Neither of these plans was adopted. Consequently various plans of compromise were brought forward. Botts, of Richmond, and George W. Summers, of Kanawha, were among those who suggested propositions. On the motion of Mr. Martin, of Henry County, it was decided that a committee of eight, four from each section, be elected by the convention to provide a compromise. On the fifteenth day of May, this committee reported in favor of a House of Delegates of one hundred and fifty members; eighty-two from the west and sixty-eight from the east; and a Senate of fifty; thirty from the east and twenty from the west. It provided further for a re-apportionment in 1865 and for submitting both the mixed and suffrage bases to the people should the Assembly, at that time, fail to agree.[31] The plan was rejected. Following the failure of several other compromise plans, Chilton presented with modifications the report of the committee of eight.[32] This report provided that the numbers therein indicated for each house remain unchanged; but should the legislature of 1865 fail to re-apportion representation, the governor would be "required to submit to the vote of the people four propositions, namely; (1) the suffrage basis, (2) the mixed basis, (3) the white population basis, and (4) the taxation basis." This plan was carried in committee of the whole and later, with slight modifications, was adopted by the Convention. The question of suffrage was settled amicably since the delegates from neither section opposed an extension thereof. The privilege of the ballot, therefore, was extended to "Every white male citizen of the commonwealth of the age of twenty-one years";[33] paupers and others usually excepted, not to be included. The question of taxation was one of the important issues to be settled. The eastern delegates opposed the white basis of representation, chiefly through the fear that westerners would use their newly gained political power to tax slave property to secure funds for internal improvements.[34] The eastern members insisted, therefore, that all property taxes should be ad valorem and that no one species should be taxed higher than another. They were unwilling, too, that Negro slaves under twelve years of age should be taxed at all. It was finally provided that an ad valorem tax be placed on all property according to its value, but that Negro slaves under twelve years of age be exempt and slaves twelve years and over be taxed per capita at not more than the tax on land worth three hundred dollars.[35] The inhabitants of the west never became reconciled to this discriminating arrangement and it was especially irritating during the years immediately preceding the war,[36] when the price of slaves often ranged from sixteen hundred to eighteen hundred dollars.[37]