1846.] to the people the question of extending the elective franchise to colored citizens, separately from the rest of the Constitution, that the exact condition of public opinion upon this subject, throughout the State, may be known. The provision upon which the people are to vote is as follows: "-. Colored male citizens, possessing the qualifications required by the first section of the second article of the Constitution, other than the property qualification, shall have the right to vote for all officers that now are, or hereafter may be, elective by the people, after the first day of January, 1847." This proceeding will probably quiet a painful and much-vexed question, and appease the complaints of a large class of people, who are entitled to have their political claims submitted at least once fairly to the people, and to understand the true state of public sentiment upon the subject. We have thus hurriedly enumerated some of what we esteem the most important novelties embodied in the proposed Constitution. We cannot permit this occasion to pass without alluding to some of its defects, both of omission and commission, to which the preceding analysis has not given us occasion to refer. 1. Foremost among these, we would place the omission to secure every citizen against having his property taken by the State, whether for private or public use, without a fair appraisal by a jury selected from the vicinage, and without just compensation FIRST made to him therefor. 2. The omission to secure to females the right to hold, transfer or devise property as fully after as before marriage. A provision for this purpose was actually adopted by the Convention, taken in terms, we believe, from the Texas Constitution, and was subsequently stricken out by a small majority. 3. The power to create corporations, except under general laws, should have been taken from the Legislature. The proposed Constitution guaranties to them this power as to municipal corporations, and in all other "cases where, in the JUDGMENT OF THE LEGISLATURE, the objects of the corporation cannot be attained under general laws." Even the courts of justice are to be no restraint upon the Legislature, 4. The Legislature should have been 5. The wise prohibition of the superior judges, from taking fees and perquisites, should have been extended to justices of the peace, upon whom the operation of the practice is far more pernicious, in proportion to the importance of the matters in controversy before them, than it is upon any other class of judges. 6. The judiciary system should have been made uniform and consistent throughout the State. To these we will add those defects in the new Constitution to which we have already referred : 6. The State should have submitted 7. The legislative sessions should 9. The Supreme Court Judges should 10. About 4000 justiceships should It may be perceived from the char- If it is destined to be adopted, it vention on its final adoption* affords a reasonable presumption that it will encounter no substantial opposition at the polls. We think it deserves none; and rightly appreciated, it would receive none-but on the other hand, the most cordial support. While it is not every thing that could have been wished, it is more than the most ardent of the constitutional reformers expected when the agitation was commenced, and directly or indirectly sanctions every principle they have advocated. Let the result teach them never to despise the blows of the feeblest arm when struck in defence of a great principle-that in the ever renewing struggles between truth and error the race is not always to the swift, neither is the battle to the strong, and that every person, however obscure or humble may be the pathway of his life, if he firmly ally himself with singleness of purpose to the sacred cause of right, shall surely have the reward of triumph in due season. Some five months since, in these pages, we alluded to the prospective labors of this Convention in the following terms:-"We ask of the Convention to so direct its councils as to effect the three following paramount results by whatever means in their wisdom they may find most efficacious: "1. A reduction and dispersion of political patronage. 2. A restriction of the sphere of government to its legitimate public functions. "3. A restoration of every citizen to the enjoyment of every liberty or priv ilege not inconsistent with the enjoy ment of a corresponding liberty or priv ilege by every other. "If these great results should be accomplished, or even approximated unto by that body, the people, not only of the State but of the whole Union, will have abundant reason hereafter to remember with respect and gratitude the NewYork Constitutional Convention for 1846." We have now only to say, that we think 66 those great results" have not only been approximated unto, but in a great measure accomplished. *The amended Constitution was agreed to by the following vote: AYES.-Messrs. Allen, Angel, Archer, Ayrault, F. F. Backus, H. Backus, Baker, Bascom, Bowdish, Brayton. Bruce. Brundage, Bull, Burr, Cambreleng, R. Campbell, jr., Candee, Chamberlain, Clyde, Conely, Cook, Cornell, Crooker, Cuddeback, Dana, Danforth, Dodd, Dubois, Flanders, Forsyth. Gebhard, Graham, Greene, Harris, Harrison, Hawley, Hoffman, Hotchkiss. A. Huntington, Hutchinson, Hyde, Jones, Kemble, Kernan, Kingsley, Kirkland, Loomis. Mann, McNeil, Marvin, Maxwell, Miller, Morris, Munro, Murphy, Nellis, Nicholas, Nicoll, Parish, Patterson, Penniman, Perkins, Porter, Powers, President, Rhodes, Richmond, Riker, Ruggles, Russell, St. John, Salisbury, Sanford, Sears, Shaver, Shaw, Sheldon, E. Spencer. Stanton, Stephens, Stetson, Strong, Swackhamer, Taft, Taggart, J. J. Taylor, W. Taylor, Tilden, Townsend, Tuthill, Van Schoonhoven, Ward, Warren, Waterbury, Willard, Whitbeck, Worden, A. Wright, W. B. Wright, Yawger, Young, Youngs.-104. NOES. Messrs. E. Huntington, O'Conor, W. H. Spencer, Stow, Talmadge, White-6. [Gov. Bouck, Mr. Brown, Mr. D. D. Campbell, Mr. Chatfield, Mr. Clark, Mr. Gardner, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Jordan, Mr. McNitt, Mr. Simmons, and Mr. Smith, were absent when the vote was taken.] † See Democratic Review, June 1846, p. 420. POLITICAL PORTRAITS WITH PEN AND PENCIL. SILAS WRIGHT, OF NEW-YORK. (With a fine Engraving on steel.) BEFORE another number of this Review issues from the press, the suffrages of the people of the state of New-York will have re-elected the subject of this memoir to the highest office in their gift. In the elevation of a man like Silas Wright to the head of a free government, we recognize the great excellence of our institutions, and the triumph of those principles, inherent in the inhabitants of the United States, that have successfully resisted the encroachments of power, in all its Protean shapes, upon the rights of the people. The direct attacks of the imperial government upon the independence of the colonies, were not more successfully foiled by our ancestors, than have been the insidious encroachments of aristocratic privileges upon the rights of the people in our day, by the clear perception, vigorous intellect, firm integrity, and untiring vigilance, of that class of men, of whom Silas Wright remains to us as a most eminent example. In the course of this sketch, we shall have occasion to show that, on more than one occasion, when the money-power, skillfully directed by unscrupulous party leaders, both in the state and national governments, had effected combinations which threatened to thwart the will of the people, and jeopardize their best interests, the cool judgment, self-possessed firmness, and intellectual vigor, of Mr. Wright, came to the rescue, dispersed the coalitions, and in his luminous exposition of the sophistries advanced in their support, the people recognized the sound reasoning of a faithful officer. Some years since a sketch of the early period of Mr. Wright's life appeared in this Review, and we bring forward a portion as a preface to later events. Silas Wright, Jr., was born in the town of Amherst, Massachusetts, on the 24th of May, 1795. Both his parents were natives of the county of Hampshire. They had nine children -five sons and four daughters - two of whom died in infancy; the rest are now living. The elder Mr. Wright was by trade a tanner, currier, and shoemaker; which occupation he followed until March, 1796, when he removed to the town of Weybridge, Addison county, Vermont, where he purchased a farm, and where he has ever since devoted himself exclusively to its cultivation. All the family, except Silas and his youngest sister, still reside in Vermont. The brothers, one only of whom is a graduate of a college, are all likewise farmers. The sisters married farmers, and one of them, a widow, now carries on a farm with the assistance of her sons; so that the whole family may most emphatically be regarded as the children of the plough,-than which we know no more honorable designation that wealth or rank could bestow. Mr. Wright, the father, was indentured as an apprentice to his trade at an early age, and never was at school a day in his life. When he had "served out his time," he could neither read nor write; but with the assistance of his fellow journeyman, he soon qualified himself both to read and to write, as well as to keep accounts and transact business with accuracy and facility. After his marriage his wife became his instructress a service which she performed with all a woman's devotion and alacrity, and with a success proportionate to her own interest in the labor of love, and to the willing docility of her pupil. Silas, like most of the rising youth of New-England, attended the common schools in winter, and worked on the farm in summer, until he had passed his fourteenth year, when he was placed at an academy, that he might be prepared to enter college. The father perceived that his son was rarely endowed by nature, and was therefore the more anxious that he should enjoy the benefits of education denied by circumstances to himself. The tradition is, that he always regarded him with peculiar pride and delight, as destined to be the chief hope and ornament of the family. In August, 1811, Mr. Wright became a student of the college at Middlebury, Vermont, where he remained until the summer of 1815, when he received the first degree of Bachelor of Arts. The elder Mr. Wright has always been an earnest aud determined democrat. He became such during the first contest for the presidency, in 1796, between Adams and Jefferson. On that occasion he supported the latter zealously, and ever after cherished for his name and principles a veneration which time rather increased than diminished. Between 1800 and 1810, he was repeatedly elected a member of the Legislature, and was ever an ardent and firm republican. He and his oldest son were in the battle of Plattsburg, under Macomb, in September, 1814, when the British fleet was captured on Lake Champlain by M'Donough, and Sir George Prevost with his forces defeated and driven back into Canada. The husbands of two sisters of Mr. Wright were also in that battle as volunteers from the "Green Mountains," although the Federal Governor of Vermont, following the treacherous and cowardly example of Governors Strong of Massachusetts, Jones of Rhode Island, and Griswold of Connecticut, had positively refused to call out a single man to defend the invaded territory and habitations of an adjoining state, on the unworthy position that the militia could not be required to pass beyond the boundary lines of those states of which they were citizens. During the four years passed by Mr. Wright in college, the number of the class to which he belonged averaged about thirty. Then, as now, every student was a politician, and called himself either a federalist or democrat. Of the latter there were in this class only four, of whom it will readily be conceived that young Wright was one of the most ardent. His politics were never better known than at this period of his life. In October, 1815, he commenced the study of the law with Mr. Martindale, who resided at Sandy Hill, Washington county, New-York, where he remained about eighteen months; when he removed to the office of Roger Skinner, Esq., which presented superior opportunities for acquiring a knowledge of the details of business, as he was at that time the attorney of the United States for the northern district of that State. In January, 1819, Mr. Wright completed his preparatory legal studies, and was licensed to practise as an attorney of the Supreme Court of NewYork. His health being impaired by intense application to his books and at his desk, he spent the ensuing summer in travelling on horseback for its restoration, and with the view of selecting a place where he might settle himself permanently. In October, he removed to Canton, in the county of St. Lawrence, and opened an office. The village was new, and the business in the courts both limited and unprofitable, so that the young lawyer made but little by his practice. His superior talents, added to the universal kindliness in his disposition and manners, soon made him highly popular. He was, after but a short residence in his new home, selected as the village postmaster, the captain of the local militia company, justice of the peace, and not long after was commissioned as the Surrogate of the county of St. Lawrence. In all these situations, at the same time that he perfectly discharged every duty devolving on him, he never failed, by an insensible process which, without effort on his own part, was irresistible on the part of others, to make himself the object of a universal and affectionate personal popularity. But a more enlarged public than a village neighborhood soon appreciated justly the abilities, studious habits, attainments and integrity of the young barrister. In the fall of the year 1823, without the slightest expectation of such an event on his part, Mr. Wright was nominated by his democratic friends as a candidate for the office of Senator in the State Legislature. There was an overwhelming federal majority in the county of St. Lawrence when Mr. Wright first settled in it; yet he had taken especial care to express, in the most public manner, his devotion to the principles of the republican party. Still he was elected for the term of four years, and took his seat on the first Tuesday of January, 1824. During this winter the contest for the presidency was waged in NewYork, as well as in other states of the Union, with the utmost violence. It resulted in the election of John Q. Adams by the House of Representatives, in February, 1825. The individuals voted for were Crawford, Jack son, Adams and Clay. A caucus, composed of a portion of the members of Congress, had been held at Washington, which had nominated Mr. Crawford as the candidate of the old republican party. At one time, Mr. Calhoun's claims had been earnestly pressed in Pennsylvania, by many leading politicians who were devoted to his interests, but the great mass of the people there had espoused the cause of General Jackson. The friends of Jackson, Clay and Adams had refused peremptorily to submit their claims to the arbitrament of a caucus, which caused the division, distraction and defeat of the democra cy. Mr. Wright, adhering as he has ever done, to the principles of his party, advocated Mr. Crawford's election. In order to defeat this wise, honest, and fearless man, in New-York and the contiguous states, a large number of politicians exhausted all their ingenuity and skill, secretly and assiduously, in exciting prejudices against the South. Appeals were made in behalf of Mr. Adams to the pride of the people, and it was urged that all the other candidates were Southern men. By these means large numbers were decoyed from the democratic into the federal ranks. From the time of the adoption of the federal constitution, up to the period of which we are now speaking, the electors of president and vice president in the State of New-York had been chosen by the Legislature. The federal party which supported Mr. Adams, having ascertained that the republicans had elected a large majority of their friends to the Legislature, in order that they might have another chance, raised the cry that the electors ought to be chosen by the people. The followers of Mr. Clay, who were comparatively few, aided in this movement. As matters then stood, it was certain that Mr. Crawford would receive the undivided vote of the state. The conductors of the federal presses joined in with this cry, and everywhere proclaimed that those members of the Assembly who should refuse to repeal the law which had been so long in force, without complaint from any quarter, were enemies to liberty, to the Constitution, and to the rights of the sovereign people. It was insisted by the republicans, that there was much danger that the election of the president might be referred to the House of Representatives; that there bargain, intrigue, and management might be practised; that so great a state as New-York should neither divide her vote in the electoral college, and thereby impair her strength, nor aid in any way in taking the election to a body where her political weight could not be an atom greater than that of Rhode Island or Delaware. But the timid in the more popular branch of the Legislature became alarmed, and gave way, so that the federalists gained the ascendancy there. A bill was passed in the lower House, giving the choice of presidential electors to the people, which was thrown upon the Senate for its action. This body contains thirty-two members, of which seventeen were a bare majority. Every member, except one, was a de. mocrat on paper, and had been returned as such; and yet when this bill was called up for discussion, only seventeen had the courage to oppose it, and denounce the views and schemes of those who had concocted and passed it.They stood to their posts unterrified, and rejected the bill. Immediately, everywhere throughout the state they were assailed by the federal opposition, and branded as "usurpers and tyrants" as the "infamous seventeen"-as the "immorally infamous seventeen;" and so great was the height to which the popular fury was excited by the as |