120 EMPLOYMENT OF THE PLEBISCITE [418 



Blue Ridge . . . many of the western counties paid into 

 the public treasury many times the amount paid by some of 

 the Eastern counties, yet the representation of both was the 

 same. ... It was . . . ' taxation without representation.' " 

 In the Assembly of 1820, the East had one hundred and 

 twenty-four members, while the East had but eighty. The 

 result was " that the East secured to itself nearly everything 

 in the character of internal improvement," while the repre- 

 sentatives of the western counties were glad to return home 

 with a " few hundred dollars to be used in the construction 

 of a mud turnpike." What caused the greatest dissatisfac- 

 tion, however, was the fact that the right of suffrage was 

 restricted, by means of property qualifications, to freehold- 

 ers, so that in the war with England " thousands marched 

 to the field, who were treated as aliens in the land of their 

 nativity, and that, too, by the very government they were 

 giving their lives to defend." After much opposition a bill 

 was finally passed in the Assembly at the session of 1827- 

 1828, providing for a public vote on the question of call- 

 ing a constitutional convention to revise the old instrument 

 of 1776. In 1828 the poll registered 21,896 for and 16,646 

 against the proposition. During the session of this Conven- 

 tion held in October, 1829, in Richmond, the breach between 

 the East and the West widened. When the final vote on 

 the new constitution was taken, every delegate from the 

 counties west of the Alleghenies, except one who was absent 

 owing to illness, voted against it, while all others voted aye 

 — and that for the simple reason that the new constitution 

 secured none of the reforms sought, that it still restricted 

 the right of suffrage and still denied to the West equal rep- 

 resentation. When the new constitution was submitted to 

 popular vote, "every county east of the Blue Ridge with 

 one exception (Warwick), gave a majority for ratification: 

 while every county in what is now West Virginia, with two 

 exceptions (Jefferson and Hampshire), voted largely in 

 favor of rejection," and "of the total vote (9.758) cast in 

 these [western] counties, 8,375 were for rejection." Thus 



