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Proceedings of the House of Delegates, 1800
Volume 92, Page 91   View pdf image (33K)
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VOTES and PROCEEDINGS, November Session, 1800.            91

N    E    G    A    T    I    V    E.

Messieurs
Millard,
Parker,
Hanson,
Harwood,		 Mercer,
Blake,
Estep,		 Chapman,
McPherson,
Jones,		 Edmondson,
Dashiell,
Sheredine,		 Forman,
Addison,
Quynn,		 Johnson,
Lowrey,
Nelson,		 E. Davis,
Veatch,
Gebhart.
22.
So it was resolved in the affirmative.
    The clerk of the senate delivers the bill to empower the judges of the court of appeals to reinstate the cause
of Job Garretson against Richard Cole, endorsed; " By the senate, December 19, 1800:  Upon reconsideration
" will pass.
                                                                " By order,                                                W. S.  GREEN, clk."
    Ordered to be engrossed.
The resolution in favour of the chancellor, endorsed; " By the senate, December 19, 1800:  Read the first and
" second time by especial order and assented to.
                                                                " By order,                                                W. S.  GREEN, clk."
The resolution in favour of the securities of Dennis Griffith, and the resolution in favour of the securities of
William S. Bond, severally endorsed; " By the senate, December 19, 1800:  Read the first time and ordered
" to lie on the table.
                                                                " By order,                                                W. S.  GREEN, clk.
" By the senate, December 19, 1800:  Read the second time be especial order and assented to.
                                                                " By order,                                                W. S.  GREEN, clk."
The journal of accounts, endorsed; " By the senate, December 19, 1800:  read the first and second time by
" especial order and assented to.
                                                                " By order,                                                W. S.  GREEN, clk."
The bill for the payment of the journal of accounts, endorsed; " By the senate, December 19, 1800;  Read
" the first time and ordered to lie on the table.
                                                                " By order,                                                W. S.  GREEN, clk.
" By the senate, December 19, 1800:  Read the second time by especial order and will pass.
                                                                " By order,                                                W. S.  GREEN, clk."
    Ordered to be engrossed.
The following message:
BY the SENATE, December 19, 1800.
        GENTLEMEN,
    WE have finished the business before us, and are now ready to close the session.  If agreeable to you, the
governor will be requested to attend immediately in the senate chamber to sign and seal the engrossed bills.
                                                                By order,                                                  W. S.  GREEN, clk.
The bill to alter such parts of the constitution and form of government as relate to voters and qualification
of voters, and the following message:
BY the SENATE, December 19, 1800.
        GENTLEMEN,
    WE decline to recede from the principle of our first amendment to your bill, entitled, An act to alter such parts
of the constitution and form of government as relate to voters and qualification of voters.  And we regret that
your message of this day is of such a nature as to make it necessary for us to offer any further observations on this
occasion.  Discussions on subjects of this kind seldom produce conviction in either branch of the legislature.
The question, what qualifications ought to entitle a person to suffrage? furnishes scope for the most diffusive and
endless dissertation.  Such discussions are never desired by us, and are particularly inconvenient at this late period
of the session.  We consider society to be instituted for the promotion of the general felicity.--And in our
community we believe that object will be best promoted by a strict adherence to the principle before quoted by
us from the bill of rights, and by making the right of suffrage depend upon the concurrence of the three requisites
therein stated, viz. property in, a common interest with, and an attachment to, the community.  This we
intended, and thought we had effected by our first amendment.  Can a person, who has no assessable property
whatever, be considered as possessing, within the meaning an spirit of the bill of rights, the two first of those
requisites?  Or can the mere circumstance of a year's residence in the county, (the qualification proposed by you.)
be viewed as any conclusive evidence of the last?
    We do not oppose your principle from an apprehension of its producing very extensive and serious evils at the
present day, but we extend our views to future times, when an immense increase of population may and will
tale place in our country, and when a considerable proportion of that population will probably be, as we find it
in all other countries, destitute of property, and without sufficient virtue and knowledge to resist the arts, the
corruptions and the impositions of ambitious men, desirous of raising themselves to power, even on the ruins of
public liberty and happiness.  These apprehensions are not visionary.  They are founded upon the experience of
past ages.  That liberty is the common and natural right of all men, no good man will deny.  But we do not
consider natural liberty, and the right of suffrage, as the same thing.  The latter is an adventitious right, derived
not from a state of nature, but society.  Admitting all men to be equally free by nature, it does not follow,

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Proceedings of the House of Delegates, 1800
Volume 92, Page 91   View pdf image (33K)
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