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tation in the Senate on the basis of free white population, which would relieve the Senate from the responsibility of accepting or rejecting the Convention bill. These hopes were not disappointed; for the oppsers of a Convention brought in a bill to equalize the districts, and to apportion representation accordingly, and passed it. This bill is at present the low, and it establishes the Senate as the representative of the free white population, in equal numbers. Thus, in one and the same session, there were the politicians, who opposed and supported that very basis, which they now demouse as so new, unheard of, cruel and oppressive. That pure element was thus sustined, and is supported by the precedent then made, of so changing the districts from time to time, as to give to it its proper vigour. Nevertheless, there was, even then, some cause to complain. The only tabular statement of population in our power, was the Census of 1-10, and from this the state of population had chang ed, so as to produce about the same injustice which the list General Assembly would live indicted, if they had based our present representation here, on the Census of 1829, in stead of the more gross injustre of establishing it on that of 1810. From these fiets, ML.. Cleorman, we perceive that our basis has been solemnly settled, and this not richly, but after meeting opposition from the first talents in the land.

Tu chung in the Sente was publicly known, It could not be concealed, as it not only appeared in the Statute Book, but affected the elections of the three following yes, in giving to the new principle its full operation. This was not fully accompli hed, until the election of 1-2); and the Census of that year, shewed the people the extent of the inequality yet remaining, and which, according to the precelent of 1516, may be corrected after the next enumeration, by a new arrangement of districts. I admit that after power had thus, partially, changed hands in the Senate, the public mind rested from its excitement, and took a breathing speil, until the autumn of 1-21, and spring and suminer of 1-25. During this period, the represen tation in the House of Delegates, and a proposition to equalize it on the white basis, beca.ne the subjects of newspaper controversy. Writers on one side endeavored, by exposing the mistule of the minority, and the evil tendency of that rule, to awaken public attention to the subject, and to bring about reform. On the other hand, attempts were made to alarm the people. They were taught to believe that those who proposed to reform, meant to destroy; that the judicial tenure of office, the right of suivre, and even property of a certain description, nay, all that was valuable in society, would be hazarded by the call of a Convention. It was then maintained, as it is now maintained, that the majority suffered no practical evil from the government of the minorty. Out of these discussions, arose the second meeting at Staunton, called the Staunton Convention of July 1825. That Convention was a body which would have suiï red but little disparagement by a comparison with this. It contained upwards of one hundred delegates of the friends of reform. They came from the borders of the State; from the east to the west; from the sea to the Ohio. Their object was to increase the numbers, and strengthen the confidence of their friends; and to weaken and reduce the number of their opponents, by publishing to the whole Commonwealth the grievances of which they complained, and the redress they sought. In a word, they intended to act on public opinion, and in this they succeedTher coineiance in opinions and views was remarkable. It was matter of astonehment to themselves. They acted openly; they sat publicly, and kept and published a journal containing their proceedings and resolves. By their resolves, they cluned reformation of representation on the white bas's; the reduction of numbers in th⚫ House of Delegates; the abolition of the Executive Council; a more responsible Executive, and an ex ension of the right of surage to all those, whether frecholders or no, who have evidence of common interest and permanent attachment. This journal was published in all the Gazetteg. It was connmnicated to the General Asse ably, and together with the memorial of that meeting, and the petitions of the people. Lecome the subjet of the mest grave and animated discussions in the three followin exons, and until in that of 1-27, their prayer was granted by the passage of the low for tidur the put Le sense on calling a General Convention. All those principles were a rua diemused Ist winter, during the progress, and on the passage of the low under which we are now as: embled. I wal briefly notice the proceedings of last winter on th's suberet The bill for orɑ nizing a Convention, was prepared and reported early in the sssion It prop. sed representation by the Congressional Districts. Tais Scheme was res ried to, to give representation in this bedy for threefifths of the slaves, or what is called the Federal number. It was maintained on that ground most per ever poly, unțl towards the close of the session. The principle was then called the buck by us, and it becnate so ed.cus within these walls, and throughout the country, that its friends were compelled to abandon it. It was perceived, however, that if their arguments proved any thing to sustain a representation of three-fifths, they equally sustained a representation of all the slaves. From the mo mon that it was deterinned to abandon the black basis, the bill was sustained as one founded on the very combined rato proposed by the gentleman from Culpeper, now

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under consideration. Some of those who had, by argument, mintimed the Ehick basis, denied that any thing but a haleof plated, and they wound up their el reche to how that the wincent of Congressional Districts, reasonably e resorted to for that purpose. rno pretendons, and adven After all thes, it would be pay ug but a pour Colaf Phat ht to the intelligence of our constituents, to suppose then ja ront tl, the warte bois would be here claimed, and that the battle beween that and i some sort, would be the one most severely entard. proceedings of last winter, I speak with confidence, and to die, hon Les of may gentlemen now present, who must suston me when I say, that the tools ct te uinority in this Convention, have commenced here, precisely where they enched lest winter. It was then said, that if one slave on ht to be represented, ad eu, ht, and in the form of taxation, the same thing is now em..ded by the comoned ratio of the gentleman from Culpeper. It is the same priceple, in disguise. AA admissions of the gentlemen from N. r the end d Pamplond Cut pejez, proof o,' thi hasb. come unnecessary. Whether you equat han as a whe te men, or as a hat en, it is still the same question, covered, indeed, by a few dower and tien cea, but teamet be concealed, thit a slave representation lies at the bottom of the o gentlemen ad nit that, but for the purposes of securdy for tl 4 poles of the principle would not be insisted on."

Both

property,

Mr. Chairman, I will now proceed to notice more particularly, and in their order of time, several postulates urged by the geatiem a from Norfiniupt n.

Although that gentleman hid a red, titt in order to settle our rights in the social, nothing could be deduced from the nat red state of und, wheter condered as a reality or as a fiction, I understood him to take up and espose Die píítaip of the gentleman from Culpeper, that the righ + spoken of in the Declar ion, are such as were natural, and do not pertain to the social state." To this position, the words in the first section of that Declaration are a enclave answer, I. e. All men are ly nature equally free and independent, and have ceiizia inherent rh's, of which, when they enter into society, they cannot, by any e mapaet, deprive or dives' their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the mein, of aequiing and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety, manifest, that what is here spoken of, are those a priori rights, which are supposed to Now it is exist in a state of nature, and are retained to man in society, so du to be social rights, secured by the social compact.

The gentleman from Northampton, however, qualed the position of his friend, by supposing him to have said that, "no me in a social state, has a natural right to control an ther." This may be true, and yet, in order to pursue happiness and safely, or even to acquire and possess property, a an jority may well be su sed to right, both natural and social, to prevent the minority from ruling bean; from conpo ess the troling their actions, and from endangering their lives, lib rig, propates or safety. I will say nothing as to the suppositions ease of one savage tribe of huners on this continent, dictating law to another of fishermen, on the isles of another. Nor will I follow the gentle in either to the first family of the human race, or into the enquiry, so often mide and so often answered, why females, infants and lun des are ute unted as parts of society in settling the question of what pyjority should rule. The common sense and experience of mankind has determined that there is a state of infancy and a state of maturity, and the necessity, in all climes, of fixing on a certain period of human life at which, for legal purposes, the one shall t ralate and the other commence. As to lunities, the sim common sense has excluded them for want of mind. All the exclud cases are founded on, either the imbecility of mind, or its subjection to the will of another, whereby it loses its freedom The exclusion

of the other sex, has been most eloquently accounted for by the gentleman himself. Of woman he says, that the fit of God which brought her into existence, subjected her to the will of her husband."

I dismiss all these speculations, as more calculated to amuse than instruct us, and proceed to the postulates of the gentleman from Northumpton, which belong to the subject in dispute, al serve to explain it. The first ground insisted on is, that there are two majorities to be considered: one of persons, and the other of interests, both of which he contends ought to be counted, in order to arrive at and ascertain the majority which is entitled to rule. The gentleman has pushed his principles farcher, and has contended that when men enter into society and for the social state, each brings with him his person and his property. Whether, indeed, on entering into 30ciety, man and his property become parts of that society, is a question which I will consider, briefly, as that is one of those in dispute. One Indian, we are told, enters society with two bows and arrows; another with one, and a third with none, while another brings nothing but his age, his infirmities and his wants. From these facts, it is attempted to draw the conclusion, that he who brings the most property to protect, is entitled to the most influence in Government, instead of the obvious one, that he

should be subjected to the greatest share of the expenses of its protection. It has cer inly been left to the men of Virginia of the present day, to make this discovery in the science of Government; for I may safely challenge them to produce any authority for it, wicient or modern. To get along with this argument, it was found necery to denounce the principles laid down in the Declaration of Rights, which have already been sanctioned by an unanimous vote of this Convention. Their arganent is, not that men alone constitute society, but that property enters into and forms a component element of it. The interests growing out of property, they say, mist be represented. He who owns a tobacco field, must have rep.esentation for that interest, as well as his person. Not only do the gentlemen contend that the protection of property is one of the great ends of Government, but that, inasmuch as rights to property require more legislation to define and protect them than personal rights db, it is the principal and greatest end of Government. Property, then, it seems, is in entitled to consideration than persons. Simple laws, it is said, are sufficient for all pars ad rights, while those required for property are complex and voluminous. It ezens that a Firge code of laws are requisite to define and protect our rights to a knife aad fork, and to understand them the consumption of a thousand lamps; while those that concern our persons, may be studied in a week. By this course of reasoning, gentlemen have arrived at their conclusions as to the greatness of the interests of property, and the comparative littleness of all that concerns our persons. We are reminded, that he who enters into partnership with the greatest capital, is entitled to the greatest share of influence, and that the same principle must be carried into Governments. This, however, is not true, according to the laws of partnery. There, he who has the greatest capital, shares the greatest profit, and bears the greatest loss, which is pcisely our doctrine. The greatest influence is not conferred on the largest capitalist by the laws of partnery. Wherever it does exist, it is by express stipulation in the articles of co-partnership. Will gentlemen push their principle to its legitimate re Balts? Will they give to the largest capitalists, the largest suffrage in the State? I imagine they are not prepared for this. I will suppose the case of a man in any small cou ity, wh) can bring two hundred able bodied slaves to the plough; will they confer on hin votes according to the amount of his property? or, will not a man in the came county, with an house and lot in some decaying village, and who lives by catching the jumping mullet, be entitled to the same suffrage? This must be admitted, and yet the gentleman declares that he never will sustain a principle which will not bear to be pushed to its practical results. The argument must be carried to this extravagant length, or it must be abandoned altogether. The whole of this argument, is anifestly sustained, only by reference to some supposed original social pact made by men just energing from a savage state; for surely gentlemen cannot say that the state of society here in 1775, furnished any thing to support these deductions, o, that the social compact then formed, contained any such stipulations in favour of wealth.

I will here bestow some reflections upon the supposed analogy of the question of a combined ratio now, to the Colonial dispute with Great Britain. From this an atte apt is made to prove the position that taxation should not only go hand and hand with representation, but that they should be measured by each other; that the amount of the former should determine the quantity of the latter. This was not the Colonial question The Colonies claimed redress, not because taxation was not in proportion to representation, but because they were not represented at all. This was the point of all the appeal made by Statesmen of that day, whether addressed to King or People. The principle maintained was totally different. I refer here to a State paper written by Doctor Franklin in London. The Colonies were compared with the kingdoins of Ireland and Scotland before the union. Each of these was a separate kingdun or realm, to every intent and purpose, subject, only, to the same sovereign. Each had its Parliament, which could alone tax the subject or grant supplies; and it was maintained that the Colonies stood in the same situation. Each had its own Legislative Assembly, and each was subject, like Ireland and Scotland, to the same Crown; and the argument was, that as the Parliament of England had no right to grant supplies to be paid by the people of Ireland or Scotland, so neither could they vote supplies to be paid by the Colonies. The King. it was contended, could only draw a revenue from Ireland, or Scotland, before the union, in his political character of King of Ireland, or King of Scotland, granted by their respective Parliaments, and it was urged that each of these Colonies bore the same relation to the Crown and Parliament of Great Britain, that Ireland then bore. It had never been pretended that the discontents in the Colonies arose out of the question, whether taxation and representation were correllatives? They rested on the grounds I have just mentioned; for the correctness of which I might appeal to the personal recollections of seve ral members of the present Convention, and to the historical reading of all. Repre sentation is not the correllative of taxation. The question is by whom, or by what Government, were we to be taxed?

Whatever may have been the views with which the gentleman from Northampton endeavoured to enforce the position that man coming out of a state of nature into society, brought with him his property as an element of that s ciety, I cannot pretend to say. Certain it is, however, that he yielded the whole of this argument, when he declared that when man enters into civilized life under a social compact, "nature and all her principles are swept away." Perhaps, in Virginia this doctrine night have been seriously and successfully urged, had it not been for the conservative words in the first article of the Bill of Rights, which I have before quoted. With the above declaration, the gentleman returned to the true point in dispute. He admitted that in arriving at the majority of society entitled to rule, if any be entitled, negroes, bond and free, were to be excluded, but that the jus majoris, could only apply to a majority of white persons and interests combined, calculating slaves as property.

The gentleman contends, that among the rights of individuals at the moment of forming a compact of Government, is the right to say whether a majority shall govern the minority or not? And he enquires what is to be done where one alone retuses his assent? The answer is an easy one: he must submit or leave the society, and thus preserve all his rights. It is again urged that the jus majoris, to rule the minority, does not exist in Virginia. Here the point of dispute at which we have arrived seems to be overlooked. We are now a majority, claiming to have our political powers according to our numbers. These powers are denied to us, and we have been met with a subtle distinction between civil and political rights. It is admitted that in relation to the former, each citizen, is equal to each other citizen; but it is contended, that the safety of the whole will not permit this equality in respect of the latter. If this equality of political power, and consequently the rights of a majority of numbers to govern does really exist, it is said that it must be found written in the Constitution. This shows how ingeniously gentlemen can vary their views of that document in which our rights are declared.-The Declaration of Rights. At one moment that document, and the makers of it, are extolled to the skies at another, the principles it contains are terined metaphysical abstractions; as visionary theories, which appear very well on paper, but are wholly unfit for practical application. One of our opponents has seriously maintained that the Bill of Rights is, in fact, no part of the Constitution, although the contrary has been determined by the Court of Appeals. And it is absolutely necessary for gentlemen to get over the Bill of Rights, and to reverse their votes in its favour the other day, in order to get along with their argument at all; because the third article of that instrument is in their way. That article declares that Government is, or ought to be instituted for the cominon (not unequal) benefit, protection and security of the people; and that whenever any Government shall be found inadequate to the purposes for which it was created, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter or abolish it," &c. Thus the very right in question; the jus majoris, is contained in the Declaration of Rights in express terms; and further, that whenever a Government shall degenerate into misrule and become unfit for the accomplishment of the great purposes for which it was instituted, the majority of the community have a right to amend it, or to pull it down and build up another. Here the right in question is given to the majority in express terms, and this is the postulate advanced and demanded. This right is always abiding with the majority, froin whatever source derived, and with them, and with them alone, abides the sanction for its protection. This right is asserted by those whom we have been taught to look on as the greatest of men and the first of patriots. But the assertion of this right is only found in that part of the Constitution, called the Declaration of Rights, which as yet, although once re-enacted by ourselves, lies on our table and is open for discussion. Perhaps this state of the argument furnishes a clue to the desire we have manifested to write the book first, and last, the preface. However, in an evil hour for their argument, they had agreed to the preface first. We have already decided by an unanimous vote, that the Declaration needed no amendinent. It is true that vote has been rescinded, but this was only done to make room for the present debate. We have treated that document as one of the subjects committed to us by our constituents. As a part of the Constitution itself. We have treated it with the first respect among the Departments of Government by giving it the first reference, and by giving to the first report made on it the most prompt attention in the House. Our Committee has revised the Bill of Rights, and on their report we have concurred with them, that it needs no amendment. And shall we now be told that it abounds only in abstractions unfit for use? This report is, it is true, on the table, but is, professedly, to be disposed of, and every one knows what the dispo

sition will be.

In our course we have not exactly followed in the footsteps of our predecessors who made the present Constitution. They acted as master builders: we have not. They laid the foundation first, and then proceeded to the superstructure. After they had declared the Government of the King of England at an end, the first thing they did was to appoint a Committee to prepare and report a Declaration of Rights. For

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what purpose? To serve as a basis of Government. They first determined the powers they would surrender, and the powers they would retain, and they acted upon and passed the Declaration of Rights first, and then, and not until then, they proceeded to erect upon their declared principles, the Constitution. If it must be so called, they made the preface first, and then the book.

In the course of his very eloquent argument, the gentleman from Northampton admitted, that it was the safest rule that a majority of the units of the community should govern, but only when property was equal. Unless property was equal he did not admit the principle at all.

[Mr. Upshur rose to explain. He said the gentleman from Brooke had mistaken his meaning. He had not said that the rule was only safe when the property of one individual was equal to that of another. He disclaimed, alike, the principle, and the effect that might be deduced from it. He applied the remark to large masses of popu lation having not only unequal but discordant interests.]

Mr. Doddridge proceeded. I must have misunderstood the gentleman yesterday, but I did not misunderstand him to-day, and this, had he listened a little longer, he would have discovered. The gentleman from Northampton has laboured, and I am sure he thinks successfully, to maintain that, in Virginia the majority of free white persons have not the right (and he almost denies their power) to govern the State. This jus majoris, he says, is not derived to them from the law of nature; (that, with all its principles, is swept away,") nor from the exigencies of society; nor from the nature and necessities of Government; nor yet from any Conventional source, which can only be by an express provision in the present Constitution. Argumenti gratia, let the gentleman be right, and for this purpose let it be conceded that the majority could only derive this right, if at all, from some one of these repudiated sources. His conclusion then is, that a majority of free.nen in this fiee land are not possessed of the right or power to govern. But Government there must be, or we instantly sink into anarchy Pray whence, then, will the gentleman derive the power in question to the minority?

Surely he will not go back to the natural state, where force prevailed. That state of things with all its principles, was swept away," when the present Government was formed. He cannot deduce this right from the exigencies of society; nor from the nature or necessities of Government; nor if not from these sources, can he claim the right from any thing written in the Constitution or Bill of Rights. These look to, and declare the rights of the majority. Every source by which the right of governing could be derived to the majority, is repudiated by the gentleman's argument, and the same argument, conclusively denies the right claimed for the minority; and if the gentlemen are right, we are now in a perfect state of anarchy, which, we know, is

not true.

Both gentlemen have, as I have before stated, admitted, that, but for the possession of slaves, in great masses, by the minority, residing mostly ia a particular part of the State, the rule of the majority would be sate now. Put this property they fear to subject to the Legislation of a majority, lest it might be oppressively taxed. Against this abuse the majority had labored to suggest a satisfactory guarantee; but nothing which their ingenuity could invent was satisfactory. Each plan was denounced as mere paper work, which the majority might disregard when invested with power, and that to complain of this, would be like appealing from Cæsar to Cæsar. To maintain the insufficiency of any Constitutional guarantee, it is insisted that neither the dictates of duty, the obligations of oaths, of conscience, and honer, are any thing when interest is concerned. That interest is the tyrant passion which can never be controled. Gentlemen have gone so far in their zeal, as to declare that there are no principles in Government at all. We are candidly told that the minority can accept no security at all except in representation; that the majority in this free land, cannot be trusted by the minority; and that unless the minority can be protected in the way they claim, they never can, nor will be satisfied; and it is to be feared, that their diseontents may break out in something serious, because there can be, as they say, no security except in representation; that is, in the power to govern the State, and thus to rule the majority. This was the language of both gentlemen. Take away the gilding, what is it? The pill which could not be swallowed last winter; the black ratio again; not of threefifths, but the whole. They say to us, "we have many slaves, and you have few, or none. The possession of this property by us, although it is not your crime, is the reason, however, that we claim to exercise over your persons, lives, and property, despotic power;" (for Governinent in the hands of the few is always despotic, whether it be called an aristocracy, or an oligarchy, it is still despotic ;) and though it he a despotism, yet we must claim, and you submit to it, as nothing else can secure us against your rapacity."

We are complimented, it is true, with many expressions of kindness; of confidence in our integrity; in our generous and liberal feelings. But then the most serious fears are entertained of our children. It is feared, that forsaking the example of their

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