MR. PEYTON'S LETTER ON THE CONVENTION OF 1829-30.
For several years previous to 1829, the question of calling a Convention to form a new Constitution for Virginia was agitated. There was a kind of political fermentation on the subject of innovation, with many persons, a strong desire to up-root the laws under which the State had so long prospered, and make a new experiment in government. The Ultras objected to the freehold basis of representation and demanded the white basis, or manhood suffrage, they opposed a judiciary elected for good behavior and demanded the election of judges at short intervals, by a popular vote. They objected to various other conservative provisions of the Constitution of 1776. Party spirit infused itself in all discussions and no small excitement was created in the public mind—as a result of the agitation on the subject. A convention, though opposed by the wisest men in the State, was finally ordered, and persons nominated for election were called upon to give their opinions through the newspapers, on the various questions which would come before it.
Among those asked for their views was Mr. Peyton, who published in the Staunton papers a long and able letter, in which he opposed the white basis; the election of judges by a popular vote and for a term of years; and advocated their election during good behavior, by the Legislature. He advised the retention, generally, of the conservative features of the old Constitution, and while he admitted that a few changes might be made with advantage, warned the people against tampering with the laws, the currency and the peculiar institutions of the South. He added that he had voted against calling a Convention, believing that the Constitution of 1776, was better than any the people were likely to get from a new Convention; in a word, he bade them bear the "ills they had rather than fly to others they knew not of."
The letter was so conservative in character and so conclusive of the points at issue, that it was thought it would have gone a long way towards preventing the call of a convention, had it been published earlier. As it was, it only made the friends of organic change, more determined. They were bent on giving form and substance to their dreams, their passions were up and they would be satisfied with nothing else.
Some of the most advanced enthusiasts advocated, what are styled "women's rights," their right to vote, to serve on juries, to hold office and the like—others were opposed to allowing a man to enjoy the fruits of his industry, and favored dividing out his income when it had reached a certain sum; no doubt some would have liked the principal divided also, others favored free inquiry, if any one knows what this means in a country where investigation and thought are as free as the air we breathe; free religion, which was supposed to have been settled by Mason's act of 1776, legalizing all forms of worship, commonly called the act of religious freedom, free morals and opinions, and it is not unlikely there were others who favored free love as a means of squelching out polygamy. One of the most notorious and eccentric of these social reformers, was Fanny Wright, not, however, a native or resident of Virginia; and it was said, with what truth we know not, that the sum of her teachings amounted to this, that any man who donned a whole coat and a clean shirt was an aristocrat and ought to be put down.
These misguided people sought to break the force of his views by a loud outcry, saying he was an old Bourbon, entirely behind the age, a praiser of times past, like Nestor in the Iliad; who wished the laws of Virginia to remain unchanged and as unchangeable as were those of the Medes and Persians, and would have it so if left alone. A looker-on would have supposed this enlightened man and moderate conservative, from this kind of ultra nonsense, as extreme in his policy as the notorious Lord John Manners, a man of phlegmatical repulsiveness of manners, who in admiration of his class, once exclaimed, with idiotic fatuity:
"Let wealth and commerce, laws and learning die
But leave us still our old nobility."
The loss of Mr. Peyton's letter cannot be too much regretted. If reviewed the whole history of the Judiciary previous to and from the time of William III., when by act of Parliament the Judges were to hold office during good behavior, up to a later act of one of the George's, providing that their commissions were not to cease by demise of the Crown, and down to his day. He argued earnestly also, in favor of an independent judiciary, this question arousing his deepest interest, and showed up the curse of a venial and corrupt one, having in its unsafe keeping the lives, reputation and property of the people. He entered also, into an elaborate discussion of the question of popular representation, the first instance of which, it was stated, occurred in Aragon in the twelfth century, &c., and discussing the basis of representation, expressed himself, in case the freehold basis was discarded, as in favor of the mixed basis, taking into account both population and prosperity.
The letter breathed a really liberal and enlightened spirit in politics and religion, and made him the idol of the liberal conservatives. The extremists were, however, antagonized by it, and in their rage and disappointment, set to work to mar, if not destroy, his influence. While distorting and misrepresenting him and his opinions, they had the "cheek," to say, they did it "more in sorrow, than in anger."
Not at all disturbed by the hurly-burly, he laughed heartily at their nonsense, and said that these enthusiasts in their efforts to emancipate man socially, morally, politically and otherwise from all the ills of life, were innovators running after something they would never reach, as the hind wheel of the carriage which is in constant pursuit of the fore one without ever overtaking it. And when he got a chance at one of the Ring Bosses, and he sometimes cornered one, he handled him after such a fashion, that the Boss never wished to see him again. To these Bosses distance ever afterwards, lent enchantment to the view, of this man of relentless logic, keen irony and withering sarcasm. Many of these so-called Reformers aimed at nothing worse than their own advancement.
From the foregoing synopsis of Mr. Peyton's letter it is evident, if he did not say so, that, in his opinion, love of variety and change, a desire to subvert the existing state of things, indicated both weakness and ignorance; that it is not the strong-minded and right thinking who desire to cut loose from the past, its traditions and customs and its endearing associations, but the stupid, whose wild and dangerous projects carried out, would, however, unconsciously to themselves, give us poverty in lieu of prosperity, licence instead of liberty.