Martinsburg gazette. [volume] (Martinsburg, Va. [W. Va.]) 1833-1855, 1845-11-20
TO THE wHIcs or BERKELEY
CnIfNTX.

hostility 10 the proposed Reform in our State Go
this information, and ihst such effort is being
made, have deemed il advisable to submit few
facts and reflections. especially addressed to
The members Of that Party. Ard IN doing so.
many heavy obligations under which feel that
rest TO that noble vrtuous and intrepid band Of men
Where, permit me TO ask, but 10 the County of
Berkeley, has any effort bees made 10 connect this
great movement OF Constitutional Reform with the
party politics Of the dsy' And that such an si-
tempt should be made here, while il sufficiently de-
nionstra,es he weakness Of all the arguments OPP
posed 10 Reform, il less satisfactorily shews,
that the movement itself can spring from mo-
tive connected with the public good or the pros
perity Of the Wbig Party itself
There is not, presume, County West of ;he
Blue Ridge Mountain where, il the question we're
discussed and adjudged upon its own merits-free
from all extfaneous influencesthere could be found
fifty persons suased in opposition to the call Of a
State Convention. And that there should be even
this small number in any one County, results from
just ground for diversity of opinion, bat because
il is an established law of the human mind that
diversties of opinion shall exist, and because in
accordance with that well-known fact there to
be found dispersed over every community some men
of respondent and idiosyncric temperament, who
habitua,e themselves TO look with the greatest dis
tsnt and alarm upon the slightest agitation Of the
popular wave-who scent in the gentlest zephyr
the approach Of hurricane that is to lay waste
The fair institutions of civil society-and who liying
all their lives in a country filled with the noblest
trophies Of Human Freedom and Popular Sovereign
ty--stil cannot persuade themselves that God ever
created Man really endowed with dangerous
faculiy as that Of SELT.GovERNMEET. With such
men, all Reform is Revolurion--sll change, pro-
cliyity to Ruin. In their theory, ''use and habit
assmlae political institutions to the body polite
and make them wholesome; !" bad governments be-
come good under the mellowing influence Of time
and vices in our political system of the most into
cradle character lose all their deformity in pro-
portion TO the length of time that the People be
made patiently to submit TO them. Thanks to the
success of our free insttutions-if there be sueh
men in every community--their number at least
is not very great.
In all the Valley Counties South of that section
of the State in which we live, where public meet
ings have been held and where if at all some shew
Of repugnance TO this measure might have been ex-
pected from their direct commercial relations with
the Central Improvement and the Metropolis of
the State not a murmur of dissent has yet reached
the public ear. In Jefferson and Frederick, the
two Counties lying most contiguous to ourselves,
the most absolute unanimity has marked the result
of ther action on this important subject.
In Eastern Virginia, public opinion, TO say the
least of it, is so nearly devided that it remains
question whether majority of the population, even
of that section of the State is not decidedly for
change Of the existing government. We are pre-
scented with the gratifying and remarkable fact,
that the two leading political journals at the Seat
of Government-stuateda almost in the very heart
Of the Tide Water Counties-are open and avow-
ed champions of Reform. The Richmond Wing
claims large and decided majority Of the Eastern
population in its favor. And | have myself con-
versed with many intellisen, and wellinfermed men
from that division of the State who concur in the
same representation of its popular tendencies.
From he FIRST ag tation of this grave enquiry up
to the present moment, not the slightest infusion
of Party feeling has been resorted toto quicken is
L. -. Ia.
movement. In the West, Wings and Democrats
have maintained generous rivalry in sustaining
the true principles OF Republican Govern ment, and
in the East, wherever opposition to the call of a
Convention has been exhibited, Wings and Demo.
srats, have in like manner WED with each other
in their zeal for those principles OF property rep
rssentatioa which they erroneously,as cosceive,
regard as essential to their safety and protection
In some respects therefore the question may be
said to have assumed sectional asPect-but in
no instance, certainly beyond the limits OF this
County has IL been known to have the slightest
connection with party politics.
And here it may be asked what can account for
this rapid resolution Of public sentiment in the East
and that extensive conversion TO our views and
principles which is to be observed in the Press and
public manifestations of that portion the State 7
IL is because the excited feelings which sprung
from the Convention of 1890 has begun to
yield to more calm and just reflections upon the
tue principles and objects of government and
those terrible phsntoms which the burning and
creative eloquence of Randolph and Leigh conjured
up before the frightened fances of the Eastern Peo-
pie. have become in great degree dissipated and
exercised by the happy and corrective influence of
zine. Reason and Justiee,are peimitted 10 sway
a public Judgment before under the dominion of
passion and prejudice, and many of the most can
did and sagscious men in that country beginning
TO concur with the already formed judgment Of the
West in the truth of the following views in re.
gard to our existing political System.
lst. That our State Constitution in the disuibu.
Jon Of its political and legislative power violates
every principle Of justice and equality-an6 out
RACES the most sacred and fundamental principles
of a Representative Republican Government
I'd. That the provisions in regard to the Elective
Franchiseare loose and i'll defned-a of end
less frauds--controversies and contested elections
and exclude from their beneft,a large number Of
our fellow citizens who contribute to the burdens
and defence OF the Country, and who upon every