controversy Eastern Virginia, having the greater share of wealth and of conservative ideas, stood for property rights, and the West stood for what it dubbed “progress” and the “rights of man.” The dispute threatened the disruption of the Commonwealth, which actually came to pass a generation later in 1863. The final action of the Convention was satisfactory to neither section. The question of county representation was finally settled by an elaborate compromise by which each county and region was given an arbitrary proportion. The champions of an extension of the suffrage were victorious by a vote of 51 to 37, Madison and Marshall voting with the majority and Monroe with the minority; and thus the suffrage which had theretofore been confined to owners of land was extended to such heads of families as were housekeepers and paid taxes. While the only immediate effect was to let in a class of owners of personal property, yet it was generally realized at the time that the new measure would practically open the door to all heads of families however limited their means, and that universal suffrage was but a short step further off. One interested in Virginia history can hardly help wishing that he might have witnessed the Convention in session. Some of those present had taken part in the American Revolution; all had breathed the Revolutionary atmosphere. Monroe, old and feeble, presided as long as he could hold the gavel, but finally was compelled by weakness to retire. He was able to tell the Convention of a visit to another Convention in Paris over thirty years before, and of witnessing (an ominous spectacle) the murder of one of its members in the convention hall. Madison, another ex-President, was seventy-eight years of age; he spoke two or three times during the session, but his voice was so low that he could not be heard beyond a distance of a few feet. When he arose to speak the members left their seats and grouped themselves respectfully about him. Randolph, who bitterly opposed the suffrage extension scheme, had been the most popular speaker in the state; he was at that time stricken and shriveled by disease, but the older delegates remembered him as one who in his youth had been described as beautiful, fascinating, and even as lovely. Alexander Campbell was there, a young man destined in later years to be the founder of a great religious denomination.