earnest collision was on the White | for the White Basis, with some help Basis, so called—that is, on the proposition that representation and political power should be apportioned to the several counties on the basis of their White population alone. The Committee on the Legislative department decided in favor of the White Basis by 13 to 11-James Madison's vote giving that side the majority; but he voted also against the White Basis for the Senate, making a tie on that point. A strong excitement having arisen on this question, General Robert B. Taylor, of Norfolk, an advocate of the White Basis, resigned, and his seat was filled by Hugh B. Grigsby, of opposite views. At length, the Convention came to a vote, on the proposition of a Mr. Green, of Culpepper, that the White Basis be stricken out, and the Federal Basis (the white inhabitants with "three-fifths of all other persons") be substituted. This was defeated Yeas 47 (including Grigsby aforesaid); Nays 49—every delegate voting. Among the Yeas were President Madison, Chief Justice Marshall, Benjamin Watkins Leigh, Philip P. Barbour, John Randolph of Roanoke, William B. Giles, John Tyler, etc. Among the Nays (for the White Basis) were ex-President Monroe, Philip Doddridge, Charles F. Mercer, Chapman Johnson, Lewis Summers, etc. As a rule, Western (comparatively Free) Virginia voted 6 November 16th. ex from the East; and it was computed that the majority represented 402,631 of Free Population, and the minority but 280,000. But the minority was strong in intellect, in numbers, and in resolution, and it fought desperately through weeks of earnest debate and skillful maneuvering. President Monroe, in December, resigned the chair, and his seat, and his constituents offered the latter to General R. B. Taylor aforesaid, who declined, when it was given to a Mr. Osborne. Finally, a proposition by Mr. Upshur (afterward Secretary of State) was so amended, on motion of Mr. Gordon, as to prescribe, arbitrarily, that thirteen Senators should be apportioned to counties west of the Blue Ridge, and nineteen to those east of it, with a corresponding allotment of Delegates in four parcels to the various natural divisions of the State, and was carried by 55 Yeas to 41 Naysa motion that the Senate apportionment be based on Federal numbers, and that for the House on the White population, having first been voted down-48 to 48. So the effort of the West, and of the relatively nonslaveholding sections of Virginia, to wrest political power from the slaveholding oligarchy of the tide-water counties, was defeated, despite the sanguine promise at the outset; and the Old Dominion sunk again into the arms of the negro-breeders." almost as senseless herds of black slaves, or the 'Hezekiah Niles, in his Weekly Register of Oc-free, tax-paying inhabitants of the State, shall tober 31, 1829, thus forcibly depicted the momentous issues for Virginia and the country, then hinging on the struggle in Richmond: "VIRGINIA CONVENTION. The committees having chiefly reported, 'the tug of war' between the 'old lights' and the new has commenced; and the question is to be settled whether trees and stones, and arbitrary divisions of land, with have political power. Very important events will grow out of this convention, and their effect will not be confined to Virginia. We hope and believe, that the free white population of the State will be adopted as the basis of representation in the popular branch of the Legislature— indeed, it cannot be popular without it; but perhaps the Senate may be apportioned according to 'federal numbers,' in which three-fifths of the THE YOUTH OF BENJAMIN LUNDY. Some years later (in 1831-2), on the occurrence of the slave insurrection in Southampton county, known as Nat. Turner's, her people were aroused to a fresh and vivid conception of the perils and evils of Slavery, and her Legislature, for a time, seemed on the point of inaugurating a system of Gradual Emancipation; but the impulse was finally, though with difficulty, overborne. Several who have since cast in their lot with the Slaveholders' Rebellion-among them Jas. C. Faulkner, late Minister to England-at that time spoke earnestly and forcibly for Emancipation, as an imperative necessity. And this is noteworthy as the last serious effort by the politicians of any Slave States to rid her of the giant curse, prior to the outbreak of the Slaveholders' Rebellion, BENJAMIN LUNDY deserves the high honor of ranking as the pioneer of direct and distinctive Anti-Slavery slaves are counted. If the latter may stand as a peace-offering to the departing power of the old lights, we would let them have it-in a few years, under a liberal Constitution, the free population of middle and western Virginia will be so increased, that the power in the Senate, derived from slaves, will not be injuriously felt. And then will the tacticians, who have kept Virginia back half a century, compared with New York and Pennsylvania, disappear, and give place to practical men- then will roads and canals be made, domestic manufactures encouraged, and a free and virtuous and laborious people give wealth and power and security to the commonwealth-the 'old families,' as they are called-persons much partaking of the character of the old nobility of France, imbecile and incorrigible-pass away, and a healthful and happy, bold and intelligent middle class rise up to sweeten and invigorate society, by rendering labor honorable; and Richmond will not any longer be ALL Virginia, as a distinguished gentleman used to proclaim, in matters of politics or policy. The moral effects of these things over the slave population of Virginia, and in the adjacent States, are hardly to be calculated. The presence of numerous slaves is incompatible with that of a numerous free population; and it is shown that the labor of the latter, in all the 111 | in America. Many who lived before and cotemporary with him were Abolitionists: but he was the first of our countrymen who devoted his life and all his powers exclusively to the cause of the slave. Born in Sussex county, New Jersey, January 4, 1789, of Quaker parents, whose ancestors for several generations had lived and died in this country, he injured himself, while still a mere boy, by excessive labor on his father's farm, incurring thereby a partial loss of hearing, from which he never recovered. Slight in frame and below the common hight, unassuming in manner and gentle in spirit, he gave to the cause of Emancipation neither wealth, nor eloquence, nor lofty abilities, for he had them not; but his courage, perseverance, and devotion were unsurpassed; and these combined to render him a formidable, though disregarded if not despised, antagonist to our national crime. Leaving his father's farm at nineteen years of age, he wandered important operations of agriculture or the arts, except the cultivation of cotton, sugar, tobacco, and rice (as at present carried on), is the cheapest and the best. And in truth, it would not perhaps be straining the facts too far, to express an opinion, that the greatest question before the Virginia convention is, the perpetual duration of negro slavery, or the increase of a generous and free white population." 8 In 1849, when Kentucky revised her State Constitution, Henry Clay formally renewed the appeal în favor of Gradual Emancipation, which he had made, when a very young man, on the occasion of her organization as a State; but the response from the people was feeble and ineffective. Delaware has repeatedly endeavored to rid herself of Slavery by legislation; but partisan Democracy has uniformly opposed and defeated every movement looking to this end. She, though slaveholding, has for sixty years or more been truly, emphatically, a Border State. very has only been kept so long alive within her limits for the benefit, and by the strenuous efforts, of the Democratic party. It is now evidently near its end. Sla weekly journal entitled The Philanthropist was soon after started at Mount Pleasant by Charles Osborne; and Lundy, at the editor's invitation, contributed to its columns, mainly by selections. In a few months, he was urged by Osborne to join him in the newspaper enterprise, and finally con westward to Wheeling, Virginia, where, during the next four years, he learned the trade of a saddler, and gained an insight into the cruelties and villainies of slaveholding Wheeling being at that time a great thoroughfare for negro-traders and their prey on their route from Maryland and Virginia to the lower Mis-sented to do so, removing to Mount sissippi. Before he made Wheeling his home, he had spent some time at Mount Pleasant, Ohio, whither he returned after learning his trade, and remained there two years, during which he married a young woman of like spirit to his own. He then, after a long visit to his father in New Jersey, settled at St. Clairsville, Ohio, near Wheeling, and opened a shop, by which in four years he made about three thousand dollars above his expenses, and, with a loving wife and two children, was as happy and contented with his lot as any man need be. But the impression made on his mind by his experiences of Slavery in Wheeling could not be shaken off nor resisted. In the year 1815, when twenty-six years of age, he organized an anti-Slavery association known as the "Union Humane Society," whereof the first meeting was held at his own house, and consisted of but five or six persons. Within a few months, its numbers were swelled to four or five hundred, and included the best and most prominent citizens of Belmont and the adjacent counties. Lundy wrote an appeal to philanthropists on the subject of Slavery, which was first printed on the 4th of January, 1816, being his twenty-seventh birthday. Short and simple as it was, it contained the germ of the entire anti-Slavery movement. A Pleasant. Meantime, he made a voyage to St. Louis in a flat-boat to dispose of his stock of saddlery. Arriving at that city in the fall of 1819, when the whole region was convulsed by the Missouri Question, he was impelled to write on the side there unpopular in the journals of the day. His speculation proved unfortunate the whole West, and, indeed, the whole country, being then involved in a commercial convulsion, with trade stagnant and almost every one bankrupt. He returned to his home on foot during the ensuing winter, having been absent nearly two years, and lost all he was worth. Meantime, Osborne, tired of his thankless and profitless vocation, had sold out his establishment, and it had been removed to Jonesborough, Tennessee, where his newspaper took the title of The Emancipator. Lundy removed, as he had purposed, to Mount Pleasant, and there started, in January, 1821, a monthly entitled The Genius of Universal Emanci pation. He commenced it with six subscribers; himself ignorant of printing and without materials; having his work done at Steubenville, twenty miles distant; traveling thither frequently on foot, and returning with his edition on his back. Four months later, he had a very considerable subscription list. About this time, Elihu Embree, who had started The Eman |