It was a captivating speech. There was little rhetoric and less feeling. Van Buren took good care to show his thorough knowledge of the subject, and, without the use of exclamations or interrogations, he pointed out the unwisdom of following the constitution-makers of 1777, and the danger of accepting the dogma of universal suffrage. The impression we get from the declaration of some of those who heard it, is that Van Buren surpassed himself in this effort. He seems to have made a large majority of the convention happy because he said just what they wanted to know, and said it in just the way they wanted to hear it. It must be admitted, too, that the evils which he prophesied, if universal suffrage were given to New York City, have been too unhappily verified. With the defeat of Spencer's proposition, the suffrage question quickly settled itself along the lines of the committee's report. The judiciary article excited less debate but more feeling. Delegates brooded over the well known fact that judges had become political partisans, opposed to increasing their number to meet the growing demands of business, and anxious to retain the extraordinary power given them under the Constitution of 1777. Whenever a suggestion was made to retain these judges, therefore, it provoked bitter opposition and denunciation. A few men in the convention had very fierce opinions, seasoned with a kind of wit, and of these, the restless energy of Erastus Root soon earned for him considerable notoriety. Indeed, it passed into a sort of proverb that there were three parties in the convention--the Republicans, the Federalists, and Erastus Root. It is not so clear that he had as much influence as his long prominence in public life would seem to entitle him; but when he did happen to stand with the majority, he pleased it with his witty vehemence more than Peter R. Livingston did with his coarse vituperation. In the debate on the judiciary, however, abuse and invective were not confined to Root and Livingston. Abraham Van Vechten and some of those who acted with him, employed every means in their power to defeat the opponents of the judges, although they scarcely equalled the extra-tribunal methods of their adversaries.