The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1851-06-07

H- We iad the following graphic account
Of the Virginia Convention, with a sample O
the speeches which makes up its /" supplement" il
the correspondence of the New York Herald.
RICHMOND, Va May 81, 1851.
The Virginia Constitutional Conueniion-Im
mense Consumption Of Gas-Specimen If Z
Speech Prospects Of Another Maryland Az
fair.
After spending an hour or two in listening
to the debates in the Virginia Constitutions
Convention--or rather the convention elected
to build new constitution--we are more con
WINGED than ever that the making of new con
stitutions is tedious and uphill business
Look ut the trouble our reverend fathers had
with the federal Constitution which Mrl Webster
has appropriated as his exclusive property
though N'tis mine, It's his, and has been slave to
thousands" Dr. Franklin at last had TO bring
the convention to fasting and Irayer before
anything could DO done. Look at the months
of hard labor required to accomplish the old
constitution and the new constitution OF New
York But the result mark the result. All
the States have gone, or are going, into the
work Of building new constitutions, more re-
publican, more ample, more shipshape and closer
up to the spirit of the age, than the old consttu-
tions The States have outgrown their old
brooches, so that even Virginia, thought by
everybody, to be getting like John Randolph's
ghost
"Lean, and long, and lank,
And moving on spindle shank"
has actually been getting fat on tobacco, and
has become too large for her old-time panta-
i. 1T, L.. III
the fashion, that she is sadly in want of new
constitution.
She has elected a convention of some one
hundred and thrty-six delegates, more or less,
to make new fundamental law They find it .
tough job. After five months expenditure of
gas on the Singer question:" between the
eastern and western sections Of the State, they
have come toa temporary compromise, given to
the west the House by fourteen majority, upon
her white population, ard the Senate to the
east by ten majority, on account of its slaves
and taxable property. Thus the west obtains
majority of four on joint ballot, the State hav-
irg been, heretofore, entirely in the hands of
the slaveholding section. This is the practical
commencement of the revolution which is uti-
mately, and at no remote day, to change Virgil
MIA from slave State to free State
In our last despatch, we explained the contest,
and the compromise on the negro question, the
rapid gain of western Virginia and the white
population over the eastern or old slavehoding
division of the State. Let us, therefore, glance
for moment at the personelLe of the convention.
The tout ensemble is good. As body Of men,
the assemblage presents very respectable APP
pearance-parlicularly those six feet fellows
from the western mountains. Hon. JOAN v.
Mason, president, an eastern man, and late Sec
rotary Of the Navy, must have gained fifty
pounds since leaving Washington. He cannot
weigh much short of three hundred pounds A
capital, pleasant fellow is the Judge, as we'll as
an able, talented, and educated man.
But where is Wise! Gone down to Acco-
mac After that four days speech, against his
own section Of the State, he was compelled to
return home and 90 through a course Of oys-
ters and salt water; otherwise, Wise must have
collapsed. Mighty strange, that, after all his
campaigns against John Quincy Adams in Con-
gress, he should turn out, after all, gradual
Abolitionist-an anti-salvery man from Acco-
mac, and stakeholder at that.
/. That short thick-set gentleman. with his hair
cropped very close, and with that plain but solid
and sensible countenance, is George w. Sum
mers, Of Kenhawa, the coal country OF the
vest and the salt country. He is admitted to
be the strongest man in the convention, and has
persuaded the old hunkers of the east into a
compromising mood. They had no idea before
of the growth of the west; of the danger Of
the Cohoes setting up free State among the
mountains, in oppo sition to the old common
wealth, and her cherished institution among the
Tuckahoes
Over the way you see that tall squore-set
man. That is Robert Z. Scott, of Fauquier,
Al. Il. &c ba Ia 10 taa H.
tician and LAWYER, ready in debate, but has not
the general attainments, we would think, of his
western opponent He is, probably, too much
of strickler for the distractions of '9S and
'9e, to cope with Summers ard the go.ahead
doctrines of 1851.
John Nj. Bolts, of course, is here, and Of
course he is compromise man. Ever since he
filled to head John Tyler or die, he has been
compromise man, though he was very near OPP
posing Old lack to the last "nomnation
not fit to be made" But speaking ofTyler, he
$ till survives at Sherwood Forest, his planta-
ton down the river, dispensing the Inequalities
of a true son of the Old Dominion. The gov
ernor is with him, at present. and some others
of the dignitaries of Virginia. With his charm
ing and fou -ishng young wife, he is raising his
second family of FIVE children, and is altogether
about the bappiest man in the State, enjoying
his otiunn cum digniiaie-that is to say bis fish
and oysters--with wonderful equanimity and
Christian philosophy.
We left the convention discussing a motion
to meet at nine o'clock in the morning, which,
we understand was carried. As a specimen of
the oratory of the body, we give the following
extract from the official reports of that mass of
verbiage, "the supplement" 1t is part Of a
speech of Mr.. Rivcs, who, at the time of its de-
livery, was laboring under a cold
Mr. RrvEs continued wish to God | had
the eloquence Of my friend from Accomac Mr..
Wise wish to God could send him to the
European world to strike terror into the crowned
heads there. Laughter. Tyrants would trem
BILE and fall before him tyranny and oppression
never can have foothod where his clarion note
is heard Never, sir, never All am afraid of
is, that it will wake our people unnecessarily,
and too soon. [Great laughter. 1t is fortunate
for the crowned heads of Europe that he is not
there wish he had gone to the Worlds Fair.
Instead Of kissing the queens lips till they bills
tered, he would have reused up her people to
strike for their rights. He would have told the
people of downtrodden and suffering Ireland to