Staunton spectator, and general advertiser. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 183?-1849, 1846-05-28


for adhering to the Constitution. This is grave
charge upon the people Of Augusta. believing
they were bound to adhere to the Constitutional
provision of representation" Is not this tanta-
mount to declaration on your part that there ,cas
such constitutional provision, regulating the mat
ter In questionable organization OF Convention
and that they felt bound to adhere to it2 Had
you said, believing the constitutional provision re-
quired them to do so" you would have stated their
position correctly-referrng their action to their in
terpretation of the Constitution leaving the people
at liberty TO give it another Interpretation, You
would not have placed the people in the attitude Of
flying in its face. But in the sentence as YOU have
it, their "believing" does not qualify the erstenee
of The constitutional prorision, (Which is taken rs
positively exisng but merely qualities their obi
CATION TO act under it,, and leaves the reader the
conclusion that while they believed they bound
by an admitted constitutional provision, the people
in rejecting them showed that they believed other
wise
must do you the Justice to suppose that you did
not duly weigh the import of this sentence or you
would not have penned it. But think you will
admit on referring to 1t again, that it requires ex-
PLANTATION. can hardly believe your discriminating
mind has been imposed on by the absorditu, that
the Constitution by any implication Certainly it
has done 50 by express provision, has required
that Convention to change or amend the Consti-
tuition shall be organized the basis fixed by that
instrument for the House Of Deegates-an absurd,
ty which, doubt not, has long since been abandon
ed by our late delegates themselves. The most
exceptionable part however of the foregoing quota
ton is the charge that the issue made i'm the can
vass "became the fruitful source of exaggeration
and Misrepresentation, tending to misead the igno-
rant, and excite the very worst passions of the com
munity" L know that much charity is due to the
first ebulitions of rage resulting from defeat and
sincerely hope that more calm consideration will
induce you to qualify, limit or explain this very
h,r II q
ton and misrepresentation" Not little, but
much such fruit grew out of it. Who We're these
eNaggerators and misreprescnters Not the ipno-
rant-they were msled but the enlightened
who knew better. Were they all engaged in it {?
None are excepted. Two-thirds of the people of
the county acted together. Were they all either
fools or knaves! | am you did not mean to
say so, yet the just Interpretation Of what you do
say leaves all your opponents in the category of
either knaves fools. But what were the mis-
representations That the contest was struq-
gle between ''persons and property 2" Well-how
was that Misrepresentation Point us if YOU can
to leading advocate of the late deleoaes except
YOURSELF who did not hold the doctrine that persons
should not enjoy power according to their numbers,
but that property ought to divide the power Was
not the doctrine of the late delegates as expouned
by yourself in the editorial under consideration that
the principle of representation in any future arrange
ment should be mixed, of white population and tax
IL
persons and property" in other words, whether
power should be distributed equally among the
white population, should be bestowed partly on
people and partly on property, or taxation? To
you, who thought the white basis principle not per
ied by the of cur late delegates the contest
might not have worn that aspect. But surely YOU
will allow men to differ with you in that opinion of
yours, and not charge them with Misrepresentation
because they honestly think 1t ,cas in danger, and
that the election of other delegates was necessary to
save it.
But ''numbers would believe nothing else than
that heyw battling against the odious assumption
that five negroes of the East should be counted as
equal to three white men of the West" Ipresume
those numbers were very small, and question much
whether any enlightened persons inculcated that
view of the case. Many, no doubt, believed what
has often been avowed by Eastern men, that the
property representation insisted on by the East
chiefly for the protection Of their rights i'm their ne
gro property, and that but for that property, which
could alone be supposed in danger, from equal repre-
senatiOn, they would yield their just rights to the
West. That the result Of the mixed basis princ-
pie of representation was the same as that on the
Federal basis would be-tbe protection of that sort
OF property. The object and result of the two prn-
clples being the same, it was not remarkable that
the principles themselves should be COMPOUNDED in
the minds OF unlettered men. Nor, this being the
case, can perceive that the conRoundng of the two
made the friends Of the mixed basis more objection
able, though it might have rendered them more
odIous to some, than they would have been. At all
events, such errors in terms should not subject
those who commit them TO the charge of ''misrepre-
senation."
had intended to finish review of your last edi-
toral in this number but having already spun out
my communication to an announcement length, must
ask leave to respass again your columns at fil-
ture day. ii Ipiite Basis Vhig.