms, all these distinct and consecutive propositions. But they did state the result to which they lead, when they said, in effect, that, in a well regulated community, those alone should be permitted to exercise the right of suffrage, who have "a permanent common interest with, and attachment to, the community."

I say, then, Sir, with a confidence inspired by a deep conviction of the truth of what I advance, that the principles of the sovereignty of the people, the equality of men, and the right of the majority, set forth in the "Declaration of the Rights of the people of Virginia," so far from being wild and visionary," so far from being "abstractions and metaphysical subtleties." are the very principles which alone give a distinctive character to our institutions, are the principles which have had the practical effect in Virginia, of abolishing kingly power, and aristocratic privilege, substituting for them an elective magistracy, deriving their power from the people, and responsible to the people.

But it has been said that the authors of the Declaration of Rights themselves, admitted, in effect, the abstract and unpractical character of the principles which it contains, by establishing a Government whose practical regulations are wholly inconsistent with those theoretical principles. That while, in the Declaration of Rights, they asserted that all power is vested in the people, and should be exercised by a majority of the people, they established a Government in which unequal counties, expressing their sense by the representatives of a selected few in those counties, to wit, the freeholders, were the real political units, or essential elements of political power. That the right of the majority, in this frame of Government, was violated in two different modes: First, by vesting the power, within each county, in the freeholders, who are a minority of the people; and next by investing small masses of people in the sinall counties, and large masses in the large counties, with equal power in the Government.