The convention was, of course, regaled by the radicals with the usual popular sing-song cant. It was told that the suffrage was “an inestimable privilege of the individual citizen,” a proposition which is in flat contradiction to the experience of every voter and to the plain facts. This proposition Leigh had the courage to deny, saying that good government for all and not a mere right to individuals to vote is the real desideratum. The majority leaders talked of the “original principles” of government, among them being that each citizen may vote, etc. Upshur denied that there were any original principles of government, because he said “political principles do not precede, they spring out of government.” He further said that property as well as persons is a constituent element of Society; that the very idea of Society carries with it that of property as its necessary and inseparable attendant, and that when man entered Society it was to procure protection for his property; take away all protection to property and our next business is to cut each other’s throats; the great bulk of legislation affects property rather than persons, and without property government cannot move an inch. Leigh uttered some things worth quoting, among them these true and forcible words: “Power and property” (said he) “may be separated for a time by force or fraud but divorced never. For so soon as the pang of separation is felt, if there be truth in history, if there be any certainty in the experience of ages, if all pretensions to knowledge of the human heart be not vanity and folly, property will purchase power, or power will take property. And either way, there must be an end of free government. If property buy power, the very process is corruption. If power ravish property the sword must be drawn, so essential is property to the very being of civilized society, and so certain that civilized man will never consent to return to a savage state.”
The proposal to continue the freehold basis of suffrage was defeated by a vote of 37 to 51, Monroe voting yea and Madison and Marshall voting nay, and by a similar vote the right of suffrage was extended to housekeepers, being heads of families and paying any tax whatever. The reader may be curious to know how the people of Virginia themselves stood on the question, but it is impossible to say. The vote on the adoption of the constitution was 26,055 in favor, to 15,563 opposed; but this vote was not a measure of Virginia popular opinion in regard to a property qualification. The election went off on a different question and curiously enough, the new constitution which extended the suffrage was adopted by the votes of those opposed to the extension. The western counties though favoring, were disappointed because they were not given the legislative representation they claimed; in that respect the new constitution was considered favorable to the east, which though opposed to suffrage extension, voted for ratification, while West Virginia voted to defeat it. Of the total vote in opposition, 13,337, or over five-sixths, came from the region west of the Blue Ridge.