Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829–1830

Almost immediately, the Constitution of 1776 was recognized as flawed both for its restriction of the suffrage by property requirements, and for its malapportionment favoring the smaller eastern counties.

It passed by 56.8 percent, with most convention support coming from west of the Blue Ridge Mountains northwest to the Ohio River.

On December 8, Monroe withdrew due to failing health, and the Convention elected Philip P. Barbour as its new presiding officer.

Barbour was a former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, a sitting federal district judge, and a future Justice on the Supreme Court.

Conservatives among the Old Republicans such as John Randolph of Roanoke feared any change from the Founders' 1776 Constitution would lead to an ideological anarchy of "wild abstractions" imposed by egalitarian "French Jacobins" through "this maggot of innovation".

In answer, John Marshall advanced his view with a petition from the freeholders of Richmond which observed that, "Virtue, intelligence, are not among the products of the soil.

Lawyer John R. Cooke, a veteran of the War of 1812 countered that delegates must base the Constitution and legislative representation on the wishes of citizens, "the white population…[looking] to the people" for its authority, not only the wealthy, not to sectional slave-holding interests, and "not to the supposed rights of the [unequally populated] counties.

Nevertheless, even with the exaggerated Virginia Senate representation apportioning the delegates in favor of the status quo, the three most important roll calls were close.

[9]Some malapportionment in the General Assembly was eased relative to the majority of voters and white population in the Valley in the House of Delegates, but nothing for the transmontane west.