Although the question of reapportionment of representation, the question of taxation and the suffrage question were among the foremost considerations of the Convention, the underlying and basic cause of all this strife was the slavery issue.[12] Those who advocated and supported the institution of slavery were loath to surrender to the people of the west any of the power and privileges that they possessed. Some of Eastern Virginia and a great majority of the people in Western Virginia were opposed to slavery. They believed still in the principles advocated by the fathers of the country as set by George Mason, who, while deploring the institution, had formerly said: "Slavery discourages arts and manufactures. The poor despise labor when performed by slaves. They prevent the immigration of whites, who really enrich and strengthen a country. They produce the most pernicious effect on manners. Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of Heaven on a country. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes national sins by national calamities."[13] A memorial presented to the convention in October in 1829, said that Virginia was in a state of "moral and political retrogression" and proceeded to specify: "That the causes heretofore frequently assigned are the true ones we do not believe.... We humbly suggest our belief that the slavery that exists and which with gigantic strides is gaining ground among us, is, in truth, the great efficient cause of the multiplied evils we deplore. We cannot conceive that there is any other cause sufficiently operative to paralyze the energies of a people so magnanimous, to neutralize the blessings of Providence included in the gift of a land so happy in its soil, its climate, its minerals and its waters; and to annul the manifold advantages of our republican system and geographical position. If Virginia has already fallen from her high estate, and if we have assigned a true cause for her fall, it is with the utmost anxiety that we look to the future to the fatal termination of the scene. As we value our domestic happiness, as our hearts yearn for the prosperity of our offspring, as we pray for the guardian care of the Almighty over our Country--we earnestly inquire what shall be done to avert the impending ruin. The efficient cause of our calamities is vigorously increasing in magnitude and potency, while we wake and while we sleep."[14]