THOUGHTS 
 
 ON THE NECESSITY FOR, AND ACTION OF, 
 
 THE APPROACHING 
 
 STATE CONVENTION 
 
 BY A. B. JOHNSON. 
 
 UTICA: 
 
 PRINTED BY I. 8. CLARK, DEMOCRAT BUILDINGS. 
 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 Utica, December 1, 1845. 
 
 A. B. JOHNSON, Esq., 
 
 Dear Sir;— 
 
 A number of publications upon the subject of CoNsriru- 
 TioNAi, Reform, have, from time to time, appeared in tho columns of the 
 Utica Democrat under your signature. The people having at the recent 
 election resolved, by a majority of nearly two hundred thousand votes, that 
 it was necessary a convention should be held to revise our fundamental law, 
 the importance of full information upon the subject is now very apparent. 
 Especially is it important that the views of reflecting men should be laid 
 before the people, and that the various plans and suggestions put forth by 
 individuals having leisure and ability to investigate the matter, should be 
 extensively disseminated, to the end that a careful examira(ion of them 
 may be had, the good preserved, and the worthless thrown aside. 
 
 With the general tonor and spirit of your articles, as they appeared in 
 the Democrat, we were greatly pleased, and, without intending to express 
 an opinion upon each particular proposition put forth, we cannot but ihinh 
 that their publication in a permanent and convenient pamphlet form would 
 be of great service to the people of the State. We therefore take the lib¬ 
 erty to solicit their publication in this form, under your own supervision, 
 hot doubting that your compliance with our request will be greatly to tho 
 public advantage. We are very respectfully, 
 
 Yourob’t serv’ts, 
 
 CHA’S A. MANN, ANDW. S. POND, 
 
 K. HURLBURT, WARD HUNT, 
 
 ALFRED MUNSON, MARTIN HART, 
 
 JNO. E. HINMAN, THOMAS COLLING, 
 
 BENJ. WELCH, Jr., W. L. WALBADT, 
 
tTnoi, December 3, 1845. 
 
 GENTLEMEN 
 
 I am e.Kceedingly gralifieJ to learn by your kind communication to me 
 that the general tenor and spirit of ray published articles on CoxsiiTOTtox* 
 Ai, Reform are approved by you, wltoso good opinion I profoundly respect. 
 I derive, also, from your communication a gratification less selfish than the 
 above: for by your widely esteemed sagacity and patriotism, I auger fa¬ 
 vorably to the success of any cause wliich you approve; and I am entirely 
 honest in the belief that a revision of our Constitution, in the tenor and 
 Spirit you have sanctioned, will benefit our whole Confederacy ; for over it 
 the laws and institutions of our great State exert continually a powerful 
 influence. 
 
 I shall, forthwith, cause tlie articles to be re-published in the form you 
 have suggested, though I sliall take the liberty of adding to the pamphlet 
 an LvTRODUcitox, not heretofore published, in which I shall speak briefly 
 on the Selection' to the Convention op Suitable Deleg.ltes. 
 
 I am. Gentlemen, 
 
 With great respect, your ob’t serv’t, 
 
 A. B. JOHNSON. 
 
 Messrs. Cha’s. A. Man.n', Andw. S. Pond, K. Hurlbcrt, Ward Hu.nt, 
 Alfred Mu.nso.v, Martin Hart, Jno. E. Hinjlvn, Thomas Colling, 
 Bexj. AVelcii, Jr., AAL L. AA^alradi. 
 
INTRODUCTION: 
 
 THE SELECTION OF DELEGATES. 
 
 The State Convention having been overwhelmingly 
 aclopted, the question which most demands present atten¬ 
 tion, is what reforms are desirable, and how the attainment 
 of them can be best secured; for we must not conceal 
 from ourselves that what the people are to gain somebody 
 is to lose; and the losers will resist the loss with an energy 
 to be feared, because its motive will be disguised. The 
 conscious vulnerability of existing chartered monopolies 
 makes an election to the legislature, of both their known 
 and secret benelkiaries, an object which the interested 
 usually urge with success; and the same principle, aug¬ 
 mented by a new danger, will crowd such persons into the 
 Convention, where they will be but too willing to favor 
 any project that will leave them in possession of special 
 privileges, at the expense of some change in the mode by 
 which the privileges are to be perpetuated. The danger 
 from this source is peculiarly great because public attention 
 has been directed more lo a reform of the terms on which 
 special privileges are granted, than lo a discontinuance of 
 all such privileges. But equality is our boast, and shall we 
 not practise it ? It is our right, and shall we not pefect it ? 
 Liberty is enjoyed in England, and many other countries, 
 as fully as we enjoy it. We excel all nations in only 
 equality of privileges, and the great question for the Con¬ 
 vention to decide, is whether all privileges granted by law 
 to any one association of men shall not be common to 
 
6 
 
 every other set of men who choose to associate and possess 
 them. 
 
 Another class of reforms, against which we ought to 
 apprehend danger, are those that increase the political 
 powers of the people; as for instance, that all offices shall 
 he elective; that the State shall be divided into single 
 representative districts; and that the right to call Conven¬ 
 tions shall never be again abandoned to the Legislature, but 
 retained by the people, as a practical guarantee of their 
 sovereignty. These argumentations of the popular influ¬ 
 ence will ratably diminish the influence of partisan leaders, 
 who now control all nominations for elective offices, and 
 dictate all executive appointments; and who will therefore 
 employ every accustomed intrigue, and arouse every pos¬ 
 sible prejudice, to secure seats in the Convention to per¬ 
 sons friendly to the control and dictation that are sought to 
 be abrogated. 
 
 Alarming as are the foregoing dangers, lest the Iamb 
 should be delivered to the care of the wolf, no preventive 
 exists but to obtain from the people decidedly expressed 
 feelings in favor of the desired reforms; for our managing 
 politicians of every creed will rarely outrage unequivocal 
 expressions of the public will. To aid in the formation of 
 such a will, the following essays were published at diflerent 
 times. They are collected for the same end, and repub¬ 
 lished in a form better adapted than previously, for preser¬ 
 vation and deliberation, if happily they shall be deemed 
 worthy of either. We shall obtain an amended judiciary, 
 and of equal value, whoever may be chosen as delegates ; 
 but the reforms to which the preceeding observations refer, 
 and kindred messures, are favored by only a portion of our 
 citizens. To obtain these reforms, the Convention was 
 principally advocated | gpd to prevent their obtainment, the 
 Convention was mainly opposed. To deliver it up now to 
 
7 
 
 those who thus opposed it, would be equivalent to the old 
 adadge of yielding a pail full of milk, and then ujjsetting it. 
 We are not forced to adopt the recommendations of the 
 Convention, and hence tve need not fear should the most 
 radical reformers control it. A Convention which will not 
 submit reforms to the option of the people, is more to be 
 deprecated than a Convention which will submit too much ; 
 for we possess the power to reject, but not to add. When 
 the Legislature submits any subject to a committee, a ma¬ 
 jority thereof is always selected from persons who favor the 
 referred subject, because an unfriendly majority would 
 render a reference nugatory; so we may as W'ell have voted 
 against a Convention, as vote for delegates who are hostile 
 to changes, and especially lo those which the Convention 
 was called to effect. The writer claims not lo be the origina¬ 
 tor of any of the foregoing recommended constitutional im¬ 
 provements. He selected them for their special impor¬ 
 tance, and controversial character, from the mass of sug¬ 
 gestions that have long been publicly contemplated; and 
 he has attempted nothing but to state them pcrspicuouslv. 
 for he believes tiieir adoption will make our blessed political 
 institutions increasedly admirable, and our noble people 
 increasedly sovereign, intelligent, dignified and prosperous. 
 
THE STATE CONVENTION QUESTION. 
 
 While history records hut little more than unceasing at¬ 
 tempts to circutnscnbe the natural rights of man, and enlarge 
 the privileges of rulers, we occasionally institute the oppo¬ 
 site experiment, of how far every man may be left in the 
 unrestricted pursuit of his own happiness, and how far the 
 superiority of rulers may be wholesomely diminished. In 
 about five months we are to pronounce whether another 
 experiment of this nature shall be tried or not. The object 
 is undeniably benevolent, and with the known good dispo¬ 
 sitions and sedate views of our citizens, we ought not to 
 be too suspicious of evil, raiser-like clinging to our present 
 2>ossessions, and from the mere possibility of loss, refusing 
 all attempts at further political acquisitions. The spirit of 
 fair enterprise which leads us step by step to perfection in 
 other arts and sciences, may, if directed to the science of 
 government, lead to results equally beneficial. The good 
 which may be elicited at every trial, will be a permanent 
 acquisition to mankind in all times and places; while the 
 mistakes that may be committed will be corrected by our¬ 
 selves as soon as they are felt. The experience of all our 
 States in such experiments is full of encouragement for the 
 future, since every attempt has meliorated the condition of 
 the people for whose benefit it was instituted. When, for 
 instance, we contemplate our colored population, and com¬ 
 miserate the penalties by which our constitution punishes 
 poverty among them, by adding to its natural evils an 
 ignominious brand of exclusion from the right of suffrage; 
 we can scarcely believe that only twenty-four years ago our 
 
tlien existing constitution punished every man’s poverty by a 
 like penalty. The revisers of that instrument added scarcely 
 any new burthens to the blacks, hut only failed from re¬ 
 moving those which existed; thus verifying the sad proverb 
 of “ every man for himself, and God alone for us all.” 
 
 Before any man can assume that our present constitution 
 is incapable of improvement, he must believe that the con¬ 
 gregated wisdom of the State can suggest nothing which is 
 not already known to him; this too in the face of defects in 
 our judiciary, that oppress every suitor with “ the hope de¬ 
 ferred, which maketh the heart sickand in the face of 
 social inequalities that proceed not from the differences of 
 intellect, health, perseverance, and other inevitable natural 
 causes, but from a difference of privileges accorded to 
 some men arbitrarily and denied to others. If any citi¬ 
 zen wishes to erect a saw-mill, he receives no guarantee that 
 another person shall not erect a rival mill in its vicinity ; 
 but when a man has obtained from the Legislature a char¬ 
 ter for the construction of a rail-road, say from Utica to 
 Shenectady, he has acquired a monopoly of the route, for 
 no person can erect a rival road without like legislative 
 facilities; and no legislative application for such rivalry 
 would be successful ,in one application out of a thousand. 
 The corporators of such special privileges, are, therefore, 
 about as secure of their monopoly as though the monopoly 
 were an express grant; hence their stocks sell in market 
 at premiums varying from 20 to 30 per cent, or more : while 
 travellers, excluded from the benefit of rival enterpises, are 
 helplessly subjected to virtually unrestrained rapacity ; and 
 the result is seen in enormous dividends. Monopolies of 
 this character, directed to numerous pursuits, flood our 
 State; and so corrupting is the power to create such mo¬ 
 nopolies, and so eager is the instinct of gain to procure 
 them, that as early as the year 1811, Gov. Tompkins pro- 
 
11 
 
 rogued the Legislature, and sent the members home for a 
 season, in the vain hope that the sight of their constituents 
 would arrest a corrupt combination to charter a bank.— 
 Gov. Clinton’s messages to the legislature are full of evi¬ 
 dences that the same corrupting influence was active in his 
 day. From his suggestions, against what is technically 
 called legislative log-rolling, arose the rule that no bill 
 should create or alter more than a single corporation, lest the 
 want of merit, which should preclude the enactment of the 
 bills separately, might induce their legislative fathers to club 
 and pass them all. And in our own time, if rumor lies not, 
 some of the members of our legislature, as they journey 
 towards the Capitol to enter on their duties, are occasion¬ 
 ally, (when their services are needed to create some new 
 privilege,) surprised by the equivocal courtesy of receiving 
 free rail-road tickets. Nor is the corrupting power to grant 
 special privileges, and the corrupting consciousness that 
 special privileges are obtained by favor and friendship, 
 seen in only the coy dalliance of such soft appliances; who 
 cannot see it in the meritorious laws that are annually 
 rejected, when they happen to conflict with existing mo¬ 
 nopolies ; as, for instance, last winter, the rail-road from 
 Albany to New York, and from Utica to Binghampton ?— 
 and who cannot see it also, in the laws that are annually 
 passed, when they happen to benefit political favorites ; as, 
 for instance, the renewal, last winter, of two bank charters, 
 after years of denial to kindred applications? and what 
 resisted, till the people were weary of asking for it, the 
 mere privilege of sending to and from Albany by rail-road 
 the produce and merchandize which the frozen canal cannot 
 convey, and which, when transmitted by railroad, were to 
 pay canal tolls 1 Let the tarifi’ answer, which last winter the 
 rail-roads established for freight, when they were, at length 
 compelled (not being quite ready to accept this additional 
 
12 
 
 ‘branch of lucre) to accede to the wants of the country; but 
 acceded by freight charges so great as “to keep the word of 
 promise to our ears only.” 
 
 In the year 1821, when our present Constitution was cre¬ 
 ated, the evil of special legislation was sought to be cor¬ 
 rected by the expedient of a two-third vote. Experience 
 shows that this has increased the facility of obtaining char¬ 
 ters ; for Legislators are now, by a spirit of practical con¬ 
 cession, induced to help make up a two-third vote, when, 
 had applications depended on the vote of a mere majority, 
 they would have exercised on every question, their per¬ 
 sonal convictions of duty. Nor, in truth, is the remedy at 
 all adapted to the disease. The evil to be remedied is the 
 creation of monopolies, while obstacles in the way of their 
 creation, augment the monopoly when granted, just in pro¬ 
 portion as the obstacles prevent the creation of rival insti¬ 
 tutions. The New York Life Insurance and Trust Com¬ 
 pany illustrates this principle. It was chartered in 1830, 
 unlimited in duration, with a capital of a million of dollars 5 
 and it is, moreover, a close corporation: the directors being 
 self-appointed and not elective. The magnitude and nov¬ 
 elty of these and its other powers conform well to the 
 novelty of the combination of great names that united in 
 procuring the grant. Subsequent Legislatures have con¬ 
 stantly refused to create any similar institution, deterred 
 therefrom by the peculiarity of its powers; or more likely 
 (so debased is the character of all special legislation, and 
 ours is among the most debased,) because no similar insti¬ 
 tution has been sought by names equally influential; conse¬ 
 quently the company long enjoyed an unmolested monopoly 
 of its peculiar functions, and its stock rose accordingly more 
 than 60 per cent, advance on the money invested; besides 
 paying semi-annually great dividends to its stockholders, 
 and rich salaries to its officers. And not long since, after 
 
13 
 
 suffering in fraud a loss about equal to a quarter of i(s 
 whole capital, the loss constituted only a diminution of its 
 Surplus profits. If then special privileges are aggravated 
 in their inveteracy by all restraints on their creation, short 
 of a total prohibition, what ought to be our remedy, de¬ 
 siring, as we do, equality of privileges among all our citi¬ 
 zens ? It consists not in making stockholders personally 
 liable for the debts of their respective corporations, for while 
 this may render such monopolies less desirable property 
 than at present, it still leaves us cursed with unequal legal 
 facilities in the pursuit of wealth. Only one remedy seems 
 practicable. The legislature should be prohibited from 
 ■ granting any special privileges. If the agency of corpo¬ 
 rate combination is desirable in the construction of rail¬ 
 roads, insurance companies, benevolent institutions, facto¬ 
 ries, or any other object, the act should be general: like the 
 existing laws incorporating churches, public libraries, free 
 banks, and some manufactories; so that whoever wishes 
 may obtain the same powers. Privileges that are improper 
 for all should be granted to none; and what are within the 
 reach of all will cease from being invidious. If a rail-road 
 route shall then be deemed capable of sustaining two 
 establishments, an opposition will be produced, and the 
 community will enjoy the^benefit of competition: as now 
 when rival mills are erected on the same stream, or rival 
 stage coaches on tlie same turnpike. Our legislature, 
 relieved from the corrupting power of gi'anting special 
 privileges, will be disburthened of more than half the busi¬ 
 ness which absorbs tis time at great public expense; 
 while rail-road travel, relieved from the palsy of exclusive¬ 
 ness, will transport us in all directions at half the present 
 charge, and perhaps at twice the speed. When steam¬ 
 boats on the Hudson were a legislative monopoly, the fare 
 was seven dollars, and the trip occupied thirty hours; while 
 
14 
 
 now the fare is only 50 cts., and the time of travel ten hours. 
 We wonder at the past generation for having supported 
 such a burthen, while still believing that they lived under a 
 government of equal laws; and doubtless our successors will 
 contemplate with surprise the special privileges that we 
 have tolerated. In truth, with our seventy years’ appren¬ 
 ticeship to liberty, the time has been too short to eradicate 
 the exclusive legislation of preceding ages. Only seven 
 years have elapsed since men could pursue the business of 
 auctioneering without a commission from the Executive, 
 in whose hands such licences were reserved to reward 
 favorites; and ihey often made a sinecure of their commis¬ 
 sions by selling the use of them. Till wiihin a year, no 
 man, however gifted, could lawfully practise medicine, 
 without a special authorization; and even now such a 
 practitioner is subjected, for certain offences, to penalties 
 which are not imposed on licensed physicians who should 
 be equally guilty. Scarcely two years have elapsed since 
 all our agricultural products, and nearly all our raw 
 productions, that were designed for exportation, were com¬ 
 pulsorily subjected to a swarm of petty monopolists, 
 weighers, inspectors and measurers, armed with a mass of 
 legislative fees and penalties, expressed in full forty-nine 
 pages of our present revised statutes. The imposition is 
 happily so far mitigated that the buyer and seller are not 
 compelled to subject their property to the inspectors, 
 weighers and measurers; though certain officers only can 
 even as yet, peform these mechanical duties when such 
 services are desired. Our towns and villages also have 
 their exclusive weighers, measurers, and inspectors. In 
 Albany, for instance, one man alone can measure stone for 
 hire, under a penalty of ten dollars for every infringment 
 of his monopoly. In a government like ours something is 
 due to the principle of liberty, for as we accustom ourselves 
 
15 
 
 to cherish its minute ramifications the habit will he strength¬ 
 ened of preserving its more important ministrations.— 
 Many persons suppose that the whole system is erroneous 
 which superadds to the instinct of self-interest legal regula¬ 
 tions like the foregoing. Men are probably as seldom 
 cheated now in the sale and purchase of produce as when 
 they were compelled to pay inspectors and weighers. IMen 
 are also auctioneers without commissions, and physicians 
 without diplomas, and no evil results from the liberty; 
 though the latter concession to equal righls was gained, 
 petty as it is, only after years of struggle, and the disregard 
 of hosts of imaginary spectres. Possibly, also, could every 
 man who pleases, (unlicensed except by his own will.) 
 practise law, peddle goods, and oven sell rum, or keep 
 tavern, no evil would result; despite the fears of the 
 interested, and the shrieks of coercively disposed philan¬ 
 thropists. 
 
 Improvements have also been suggested in our civil 
 organization. Each town is a little republic, whose powers 
 have been steadily enlarged till it elects its own justices, 
 and each county its own shcrilfand clerks. A disposition 
 seems general to extend still further both town and county 
 agencies, to the legislative and executive wants of their 
 respective localities; the belief seeming daily to increase 
 that the people are the safest ropositaries of power, having 
 no sinister objects to advance, no sons-in-law to make 
 registers, and no brothers to make consuls. -Should each 
 town and county legislate for itself in what concerns its 
 local interests, and the State coniine its legislation to only 
 what effects the interest of all, our government would 
 assimilate to that of the United States: our towns and 
 counties occupying somewhat the same relation to the 
 general legislature as the States occupy to Congress.— 
 Possibly, also, our Assembly may be improved by making 
 
16 
 
 its members no longer the representatives of counties, but 
 of election districts, into which each county may be 
 separated; so that every member will be known personally 
 to all his constituents, and being dependent on them for his 
 political consequence, represent them more truly than 
 when his elevation depends, as often at present, on the 
 intrigue of a party tactitian, who expects in return some 
 special subserviency to his personal ambition. 
 
 But finally, were we disposed to doubt tbe capacity of 
 the people to revise our Constitution, we possess no shield 
 to the danger, except the wisdom of the same people in a 
 negative of the proposed Convention ; and hence arises the 
 dilemma which seems conclusive in favor of the measure ; 
 for if the people negative a Convention from mere possibility 
 of an injurious result of its deliberations, the negative will 
 prove that they might have been safely trusted to pass 
 a verdict upon the results, after the Convention had 
 adopted them. And the negative will prove further, that 
 we, “ like the eye of childhood which fears a painted 
 devil,” had needlessly lost the social improvements which 
 jiossibly a Cpnvention might have originated ; composed as 
 it must be of delegates known to the people for sagacity, 
 and convened to deliberate expressly on existing evils and 
 prospective benefits. The converse also of the above 
 argument will not impair its cogency, for admit that a 
 sanction of the Convention by the people will not, like a 
 negative vote, prove that the State is safe from all injurious 
 amendments, how is this admission (o help usi The 
 legislature has placed us in the hands of the people, and we 
 cannot escape from the consequences; or rather, the 
 legislature has left us where God has placed us; for God, in 
 giving the majority of physical strength to the numerical 
 majority of men, has placed the smaller number at the 
 disposal of the greater; and when this standard of natural 
 
power, which we have made also the standard of political 
 power, shall prove iiself to be an unsafe conservative of 
 moral rights and intellectual propriety, it will prove like¬ 
 wise, that our theory of government is wrong, our Repub¬ 
 lican institutions but a pleasing dream; atid that, like the 
 races of men who have preceded us, we must choose 
 whether we will give up our equality of rights or our social 
 well-being. And perhaps no period for such an experi¬ 
 ment is more favorable than the present, for we had bettor 
 make it in this our day of national youth and consequent 
 virtue, when the equality of rights we possess (and which 
 we would fain make entire in a new Constitution) is not 
 vastly different from the equality of condition that we 
 enjoy by fortune, than wait till time shall have matured in 
 us the vices of a deuse population, and divided it into the 
 unwholesome extremes of great poverty and great wealth, 
 great learning and great ignorance. And that these dan¬ 
 gerous extremes may be delayed, or happly never come, let 
 U3, as far as Providence will permit, eradicate their sources, 
 by prohibiting all special privileges, which only make the 
 rich richer, and, by removing all special disabilities, that only 
 make the poor poorer, the debased baser; and forgetting 
 for a moment all personal considerations, seize the present 
 opportunity, and make our New York, which we fondly 
 call the Empire State, a model Republic. 
 
STATE DEBT AND TAX LIABILITY. 
 
 The proposition to restrain the legislature in the above 
 particulars, was originally called the People's Resolution, 
 to characterise its alleged importance to the due political 
 influence and pecuniary security of the people. The peo- 
 2 )le are yet to decide whether they will acquire this influ¬ 
 ence and security. To judge correctly of the proposition 
 we must discriminate between its apjdicability to a Govern¬ 
 ment of complete sovereignty, like the Federal Government, 
 and that of a single State, with only a qualified sovereignty. 
 The Federal Government must occasionally determine 
 suddenly between the expenditure of millions for defence, 
 or the loss of millions by foreign aggressions; and as no 
 pecuniary option exists, no preliminary decision of the 
 people can affect their pecuniary interests. But a State is 
 exempt from such emergencies. Its expenditures are mere 
 questions of pecuniary advantage, and without the urgency 
 that precludes an asceriainment of whether the peojile 
 desire to be benefitted at the contemplated cost. When a 
 City wishes to improve its streets, the persons at whose 
 expense, and for whose ostensible benefit the improvement 
 is be to made, are always preliminarily consulted, and their 
 decision is equitably the only justification for the expendi¬ 
 ture. So when the Croton River was to be introduced 
 into the City of New York, the legislature refused the 
 necessary power, unless the people would declare by their 
 personal votes that they were willing to incur the cost. 
 And still more recently, when Albany desired to borrow 
 money for the completion of a rail-road, the inhabitants 
 
19 
 
 were permitted to say whether they would purchase the 
 benefit at the hazard of the proposed debt. The principle 
 of the People’s Resolution is, therefore, not new, except in 
 its application to the State legislature, whose exemption 
 can hardly be justified (itself being judge, as in the above 
 examples) but only on the bad rule that might makes right. 
 And to show still further the propriety of subjecting the 
 legislature lo the same rule to which it has spontaneously 
 subjected subordinate representative bodies, we must 
 remember that the rekriction is to apply only to expendi¬ 
 tures for supposed lucrative results: as the creation and 
 completion of canals; and not to such as are essential to 
 the preservation of public order, the support of justice, the 
 suppression of insurrection, and the defeat of invasion. 
 These objects are necessarily implied in the creation of a 
 State government; consequently the legislature possesses 
 in relation to them a power as solemn as the people can 
 confer. Even in the construction and completion of canals, 
 no desire is manifested to subject their progress to the vote 
 of the people when the legislature possesses resources for 
 such objects, without taxation or debt; because all money 
 possessed by the Government, being a result of powers 
 delegated by the people, we may properly infer that the 
 disposal of the money at the discretion of the legislature, 
 was included in the delegated powers. 
 
 Nor is the people’s direct sanction to the creation of a 
 debt defensible on abstract principles of justice to them¬ 
 selves only. We know that taxes are odious, and that 
 legislators often shrink from the responsibility of imposing 
 them, even to fulfil existing obligations; and that when 
 imposed they cannot be collected against any general 
 repugnance of the tax-payers. Ought we not, therefore, in 
 justice to public creditors and our national honor, to make 
 our State promises as personal as possible on the citizens 
 
20 
 
 individually, that our representatives may be strengthened 
 in the performance of duty when taxes are indispensable, 
 and that the people may view them as a debt personally 
 contracted ? Besides, who has not seen how recklessly 
 debts are created when the person contracting is a mere 
 agent of the substantial debtor; hence how prudent is the 
 requirement that a debt, which is to bo a charge on the 
 whole State, should require a sanction not limited to our 
 representatives, who may possess political and personal 
 motives peculiarly their own, but should require the 
 aggregate sanction of all interests : of the poor to whom a 
 dollar may be important, as well as of the rich, to whom 
 every tax may be unimportant; of the neutral in politics, 
 as well as the partizan, to whom the favor of an inteiested 
 locality is better than money. 
 
 .But another, and perhaps better, expediency for the 
 measure, is the increased personal influence with which 
 it will invest every citizen ; and the intelligence of a people 
 expands uniformly with their privileges. On this principle 
 the trial by juiy is, in none of its aspects, so beneficial as in 
 its intellectual and moral effects on the people who are 
 liable to become jurors. In France, where the institution 
 is recent, the fitness for jury duties of any promiscuous 
 number of persons contrasts disadvantageously with the 
 fitness of ours in about the proportion of the relative dura¬ 
 tion of the institution in the two countries. In Russia, the 
 agriculturists are as much excluded from all governmental 
 agencies as our southern slaves; and the intelligence therein 
 of the two classes is ratably equal. But the influence of 
 privileges is most strikingly apparent in the common 
 eligibility to office of all our citizens. Our public offices 
 are filled from all classes of our people, and with no very 
 critical regard to the present fitness of the occupants. A 
 man without any legal education is made a justice, and 
 
21 
 
 with very little, a judge; and without any special political 
 training, finds himself suddenly a legislator. Governor, 
 ambassador, a head of department, (naval, perhaps, without 
 ever having been on ship-hoard,) or even a President; still 
 such persons soon grow to their stations, and fill them with 
 as much propriety as though they had expected them 
 always, and been educated in the expectation. The more, 
 therefore, we cast upon all our citizens the responsibility of 
 regulating our State, the more will the lowest citizen 
 become elevated, and the less will the accidentally exalted 
 become unwholesomely peculiar; and what is still better, 
 the more will intellect, and moral self-respect, become 
 general. Nor is the intellectual improvement of our 
 masses a mere abstract benevolence. We have given to 
 the majority of numbers the disposal of life, and all its 
 cherished incidents; hence each of us is interested in the 
 intelligence and virtue of all. Nor need we desire a better 
 guarantee for our personal rights than we possess: for 
 among us intelligence is so equally diffused that every 
 numerical majority of our citizens, however temporarily 
 marshalled under centending political heads, will be sure 
 to include the majority of knowledge. So true is this in 
 paclice, that nearly every man will admit, in all ourpolitical 
 contests, circumstances eventually demonstrate that the 
 decision of the majority is right. The demagogue influ¬ 
 ence of one party is neutralized by the demagogue 
 influence of its opposing party; while every important 
 question is eventually decided by the multitude of voters 
 whose partizan ties are too feeble to pervert their judgment 
 or subvert their patriotism. This equality of knowledge 
 among our citizens adds immeasurably to the permanency 
 of our institutions, which otherwise would have long since 
 fallen a victim to the rage of some disappointed minority, 
 willing, as they have been occasionally, to march in aims to 
 
Washington, and assume the government by force, had 
 not the opposing majority been an over-match in knowledge 
 as well as in numbers; and thus making every decision of 
 our ballot boxes the decision of an inexorable destiny. 
 
 If then, the numerical majority of our citizens is armed 
 with not merely a majority of muscular strength, (as they 
 must be by nature,) but also with a majority of knowledge 
 to give due efficiency to their physical preponderance, the 
 conclusion is irresistable that if they desire, in the matter of 
 debt and taxes, a personal control over our legislature, no 
 natural right exits in the minority to interpose a preven¬ 
 tion; and when our Constitution, by its two-third require¬ 
 ment, performs artificiallly for the minority what nature 
 and reason equally refuse to perform for them, the Con¬ 
 stitution errs in principle, and the error is alone good cause 
 for a Convention, that the eri’or may bo corrected. 
 
 The merits of the proposed debt restrainirag amend¬ 
 ment is a question wholly different from the right of the 
 people lo demand and obtain it. Their desire alone is a 
 sufficient warrant for it, irrespective of its merits. To say, 
 however, nodiing of its merits, an undue disfavor may 
 attach to the restraint from a supposition that its adoption 
 is equivalent to a perpetual abandonment of our suspended 
 public improvements. This consequence can only ensue 
 on the assumption that the public works require, in their 
 completion, loans which the peojile will not sanction. 
 Such an assumption may prove to be erroneous, not 
 only as respects the decision of the people, should loans be 
 necessary, but also as respects the necessity for loans; but, 
 if we concede all assumptions, who will say that the canals 
 ought to be completed on loans if a majority of the 
 people are opposed to such a procedure ? Indeed, those 
 who vdsh the completion of our public works (and the writer 
 is one of the number) ought to be glad that the fate of these 
 
23 
 
 improvements is to be contingently removeci from the rep¬ 
 resentatives of the people, who may misconceive the publie 
 will, to the people personally, who cannot misconceive ; and 
 on every such appeal the consciousness will he general that 
 the decision is right; for with us the doctrine thatthe King 
 can do no wrong is strictly applicable to the people. Their 
 decision cannot be wrong, for it virtually constitutes right. 
 
 But finally, whether the legislature shall continue to be 
 endued with power to i.idefinitely contract debts, is only 
 one phase of the more comprehensive question of whether 
 our amended constitution shall, like the present, confer on 
 the legislature unlimited legislation ; or whether, like the 
 constitution of the United States, it shall confer only certain 
 circumscribed topics of legislation ; resendiig to the people 
 themselves all powers not gi'anted. So completely, under 
 the present constitution, are the people divested of all means 
 of legal action, except through the medium of their Senate 
 and Assembly, that if last winter our legislature had, like 
 the legislature of Rhode Island, refused to authorise a con¬ 
 vention, our citizens, like those of Rhode Island, might have 
 reverted for redress to their natural rights; but they would 
 have possessed no constitutional means of ellecting their 
 wishes. Clearly then, in surrendering to their representa¬ 
 tives all power, the people have reserved to themselves too 
 little. But what powers soever the people may choose to 
 reclaim, the convention in its wisdom must decide; but 
 should they desire no more than to be consulted whether 
 they will forego public improvement or be taxed to procure 
 them, the reservation is only what each man expects when 
 his wife wants to benefit him by painting his house, or his 
 neighbors want to benefit his children by a tax to increase 
 the district library. The cases seem different, because in 
 our domestic expenditures we are accustomed to a liberty 
 of choice, and therefore prize it; while in our State expen- 
 
ditures we have never enjoyed a voice, and therefore feel 
 not its value; we may even reject it when offered: as a bird 
 enured to his cage will refuse to fly when the door is acci¬ 
 dentally (as in our case) opened for the recovery of his lost 
 freedom. 
 
AUISTOCRACY AND NATIVISM. 
 
 An impression has pervaded society in all ages that the 
 rich require some special guarantees against the encroach¬ 
 ments of the poor, who are assumed to possess an appetite 
 for property in proportion to their lack of it, and with an 
 instinct like that of ravening wolves, needing legal chains, 
 bars, and bolts to restrain them from seizing by vio¬ 
 lence what is denied them by fortune. The constitution 
 and laws of every people bear sad evidence of this belief, 
 and to it, rather than to any absence of humanity, w'e may 
 attribute the property qualifications which even our consti¬ 
 tution (so slow is the progiess of liberal principles) yet 
 requires in Senators and Governors ; but which at our next 
 election we shall be permitted to expunge forever. Provi¬ 
 dence has not, how'ever, performed its task so lamely in the 
 structure of man as to render oppqMsion a necessary bond 
 of society; on the contrary, the exercise of benevolence is 
 made not merely our duty : but our interest, for the poor are 
 endued with a humility (springing spontaneously from their 
 necessities) that requires to be counteracted by incitements 
 rather than increased by legal depression, would we call 
 into full activity, for the general benefit, all the powers they 
 possess. Such is the invariable course of Providence.— 
 Where the wind cannot be attempered to the shorn lamb, 
 (as it cannot be in the case of the poor,) the lamb is altera- 
 pered to the wind: or, as the proverb expresses the same 
 idea, every back is shaped to bear its own burden. So well 
 known is the humility of the poor, that to treat them with 
 ordinary courtesy is stigmatized as courting them ; and so 
 
often is such conduct practised for sinister purposes, that we 
 can hardly avoid viewing it suspiciously, as the ladder by 
 which ambition is seeking to mount into power. 
 
 Notwithstanding this rooted impression that property 
 needs special protection, history furnishes no instance of 
 an organized attempt by the poor to oppress the rich ; and 
 when we require an example thereof we usually resort to 
 fiction, and adduce the Jack Cade of Shakespeare. Tiie 
 anti-rentism, which unfortunately is afflicting a portion of 
 our State, may be thought an examjrle of the spirit in ques¬ 
 tion, but so habitual with us is respect for law, even when 
 it chances to be oppressive, that we may well suspect some 
 great provocation as the origin of anti-rent combinations. 
 The highest authority proclaims that the tree shall be 
 known by its fruit; bad indeed, therefore, must be a tenure 
 that in our country yields such fruit. The legal merits of 
 the controversy few of us have examined, but we have all 
 heard that the exactions are strange and revolting, and that 
 the land proprietor offers to compromise with his tenants 
 by receiving from them a sum whose annual income will 
 equal the reserved annual rents. No principle would seem 
 to be fairer; but the aspect is diHerent, when we learn sub¬ 
 sequently, that the sum which he demafids is founded on 
 the assumption that money is worth only five per cent, 
 interest, while his tenants know it is worth seven. Now 
 are we not met with this dilemma ? if the principle of 
 the proposed compromise is just (and the landlord who 
 proposed it must suppose it to be just, and no body can be 
 a more partial judge) why clog it with a mode of execution 
 which is manifestly unjust ? But while we have no concern 
 with these questions, and may be misinformed as to the 
 facts, are we sure in our indignation against the open 
 ungentlemanly mode of cheating practised by these tenants, 
 that their hard-fisted resistance of exactions, how'ever exor- 
 
27 
 
 liitant, (anti against which, for themselves and their posterity 
 for ever, they are led to expect neither judicial nor legis¬ 
 lative redress,) involves so total a moral depravity as to 
 prove that the poor can not be trusted with an equality of 
 privileges'? The character of actions must be .sought in 
 the motive ; and thus estimated, are not men -who are with¬ 
 out legal redress against oppression some little excusable, 
 when like Roderick Dim, 
 
 “ They I'iglit s\icli wrong wlicro it is given, 
 
 If it were in the court of Heaven 
 If we examine other cases of alleged encroachments by 
 the poor upon the rich, we shall find usually, that they arc 
 only attempts made peaceably to reduce legal inequalities. 
 Such have been all the political contests with us to make 
 the right ofsnflrage ttniversal. It has been wrung piece, 
 meal from those who deemed a special protection necessary 
 to the security of property, and each concession towards 
 equality has been deemed an encroachment by the poor on 
 tlie rights of the rich. Indeed, all our patizan contc.st3, by 
 whatever names distinguished, (and the like may be said 
 of all countries,) arc based substantially on tlie antagonist 
 principles of the claim of property to special privileges and 
 the claim of man to legal equality. The time is, however, 
 arrived with us when we may reasonably hope to see 
 inscribed in full on our Colistitution that property shall 
 possess no special privileges, and the want of it shall con. 
 stltute no disqualification for any public office of honor or 
 emolument, of trust or confidence. Then will be abolished 
 the more than absurd (for it is useless and therefore wicked) 
 stigma on the poor, which is found in our jury system. To 
 be either a grand oV petit juror the law requires that a man 
 must possess “ a fair character, sound judgment, be well 
 informed, and of approved integrity.” If these qualities 
 should be foiinil associated with poverty one might reason- 
 
ably hope that even policy would teach us to reward the 
 conjunction, to look approvingly on a tree that yields good 
 fruit, despite its bleak exposure; but not thus argue our 
 laws : for though jurymen are not drawn casually from the 
 mass of our citizens, but are selected for their intellectual 
 and moral fitness out of the inhabitants of every town by 
 its Clerk, Supervisor, and Assessors, or out of the body of 
 the whole county by the Supervisors thereof; all persons 
 guilty of not possessing a given amouni of property are 
 excluded from the honor (such it is, though burthen- 
 some) of performing jury functions ; and what is worse, the 
 poor, who as a class, need instruction more tlian any other, 
 are thus excluded from obtaing by the easy access of the ear, 
 the legal knowledge whose obtainment is inseperable from 
 the performance of jury duties, and one of the chief advan¬ 
 tages of the institution. Our conduct towai'ds the poor, in 
 witholding from them honorary trusis, contrast disadvanta- 
 geously with our conduct towards them in imposing 
 burdens. Our bill of rights guard the rich man’s pos¬ 
 sessions by an interdict against taking his property for 
 public uses without due compensation; but the poor man’s 
 labor, which constitutes his only wealth, receives no such 
 guarantee; and consequently, knowing that we may at 
 some indefinite time need his service to protect our wealth, 
 we exact from him, without compensation, that he shall not 
 merely keep himself armed and equiped, but that he shall 
 set aside whole days in every year to make himself expert 
 in-military duties. If we endeavor to soften this injustice 
 by claiming that militia service is a general tax levied alike 
 on rich and poor, we only shift the injustice without I’e- 
 moving it; for on what equitable prindple should the tax 
 of a poor man be eqaul, as in this case, to the tax of the 
 richest. And especially is the grievance enhanced when 
 necessity requires a promiscuous draft from the millitia 
 
29 
 
 ranks to quell domestic violence. True, in such a contin¬ 
 gency, we may after much legislative entreaty, dole out, as 
 recently, a pecuniary pittance for their service; but have 
 the perfomers not reason to complain that reraunertion for 
 their property (the energy of their bones and muscle) is 
 less specially secured to them, than the cattle and grounds 
 of a rich man are secured to him. 
 
 Kindred to the vulgar error that the poor are hostile to 
 the rich, is the opinion ihat adopted citizens are hostile to 
 natives, and hence not to he entrusted in important political 
 offices; this too in opposition to the experienced faithfulness 
 of such citizens in all our v'ars and dangers, in opposition 
 also to the clearest impulses of human nature, which forbid 
 that a man who expatriates himself with all his substance 
 should sacrifice the country he has voluntarily chosen for 
 the country he has voluntarily forsaken. Still our consti¬ 
 tution adopts the error, and to give it efficacy, curtails the 
 freedom of native citizens by prohibiting them from elect¬ 
 ing to the office of Governor an adopted citizen. The 
 effect of the prohibition practically on the liberty of the 
 people is small, for with all the prejudices on the subject 
 that exist but too spontaneously, the power to elect an 
 adopted citizen woulij rarely, if ever, be exercised ; and 
 this only makes our prohibition less excusable. Like the 
 red cap which the Greeks were, till lately, compelled to 
 wear,, when they sojourned ip Turkey, the only effect of 
 the exclusion is to gratuitously degrade, and therefore to 
 debase, those whom by every principle of policy we ought 
 to elevate i for if foreigners are worth receiving as citizens 
 the better citizens we can make them the greater is our 
 gain. Who that loves his species, and sees the meliorating 
 influence of our institutions on the rude and rough peoplp 
 (grotesque often in their dress and language,) vyhq 
 arrive upon our shores, and scatter themaelvet over o«r 
 
30 
 
 country with their wives and little ones, would remove 
 from their new-born hopes one vision of future bliss 1 — 
 Who would pronounce on these weary pilgrims, and. on 
 the little ones still' clinging to the mother’s breast, the 
 perpetual doom of constitutional exclusion from any honor 
 they may hereafter fit themselves to receive at the hands of 
 an intelligent people willing to confer it, were they not 
 forbidden 1 This error in our political system the proposed 
 convention may remove; and no time for such a measure 
 is so fitting as the present, when we have just escaped from 
 the sudden effervescence of a malignant spirit of nativism, 
 that has sought still further to exasperate the prejudices of 
 nationality, and to make adopted citizens a degraded caste, 
 even to the witholding from them the right of tvorshiping the 
 Creator i.n the mode dictated by their consciences. Could 
 such counsels unhappily prevail, our country, instead of' 
 extending from tire Atlantic to the Pacific, and being then 
 too small, for the ambitious crowds that are teeming into 
 life among us fester than any census can keep pace with 
 them, would shrink into some nan-ow strip, which like am 
 old man’s garment, would soon become “ a world too wide.” 
 
 When, the-constitution of 1821 was in tho progress of its. 
 formation, the writer of this article remonstrated to our 
 immediate representative in the convention, the Hon. 
 Nathan Williams, against the prohibition on naturalized 
 citizens. The prohibition was not in the old constitution, 
 and its insertion in the new seemed a retrogressibn in 
 liberal principles, and it was also ez post facto iti its opera¬ 
 tion on the then existing adopted citizens. Judge Will¬ 
 iams gave the remonstrance his strenuous but ineffectual, 
 support, and as the demerit of the measure should rest 
 where it belongs, he attributed his failure to Rufus King, 
 then a delegate to the convention from, the county of 
 Queens. 
 
31 
 
 The time was not ripe for such liberality. It is now in 
 perfection, and what use shall we make of it ? Let all 
 ■ interests that are any way oppresserl. and all that may be 
 benefitld by reform, seetliat a convention be called, una 
 called let every interest see that it be represented therein by 
 delegates who will zealously urge the improvement desired : 
 for be assured that all tvho wish more for themselves than 
 common privileges, and less for you than equal rights, will 
 be fully represented in the convention, and tvill spare no 
 efforts to shape its proceedings to their own purposes.— 
 We have tried long enough to benefit the public by gi'auling 
 special privileges to a select few ; let us try whether the 
 benefits will not be greater by making the privilogi s 
 common to all. We have tried long enough to benefit 
 foreigners by charitable societies to attend them when sick 
 and bury them when dead : let us eradicate the prejudices 
 that make them perpetually inferior to natives, and per¬ 
 haps they will pay their own doctors, and find a funeral 
 without charily. Wo have tried long enough to benefit our 
 poor hy giving thorn soup in v/iiiter, and peiiitcniaries at 
 all seasons: let us give them the legal privileges of the 
 rich, and haply they will cook their own soup, and enjoy 
 better incentives to worthy conduct than the fear of peiii-. 
 ten,tiaries. 
 
MUNICIPAL CORFUllATIONS. 
 
 Odr Constitution permits the infliction of special bur¬ 
 dens, as well as the grant of special privileges. What would 
 fanners think, should every man he compelled to macada¬ 
 mise the road in front of his farm ; or even to repair it in 
 an ordinary way, except hy a ratable contribution with ail 
 the other inhabitants of his road district? Still in cities, 
 persons whoso lands lie along any street, ore compellable 
 by the city authorities, to pave and flag it, for the use of the 
 public. And these exactions are often less disastrous to 
 land owners than kindred requirements to fill up low streets, 
 dig down high ones, open new streets, and drain wet ones : 
 hence, in perhaps every city, hundreds of acres (especia/ly 
 of suburbs) remain with the owners at the sufl'erance "f the 
 local corporation, who can compel expenditures on the land 
 that will induce its abandonment; while in some cities the 
 option of abandoniijeut will not avert liabilities which, in 
 known cases, have deprived the owner of not the assessed 
 property merely, but of all his possessions. Such extremes 
 are of course not frequent, but so inherently vicious is the 
 authority in question, that a member of almost any munici¬ 
 pal corporation will display great resistance of temptation if 
 he can pass through his civic year without sanctioning some 
 wrong that would merit a penitentiary punishment if prac¬ 
 tised without the sanction of law. Even in Utica, of which 
 the writer would speak kindly, it having generally borne iti 
 terrible municipal faculties as inoflPensively as powers to 
 perverse can be borne, yet in Utiqa the writer has pui- 
 shaaed property in fee for a much less sum than the seller 
 
paid on it many years previously, in assessments for grading 
 and extending Columbia street. But, as respects Utica, the 
 writer, to avoid every suspicion of personality, excludes her 
 from all the preceding and following remarks, except to the 
 extent only in which they refer to her by name. 
 
 If paving, flagging, &c., concern those alone who own 
 adjacent land, with them alone should rest the option of 
 paving or continuing unpaved; but if the paving concerns 
 the whole city (and on no other principle can a city govern¬ 
 ment claim authority over the question) on the property of 
 the'city at large should rest ratably the expense of the 
 improvement. Any difiercnt proceeding exhibits the ano¬ 
 maly of power in one set of men to decree improvements 
 which another set are to pay for; since experience shows 
 that costly improvements are seldom ordered when the real 
 estate that is to be burdened with the expense is owned by 
 the members of the corporation who decree the improve¬ 
 ment. They are more usually in the position of the law¬ 
 givers of whom ISOO years ago was said reproachfully : 
 “Ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye 
 yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.” 
 To thus ward off onerous improvements from one’s own real 
 estate constitutes one of the benefits which makes a seat 
 desirable in a city’s councils; while another benefit consists 
 in the ability to cause improvements to be made at the 
 expense of others that will benefit some proximate properly 
 of one’s own. So naturally corrupting are powers which 
 permit such results that a person well acquainted with local 
 interests, can usually foresee after every municipal elec¬ 
 tion, where costly improvements will be ordered during the 
 incoming civic year, and especially where costly improve¬ 
 ments will be forborne, except such as are to bo made at 
 the common expense; and of so demoralizing public senti¬ 
 ment is such legalized privateering on private property 
 
34 
 
 that when an officer is expert in the practice of it he is only 
 deemed, by many, a shrewd man of enviable tact and 
 thriftiness. 
 
 Nor are the foregoing the only temptations to evil. The 
 system permits discriminations, which arc sometimes used 
 to revenge personal wrongs, sometimes to punish general 
 unpopularity, and sometimes to deplete specially over rich 
 or absentee land-lioklcrs; hence, nothing is more common 
 than the most abject petitions, private and jniblic, direct 
 and indirect, (through influential friends,) to avert meditated 
 improvements which in coiitemplotion of law arc to beilefit 
 the tcraonstrants, who by virtue of such contemplation are 
 to pay tlic expense. And still worse ; nearly every corpor¬ 
 ation is surrounded by a multitude of retainers, who live by 
 performing the labor and furnishing materials for coerced 
 improvements. Like camp followci-s they are ready to 
 rife the slain and wounded whether the fallen ho friends 
 or foes ; and, being usually the hcligcrcnts most] died on 
 for success at olcclioiis, every existing olllcor who is ambi¬ 
 tious of a rc-cloclion projiitiatcs them by his ^cal in supply¬ 
 ing them with spoils; and hoiico his chance of coiitinuanco 
 in office is in an inverse proportion to the regard he exhibits 
 fur economy and resistance of expenditures. And nearly 
 every city is afillcled with not merely one such army in 
 possession, but with another in icvcrsion, dependent on the 
 success of a rival sot of city officers at the incoming civic 
 year; and as amicipators are over more mmierous than 
 participators, the army of hope are generally able to change 
 annually the city government, which comes into new hands 
 tremulous with gratitude to partizans who press around for 
 remuneration with an appetite sharpened by a year’s abstin¬ 
 ence, and made impatient by the consciousness that the time 
 to make hay is while the sun shines. Even Utica has not 
 always been exempt from the foregoing vices, that seem 
 
35 
 
 not tlio fault of individuals, but rather of the bad organiza¬ 
 tion of which she participates; for one of her ox-aldernien 
 has said that when ho once boggled about tho expediency 
 of some projected costly improvement he was told explicitly 
 by the “ wdiecl within a wheel” of his day, that if such was 
 his course his career would bo short. We have not, how¬ 
 ever, ajiproached the point arrived at in some older city, 
 when an alderman sometimes becomes so suddenly rich that 
 it reveals a foregone secret inirpiity as unmistakably as the 
 sudden expansion of a spinster's waist. 
 
 But our concern is not with evils, which, like collusion with 
 contractors, depend for their cure on a i-cforraation of pub¬ 
 lic morals, but on such as the State Convention may remedy. 
 Every ciiy improvement of a street must necessarily beuedt 
 some person .specially, in addition to the general benefit.— 
 The like can bo said whenever a country road district im¬ 
 proves a highway, or our State constructs a canal, or the 
 general government a harbor ; but no where except in our 
 cities, is tho incidental benficiary compelled to pay the 
 whole expense of tho improvement, so that the public which 
 orders tho improvoraent, may obtain it free from charge.— 
 In thus reversing the principle which, in our gencial and 
 State governments, looks to liio public benefit onlj-, and dis¬ 
 regards incidental private advantage, we, in effect, take pri¬ 
 vate property for public use without adequate compensation 
 satisfactory to the owner, and concentrate ruinously on a 
 few persons an expense which if borne ratably by all tlie 
 property of the city would seriously alllict none, hlen who 
 congregate in cities may be supposed willing to bear all 
 burdens that on known principles are incident to a dense 
 and luxurious population ; but wo need not suppose them 
 willing to see principles reversed and to suffer as morally 
 right in cities what would be morally wrong in other places. 
 Nothing exists analagous to the foregoing city code, excejit 
 
the former postage system that now is generally execrated, 
 and mainly for the feature in which the analogy resides, 
 namely : for making the incidental private benefit toindivid- 
 uals in employing the post office a means of extorting from 
 them all the expense of the mail system, thereby enabling 
 the public to use it free of expense for all the lavish pur¬ 
 poses of all the departments of goveriiment, just as the 
 incidental private benefit to a man in living on a paved 
 street is made the pretext for extorting from him all the 
 expense of the pavement, which is thereafter to be used 
 free of expense by tbe community, with all the vehicles they 
 may choose. 
 
 City assessments, which produce these results, are founded 
 on a clause that exists in city charters directing tlie expense 
 of civic improvements to be assessed on the real estate 
 benefltted thereby, and on every piece of real estate in 
 proportion to its respective benefit. The provision contains 
 a pernicious falacy in assuming that the benefit is only local, 
 that it is confined to real estate, and that the local benefit is 
 always pecuniarily equal to the cost of the improvement; 
 while, practically, the filling up in front of a lot may cost a 
 thousand dollars, and the lot subsequently be not saleable 
 . for half the money. Such inequalities, varying in degree, 
 attend every improvement, and always to the impoverish¬ 
 ment of the land holder, because no improvement is worth 
 to any given lot more than its utility to the person who 
 resides on tbe lot; but the improvement is not graduated 
 to subserve his use alone, but it is made sufficiently exten¬ 
 sive in dimensions for the public at large, and sufficiently 
 elegant to gratify the public taste. 
 
 But were civic improvements to become a general charge 
 on the city, we may be told that a constant struggle would 
 ensue for their location, as we see in Congress when rivers 
 are to be improved, and in our legislature when a peniten- 
 
37 
 
 tinry is to be constructed. Such struggles are, however, 
 only for location, not for the construction of useless works. 
 So in cities, the struggles would not be for useless improve¬ 
 ments while the eyes of an interested community were 
 gazing on the fraudful advocates. And, as an additional 
 guard, every city should be limited in its annual expendi¬ 
 tures to a given sum, to be annually ascertained by the vote 
 of the people, as is now practised in country towns ; or if 
 the sum is to be determined by the legislature, it .should be 
 so small a per centage on the taxable property within the 
 city as to leave no range for extravagance. Utica is limit¬ 
 ed now to an annual general tax of eight thousand dollars; 
 but the power to burden by special tax is unlimited. This 
 feature alone of our charier shows glaringly the inherent 
 protective tendency of a common liability, and the inherent 
 licentious tendency of withdrawing such piot-eclion from 
 any portion of community; hence the cogency of the crafty 
 maxim, “ divide and conquer,” for every whole can com¬ 
 mand justice by controlling at elections, and by remodel¬ 
 ling, if necessary, the charter; but the specially oppressed 
 can appeal only to sympathy and abstract justice, while the 
 principle that afflicts them (special taxation for public im¬ 
 provements) bribes all the re.st of the community to stille 
 sympathy and disregard justice. Uven a knowledge by 
 every man, that be may in turn sufl'cr the like oppression, 
 moves but feebly where the impending evil is contingent 
 and may be remote; hence usually municipal legislators 
 are left to an undisturbed control over the land holders 
 whom they may choose to victimize, while others look on 
 with the philosophic calmness that is proverbial to men in 
 the contemplation of olbers’ woes. The evil is fast de¬ 
 tracting from the value of city property every where, while 
 in places that are not vigorous in prosperity, real estate, in 
 many locations, is worse than valueless; still so few men 
 
are mucti effected by abstract considerations that special 
 grievances are the last to find redress. The great source 
 of hope consists in the possibility that the evil may fall 
 within the correction of some wholesome general principles 
 that the coming State Convention may think proper to 
 adopt; as, for instance, 
 
 First: that no land shall be compulsorily taken for any 
 street, rail-road, canal, public highway, or other purpose, 
 without full compensation to the owner for his land and 
 damage, irrespective of any benefit that may accrue to him 
 or his remaining property by reason of the use to which 
 the land is to be appropriated; and 
 
 Secondly: that no person or property shall be compul¬ 
 sorily assessed or taxed for any object, except ratably in 
 common with all the persons or property within the com-* 
 munity who shall order the tax or assessment. 
 
EXECUTIVE PATRONAGE. 
 
 In monarchies all official powers are deemed emanations 
 from the monarch, and therefore to be dispensed by his 
 agency; hence-when our States and Nation began to form 
 constitutions, tlie absence of the kingly power required the 
 origination of some new principle by which offices should 
 be filled. The people occupied the throne of the monarch, 
 but for them to exercise his appointing preprogatives was 
 too sudden a transition towards democracy to find favor 
 with the framers of our early governments. In the con¬ 
 vention which formed the United States’ constitution the 
 people were freely characterized as too ignorant and easily 
 deluded to vote in the selection of their immediate repre¬ 
 sentative, the President, till by a process like the rectifica¬ 
 tion of impure whiskey, their wishes were strained through 
 a body of special electors. The inventors of this system 
 little imagined that these wise special electors would 
 almost immediately degenerate into mere automatons, to 
 parrot only what the people should predetermine, and thus 
 at their solemn meetings to enact a solemn farce, well 
 watched also to prevent the enacting of anything but a 
 farce. The distrust thus avowed of the popular will has 
 been gradually subsiding till the people, like a minor king, 
 are approaching the period when all regencies must end, 
 and the appointing power be assumed by them as the right¬ 
 ful sovereign. Already in Mississippi every office is 
 elective, from the highest judicial to the lowest executive ; 
 the whole people electing officers whose functions embrace 
 the State, while local officers are elected by the respective 
 localities. 
 
40 
 
 Our early Btatesmen, by looting too intently on tbe 
 intellectual defects of the people as an appointing power, 
 looked not intently enougli on tbe moral defects of individ¬ 
 uals for such a duty. Experience has made us wiser. In 
 the dead level, of our actual equality, pride almost starves 
 for something to feed on; hence all offices that can confer 
 honor are ravenously sought, and when the offices confer 
 emolument also, two of the fiercest of passions, avarice and 
 ambition, become united, and their conjoint assaults make 
 sad havoc with the abstract good intentions of the unprac¬ 
 tised men whom our institutions suddenly invest with 
 executive patronage, to say nothing of the personal tempta¬ 
 tions which beset a man when he can, by a legal exorcise 
 of his powers, exalt in wealth and station his kinsmen and 
 adherents. The ablest chancellor our country has pro¬ 
 duced, and whose artlesness and puriiy were as eminent as 
 ■liis professional researches were profound, was still unable 
 to refrain from bestowing on his brother the lucrative office 
 of Register. He w’as only following the bad precedent of 
 bis predecessor, and foreshadowing in nearly all his suc¬ 
 cessors a like practice, till such offices in all our courts are 
 become a sort of sailors’ snug harbor for valetudinary 
 judges and llieir dependents. We may admit that our 
 judges of law and equity have conferred on the country a.s 
 much honf>r as the country has conferred on them; and 
 given in righteous judgments more than an equivalent for 
 their salaries. We may admit also that a kinsman may 
 discharge as well as a stranger the duties of his office ; let 
 therefore the recording Angel IJot out such records from 
 Heaven’s chancery, but to us the recollection, may be per¬ 
 mitted. as establishing by the conduct of the blind Goddess 
 herself, the inherent unfitness of any man for the distribu¬ 
 tion of honors and emoluments. 
 
 Our first constitution sought a guarantee from the Gov. 
 
41 
 
 ernor by subjecting bis appointments to ibe approval of 
 four Senators. This soon became unsatisfactory, and a 
 constitutional amendment gave the four Senators an ap¬ 
 pointing power conjointly with the Governor. Admon¬ 
 ished, however, by numerous appointments founded on no 
 discoverable propriety, our present constitution restored 
 the appointing power to the Governor alone, hut subjected 
 it to the ratification of the Senate; and, to fnriher purify 
 the source of honor, withdrew many appointments from the 
 Executive and scattered them to the legislature and among 
 the people. Tlie change is princiirally important as evin¬ 
 cing the growing discontent with Excutive appointments, 
 and a growing public opinion in favor of the people, who 
 thereby acquired the election ofshoriH's, county derhs, and 
 militia officers. The people were not yet deemed compe¬ 
 tent to elect judicial functionaries; but a constitutional 
 amendment soon overleaped tliis barrier and made justices 
 elective, and mayors of cities. Nor has the advance 
 stopped, but running aliead of tlie constituiion public opin¬ 
 ion forces every Governor to appoint county judges and 
 other local officers not according to his own pleasure, or as 
 formerly at the secret bidding of partizan chiefs, but at the 
 recommendation of popular a.ssomblages. Still this is 
 defective. The people never act anywhere so well as at 
 tire ballot boxes. Every other gathering can be only a 
 meeting of delegates, and every delegate adulterates the 
 general interest by some coinraiiigling of his private inter¬ 
 est. But these reasons in favor of conferring on the 
 peojde all appointments, are (he sturdiest obsiacles against 
 the measure. All who live by office are inleresied in 
 keeping the trade as secure as possible ; and nothing would 
 be so destructive of this end is an appointing body like the 
 people: too diversified for intrigue, too numerous to be 
 swayed by personal motives, and too unwieldly to be raap'r 
 
aged. Who can avoid detecting an absence of these vvhole- 
 Bome checks in the sjiectacle every where apparent of 
 Bome men who are always in office, and with whom rotation 
 is only the exchange of a high office for a higher 1 like a 
 snake which parts from its old skin only to assnrae a now 
 one and a better. Several such are grown old under the 
 drippings of the treasury, and are become dogmatical; 
 they have rota'.ed till they are giddy and the ])e.ople aro 
 weary of them; hut the evil continues unabated from per¬ 
 sonal delicacy towards the incumbents, and which suscepti¬ 
 bility by the present appointing power constitiites one of its 
 worst characteristics. The people are too indefinite for 
 delicacy, and therefore are admirably fitted for the stern 
 distribution of patronage. The appointing powers, as at 
 present organized in a Governor and legislature, possess 
 also a natural prepossession towards men of their own 
 order. Last winter two aspirants for a high office were 
 presented to a legislative caucus, both were young, one had 
 nothing to recommend him but his merits; the other with 
 perhaps equal merits, had been conceived in a high office, 
 brought forth in a higher, and reared in the highest, and ho 
 accordingly triumphed over his humble competitor. This 
 sympathy, which every grade of society feels for the mem¬ 
 bers of its own order, constitutes in aristocratic governments 
 one of their most depressing features. Why should wo 
 not give to the humble the benefit of the same principle, 
 by placing the appointing power in the people ? The lowly, 
 in their struggles upward, would then be aided by the 
 sympathy of the appointing masses, and at worst not he 
 oppressed by a sympathy against them. And what can bo 
 more benevolent and deserving of our favor than a princi¬ 
 ple which thus levels upwards in all contests between per¬ 
 sons equally qualified ; raising the low, rather than as now, 
 waking the high higher f 
 
43 
 
 AnJ in tlie present appointing power, wlio can avoid 
 seeing also that it is manageable to the precision of a 
 barter, when occasionally a high officer is suddenly elevated 
 higher, leaving his old place most opportunely for tlie 
 necessities of some person whose agency, or his friends’, 
 was necessary in the transfer. Cases of this kind are so 
 managed as to involve no gross immorality, but they evince 
 the hopelessness of aspirations after office when a man pos¬ 
 sesses no support fur his pretensious hut a fitness for the 
 station. 
 
 Nor have we yet enumerated all the vices of our present 
 system, or all the interests that will .struggle against its 
 subversion. It is a poweiful instrument of partizan leaders 
 vrho arc ambitious of elective offices, and lo whom the two 
 tiiousand appoiiuracnls and more, which are in the gift of 
 tl.e Executive, constitute a sort of partizan prize money 
 with which to stimulate the hopes and reward the zeal of 
 personal adherents. No charity can avoid believing that a 
 large portion of offices were created originally for no other 
 purpose, and arc preserved for no oilier end. Admirably 
 also are they adapted in number to tlic exigency of the 
 demand, and in quality to the capacity of the recipients : 
 ranging from tlie solitary inspector of beef for ibe Jews, 
 onwards tbrougb hosts of inspectors, measurers, and wcigli- 
 ersof every thing, every whole; and iqnvards to notaiies, 
 examiners, registers, commissioners of many things, agents, 
 appraisers, special justices, marshals, and judges, to the 
 chancellor in single and solitary grandeur, who, wlma 
 once seated for life at ambition’s top-most round, wonders 
 probably at the fortitude which can endure the toil of 
 climbling ambition’s dirty ladder. Each by our present 
 had organization, instead of looking to the people for 
 support, is, with some few exceptions, a spoke in the 
 political wheel of some partizan chief, who is himself 
 
44 
 
 turned by some greater w heel, the whole being kept in its 
 political orbit not by patriotism but by the centiipelal force 
 of an office in possession, or the centrifugal impulse r,f an 
 office in expectation. 
 
 Finally: popular appointments will infuse a new interest 
 into elections. The people act now so subordinate 
 a part in their own affairs that they require to be annually 
 drummed into activity by monster meetings and travelling 
 spoil hunters. By acting directly on appointments, and 
 thus deciding the destiny of their town and county acquain¬ 
 tances, as well as of public men every where, the increased 
 dignity of the elective franchise will add to its interest; 
 and our country will be benefuted by the expressed opin¬ 
 ion at the polls of the whole people on all questions of 
 govermnent, instead of the voice, as usual, of only a casu¬ 
 ally attending portion; besides, while public officers are 
 dependent for proraolion on each other, they must serve 
 two masters ; and inspiration warns us, that men llius situ¬ 
 ated will cling to one and despise the other. Let the 
 people, theicforc, constitute themselves the sole master, 
 lest occasionally they find themselves (as they have found 
 inure than once) that they are the master who is despised. 
 
SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 All governors when single, as in monarchies, or numer¬ 
 ous, as in aristocracies, may originate measures for their own 
 benefit, anti in derogation of their countrymen ; hence the 
 evil of such governments. The peojde collectively can 
 never he henefitted by misgovernment; hence the excellency 
 of making the whole people the governing power. When 
 all men are to oat of the same dish they possess the guar¬ 
 antee of each that the food shall be wholesome for all.-^ 
 But a democracy so pure as the above has never been real¬ 
 ised ; while oiir own deficiency therein, after seventy years 
 of effort, invites us to scrutinize the causes of our failure. 
 Foremost among them is the gain which individuals make 
 by encroaching on the sovereignty of the people, and so 
 substantial have been the encroachments on us that we 
 possess but a very uncertain voice in the selection of our 
 own most immediate legislative representatives. They are 
 practically selected for us (no matter to what jtarty we 
 belong) by a few managing men in every town, who com¬ 
 pose the rank and file of an organized class throughout the 
 State, that make politics a lucrative occupation. To enable 
 themselves thus to control the people in llie most vital act 
 of popular sovereignty, politicians have artfully inculcated 
 that to vote adversely lo nominations so concocted, or to ho 
 a conflicting candidate by self nomination or by friends, as 
 is wholesomely practised universally at the south,is the most 
 heinous of political offences; hence the people possess rarely 
 any alternative but to choose between candidates who, what¬ 
 ever may constitute tlteir ptherdifferences, are alike in being 
 
46 
 
 less the representatives of the public than of some intrigue 
 concerted in secret long previously to the public nomination 
 of the candidates ; and which nomination is often as much a 
 mockery of the people as the poll instituted in France by 
 Napoleon to decide whether he should become Emperor. 
 Our government is thus converted into a sovereignty of 
 political tacticians, rather than a sovereignty of the 
 people; and accordingly it admits several of the vices 
 that obtain where a few control the many. Offices are 
 invented with elaborate ingenuity, and perpetuated to create 
 partisans sufficiently numerous to prevade society, and suf¬ 
 ficiently interested to obey leaders. Even the general 
 government (unconsciously we may hope) is made to furni 
 ish a quota of the required remuneration. At least one 
 United States’ office has for years been located in Utica, 
 with an annual salary not small, and for ostensible duties 
 so palpably illusory that the incumbent is probably cautious 
 to keep his office a secret. Like in.stances are more numer¬ 
 ous in our larger cities. We are an ingenious active peo¬ 
 ple, fiercely fond of money, and these characteristics we 
 have introduced rankly into our politics. Thrift, ivhich in 
 some countries follows fawning, is more readily gained hero 
 by active partisanship; and so essential is one to the other 
 that though thrift may exist in other connexions, active par¬ 
 tisanship seldom long survives the absence of thrift. The 
 funds of the State and of the Nation, the current canal tolls, 
 loan office receipts, deposits of courts, every thing belongr 
 ing to the public, or connected with government from which 
 emolument can be extracted, into what bank or channel 
 soever you see it flow, you may almost swear at a venture 
 the private gain of some active partisan is the propelling 
 agent: just as when you see on a fence the slime of a snail 
 you may be sure that a snail is to be found at the end of the 
 frujl. Nor are politiciaps of every creed more scrupulous 
 
of the means of obtaining power than of thus wielding it for 
 profit. Could the anti-renters by any necromancy multiply 
 their numbers at will, we should see that as the multiplica- 
 tor increased the sin of anti-rentism would dimish, till the 
 holy horror against it which is simultaneously bursting forth 
 just now at ev ery political meeting, would be converted into 
 as fierce a rage against land-lords as was some years since 
 manufactured against free masons. 
 
 That the above vices can be eradicated we ought not to 
 expect, but the coming convention may much increase the 
 control of the people and diminish the corrupting power of 
 politicians; though an ominous presage of disinclination 
 thereto iii the convention is irresistablo should the people 
 elect no delegates but those who will be nominated by the 
 machinery of partisans whose powers are to be circum¬ 
 scribed. But leaving this for some future consideration,* 
 and assuming that the people will secure an honest effort 
 to achieve their own permanent supremaej’’, much will be 
 gained in a new constitution by electing our one hundr ed 
 and twenty-eight Assemblymen not by counties, as at 
 present, but by small districts, into one hundred and twenty- 
 eight of which the State can be divided : that the people 
 may as personally as possible create the law malting power, 
 which when pure is usually able to purify all other powers. 
 The like may he said in favor of electing our thirty-two 
 Senators, in thirty-two senate districts, instead of eight as 
 at present: in imitation of the improvement effected 
 recently by Congress, in the election by single districts of 
 congressional representatives. 
 
 Nor would such a blow at the machinery of party destroy 
 any of the virtuous objects of party distinctions. Those of 
 us who delight in the sovereignty of the people ought to 
 obtain some better guarantee therefor than the political 
 "Seo introduction. 
 
48 
 
 {professions of our annually elected representatives. The 
 principles, ■which we wish to perpetuate, can be so inter¬ 
 woven into the constitution as to insure for our laws the 
 desired degree of democracy whoever may chance to become 
 the legislators, just as a skilful engineer, in constructing 
 the track of a rail-road, establishes once fur all the course 
 which every car must travel whoever may superintend its 
 periodical transits. 
 
 The right to amend at pleasure their form of government 
 is another power which ought to be possessed perpetually 
 by the people, and which, more than any other security, 
 will enable them to abidingly realize their sovereignty in 
 the consciousness of a power to which all others are contin¬ 
 ually subordinate. We have seen in Rhode Island how a 
 legislature will withstand the people, even to the sword and 
 cannon, when circumstances will permit the usurpation, and 
 make obedience to the popular will a State-prison offence. 
 We have seen in our own legislature that the opportunity 
 to meet together in convention, and devise improvements, 
 was accorded to the people by an accident, in the casual 
 disagreement of factions, though the impossibilily had been 
 several times demonstrated that reforms widely demanded 
 could not otherwise be obtained, and that the courts of law 
 were almost literally closed to the discharge of suitors.— 
 Thus taught by experience, and fortuitously reinvested with 
 a power that had been unwisely abandoned, never again let 
 the sceptre depart fr.nn Judah till Shiloh come. 
 
 If five able bodied sailors were shipwrecked on an unin¬ 
 habited island, any three of them might make a constitution 
 which the remaining two might be compelled to obey, not 
 by force of any artificial compact, but by the natural prepon¬ 
 derance of three over two. This constitutes what men call 
 the inalienable right of revolution : and but for this benevo¬ 
 lent provision of nature (instituted probably in pity of 
 
49 
 
 human imprudence) the majority of every country would 
 long since have irrevocably sold.themselves to some artful 
 minority. To the natural right of majorities our govern¬ 
 ments have added the obligation of artificial compact; still 
 the principle is not made universal, for so slow is the pro¬ 
 gress of truth when it conflicts with long established error, 
 that the constitutions of many States prohibit the inhabit¬ 
 ants from modifying their government without the assent of 
 the legislature; thus making the legislature sovereign oyer 
 the people, and committing the further essential error of 
 enahling a minority of the legislature to defeat the wishes of 
 a majority. The framers of these constitutions probably 
 supposed that the alleration of a statute is less important 
 than the alteration of a constitution, and hence that a statute 
 should bo more easily alterable ; but why should they not 
 have argued that a constitutional error is more fatal than 
 the error of a law, and hence that the power to amend a 
 coiislitution should be at least as certain of accomplishment 
 as the amendment of a law. Indiana substantially avoids 
 these errors by instituting an election every twelve years, 
 at which a revision of its constitution by a convention is 
 submitted to the pojmlar decision. By the constitution of 
 New Hampshire, a poll is opened every seven years in the 
 several towns by the Supervisors thereof, and the peojile 
 vole for or against a convention. Every town sends the 
 result to the legislature, who are to call a convention if the 
 people have so directed; but, strange to say, (except that 
 this constitution was made in 1792,) the amendments of the 
 convention are not to be obligatory unless subsequently 
 ratified by ttvo-thirds of the people who vote thereon : a 
 condition which the endless diversity of opinion must often 
 make unattainable, and which, when unattained, must ever 
 tempt the disappointed majority to resort (as is our case at 
 this moment) to a revolution; though happily, according to 
 
50 
 
 the good sense of the times, ours is a peaceful oiie. If tliose 
 who feel power proverbially forget right, can a system be 
 safe which thwarts men, who being a majority, possess 
 power and right combined. 
 
 Nearly every convention that assembles to create a consti¬ 
 tution, evinces a desire to immortalize its labors by making 
 amendments difficult. The practice is founded in self-love, 
 and is as ancient as history; but till the framers of a consti¬ 
 tution are wiser than all other men, no reason exists why 
 a future convention shall not be able, with the benefit of 
 experience superadded, to make regulations equally wise ; 
 nor why two-thirds of the people, or legislature, shall be 
 indispensible before a change can be effected in what was 
 originally decreed by a simple majority, who acted in ad¬ 
 vance of experience, and consequently in the dark. An 
 English writer of the last century, Godwin, says substan¬ 
 tially, in reference to this subject; “ everlasting innovation 
 seems the true interest of man, but governments are per¬ 
 petually the enemy of change. Instead of suffering us to 
 proceed onward, they teach us to look backward for per¬ 
 fection : as if the human mind always degenerated, never 
 advanced. Every scheme for embodying perfection must 
 be injurious, for a present melioration will probably be¬ 
 come a future defect.” Let the people, therefore, not 
 trust to even a majority of the legislature for future con¬ 
 stitutional amendments, but keep the power in their own 
 only honest hands, like the citizens of New Hampshire, 
 that by a vote in their town meetings or otherwise, an 
 ascertained majority of the people may at any time demand 
 of the legislature the call of a convention. We have been 
 urged to estimate as of vital importance whether the 
 coming convention shall submit to us its amendments sep- 
 erately or together; but the question will be disarmed of 
 its chief cogency when we cease from estimating the 
 
51 
 
 adoption of the amendments as a species of matrimony, to 
 endure “ for better for worse, till death us do part.” The 
 framers of our present constitution placed at its commence¬ 
 ment, a devout acknowledgement of gratitude to God for 
 permitting us to make choice of a form of government.— 
 Let us enlarge the prayer, and be able to Ibank God that 
 we can abidingly exercise such a choice. We shall thus 
 insure during all coming time, to ourselves and our pos¬ 
 terity, the correction of evils before we become hardened 
 to them by custom, submissive to them through despair, or 
 maddened by them into rebellion, and keep the Honorable 
 the legislature, and all other honorables, in constant admo¬ 
 nition that, though the convention is passed away, and a 
 new political millenium is begun, the people are not bound 
 like Satan for any given number of years, but are unshack¬ 
 led and vigilant: all powerful to correct abuses, and as wil¬ 
 ling as powerful.