Martinsburgh gazette. [volume] (Martinsburgh, Va. [W. Va.]) 1810-1825, 1825-06-23

NfF 10y
usefulness? And will not this account,
in a great measure, for the frequent and
almsst entire renovation of the members
of both housess
A mutable legislature must give rise
to mutable legislation: AMI deny to ev-
cry public enterprise the steady perse-
yering support which is essential to its
prosperous maturity.-What is resolved
upon this year by one body of men, is
repealed The We ~ next by their success
ors in office. Days and weeks and
months are spent in the election Of pub
lie officers, or the preparatory inirigues
required to unite so large a body, in the
choices OF a participate candidate; while
the ballot box covers both partially snd
injustice from all responsibility.
What is the present system OF road
laws, the repeal which has been so of.
ten sought in vain, but a direct conse-
quence of the unequal representation
ofthe p.opIei And if. TO lis notorious
ineflciency, be added its obvious injus-
tee. in making poverty and wealth e.
quallv contribute TO its support, what
country furnishes a more clearing ex-
ample of OPPRESSION 1t has, indeed,
a parallel at home, in that affiliated sys-
tenn of tyranny, which extorts, by a
county levy or capitaiion tax, a great
portion of the subsistence OF the poor
Of every parish of the poorest class Of
its inhabitants.
Il to these ~pecuniary exactions, in
the shape OF a poll tax, there be added
the. recollection that every male
hthabie, with a single exception in IA.
vor OF the proprietor of slaves, is called
to work upoa the public highway, al
the discretion oil lis oysrseer, can it be
a matter Of surprizs that the IONS of
poverty in Virginia migrate to the West;
that old age is often seen to totter on
its unstable crutch, without the baud of
flial pisty to steady its tremblingsfoot
steps. AT the periodical return of that
census, TO which 80 many other States
refer, with exulting pride, whole u
ties of this commonwealth ~mournfully
turn, for the measure Of their sensible
decay. Two of these bordering on that
of your nemorialists sustained together,
the loss of three thousand souls, by the
last census of the United States. And
the commonwealth herself behcld a re-
suit not less aHictive--the relative in
crease Of her black, by a ratio greatly
exceeding that of her white population.
Your memorialists are yet proud Of
the land of their natiyity,a land would con.
ceal, ifconcealmsnt would not be GRIM
inal, on such an occasion, their sense
of these common ills, which they can
not but attribute, in part at least, to the
defects of their political institutions
For like reason, they are led 10 state
that they feel themselves peculiarly ag-
grieved BY a system of unequal repre-
~sentation.
To travel no farther back than 10 the
last session Of the General Assembly,
they feelno little uneasiness in obser-
wing that a SIMPLE act of incorporation
for a canal company, received ito fa-
vor, exclusively "ftbe country border
ing ON the river, the navigation of which
it sought TO improve, the entire votes
of but five countiss on tide water, while
encountered the undivided opposition
of no less than ninetesn Of those coan-
ties added to oil the boroughs Of the
commonwealth.
Two other votes of the same ~session
corrsborate the painful inference dedu-
chile from this.
Although facts axe not wanted for the
purpose, this humiliatins topic shall!
not be enlarged--Some reference to it
is, at present, sxtorted from your me-
morialists, by the presumption, so Of
ten urged against any amendmentwhat-
ever, of the constitution, that no injury
has resulted or can be spprehended
from the inequality of the present re.
presentation.
Your m~emorialists. confidently be-
ilieve that however local interest. may
oppose the measure, a majority of the
people of this commonwealth will o
cur with them in opinion, that a proper
season has at length arrived, iorempow-
ering a convention to amend some, or
all the defects. which time has di.cio-
sed in their constitution or government.
They trust, indeed, that the body Of the
people inthe least county or borough
o fthe State, eherishing, as they must,
an attachment TO the great principle of
representative government will ,corn to
retain a political power TO which they
are not Justly entitled.
Your memorialists have approached
fheir representatives, with respect. but,
al the same time, with the frankness