his ticket; and every person, entitled to vote as aforesaid, who from sickness, or other causes, may be unable to attend and vote in the town or ward meeting, assembled for voting upon said Constitution, on the days aforesaid, is requested to write his name upon a ticket, and to obtain the signature upon the back of the same, as a person who has given his vote, as a witness thereto. And the Moderator, or Clerk of any town or ward meeting, convened for the purpose aforesaid, shall receive such vote, on either of the three days next succeeding the three days before named for voting on said Constitution.

3. The citizens of the several towns in this State, and of the several wards in the city of Providence, are requested to hold town and ward meetings on the days appointed, and for the purpose aforesaid; and also to choose in each town, and ward, a Moderator and Clerk, to conduct said meetings and receive the votes.

4. The Moderators and Clerks are required to receive and carefully to keep the votes of all persons qualified to vote as aforesaid, and to make registers of all the persons voting; which, together with the tickets given in by the voters, shall be sealed up, and returned by said moderators and clerks, with certificates signed and sealed by them, to the clerks of the Convention of the People, to be by them safely deposited and kept, and laid before said Convention, to be counted and declared, at their next adjourned meeting on the 12th day of January, 1842.

5. This Constitution, except so much thereof as relate to the election of the officers named in the sixth section of this article, shall, if adopted, go into operation on the first Tuesday in May, in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-two.

6. So much of the Constitution as relates to the election of officers named in this section, shall go into operation on the Monday before the third Wednesday of April next preceeding. The first election under this Constitution of Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, General Treasurer, and Attorney General, of Senators and Representatives, of Sheriffs for the several counties, and of Justices of the Peace for the several towns, and the Wards of the city of Providence, shall take place on the Monday aforesaid.

7. The electors of the several towns and wards are authorised to assemble on the day aforesaid, without being notified as is provided in section ninth of Article X, and without the registration required in section seventh of Article II, and to choose moderators and clerks, and proceed in the election of the officers named in the preceeding section.

8. The votes given in at the first election for Representatives to the General Assembly, and for Justices of the Peace, shall be counted by the moderators and clerks of the towns, and wards, chosen as aforesaid; and certificates of election shall be furnished by them to the Representatives and Justices of the Peace elected.

9. Said moderators and clerks shall seal up, certify, and transmit to the House of Representatives all the votes that may be given in, at said first election, for Governor and State officers, and for Senators and Sheriffs; and the votes shall be counted as the House of Representatives may direct.

10. The Speaker of the House of Representatives shall, at the first session of the same, qualify himself to administer the oath of office to the members of the House, and to other officers, by taking and subscribing the same oath in presence of the House.

11. The first session of the General Assembly shall be held in the city of Providence, on the first Tuesday of May, in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-two, with such adjournments as may be necessary; but all other sessions shall be held as is provided in Articles IV of this Constitution.

12. If any of the Representatives whom the towns, or districts, are entitled to choose, at the first annnal election aforesaid, shall not be then elected, or if their places shall become vacant during the year, the same proceedings may be had to complete the election, or to supply vacancies, as are directed concerning elections in the preceding sections of this article.

13. If there shall be no election of Governor or Lieutenant Governor, or of both of these officers, or of a Senator or Senators, at the first annual election, the House of Representatives, and as many Senators as are chosen, shall forthwith elect, in joint committee, a Governor, or Lieutenant Governor, or both, or a Senator or Senators, to hold their officers for the remainder of the political year, and, in the case of the two officers first named, until their successors shall be duly qualified.

14. If the number of Justices of the Peace determined by the several towns and wards on the day of the first annual election, shall not be then chosen, or if vacancies shall occur, the same proceedings shall be had as are provided for in this article in the case of a non-election of Representatives and Senators, or of vacancies in their officers. The Justices of the Peace thus elected, shall hold office for the remainder of the political year, or until the second annual election of Justices of the Peace, to be held on such day as may be prescribed by the General Assembly.

15. The Justices of the Peace elected in pursuance of the provisions of this Article may be engaged by the person acting as moderators of the town and ward meetings, as herein provided; and said Justices, after obtaining their certificates of election, may discharge the duties of their office, for a time not exceeding twenty days, without a commission from the Governor.

16. Nothing contained in this Article, inconsistent with any of the provisions of other Articles of the Constitution, shall continue in force for a longer period than the first political year under the same.

17. The present government shall exercise all the powers with

which it is now clothed, until the said first Tuesday of May, one thousand eight hundred and forty-two, and until their successors under this Constitution shall be duly elected and qualified.

18. All civil, judicial, and military officers now elected, or who shall hereafter be elected by the General Assembly, or other competent authority, before the said first Tuesday of May, shall hold their offices and may exercise their powers until that time.

19. All laws and statutes, public and private, now in force, and not repugnant to this Constitution, shall continue in force until they expire by their own limitation, or are repealed by the General Assembly. All contracts, judgments, actions, and rights of action, shall be as valid as if this Constitution had not been made. All debts contracted, and engagements entered into, before the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the State, as if this Constitution had not been made.

20. The Supreme Court, established by this Constitution, shall have the same jurisdiction as the Supreme Judicial Court at present established; and shall have jurisdiction of all causes which may be appealed to, or pending in the same; and shall be held at the same time and places, in each county, as the present Supreme Judicial Court, until the General Assembly shall otherwise prescribe.

21. The citizens of the town of New Shoreham shall be hereafter exempted from Military duty, and the duty of serving as jurors in the Courts of this State. The citizens of the town of Jamestown shall be foreever hereafter exempted from military field duty.

22. The General Assembly shall, at their first session after the adoption of this Constitution, propose to the electors the question, whether the word "white," in the first line of the first section of Article II of the Constitution shall be stricken out. The question shall be voted upon at the succeeding annual election; and if a majority of the electors voting shall vote to strike out the word aforesaid, it shall be stricken from the Constitution; otherwise not. If the word aforesaid shall be strickeu out, section 3d of Article II shall cease to be a part of the Constitution.

23. The President, Vice President, and Secretaries, shall certify and sign this Constitution, and cause the same to be published. Done in Convention at Providence, on the 18th day of November, in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-one, and of American Independence the sixty-sixth.

JOSEPH JOSLIN, President of the Convention.
WAGER WEEDEN,

SAMUEL H. WALES.

}

Vice Presidents.

AND while the events recorded in the last chapter were going on, the Chartists, also, were busy — not merely with their own business, but an under-current was set in motion, calculated to undermine the works of their neighbors, which they had begun to perceive they could not openly prostrate. Like certain other rulers, in a certain other place, they resolved ;

"Our better part remains

To work in close disguise, by fraud, or guile:"

and, thereupon, the foulest slanders were propagated, and the grossest personal abuse the dernier resort of conscious weakness was freely indulged in. The Suffrage Party were represented to have no leaders, no talent, no money, no honesty; and their particular profession, which suited not the polished nerve of courtly ears, were held up in derison.

But the TRUE Spirit of Rhode Island was awake, and up, and acting - by which I mean not the spirit of domination, of usurpation, of despotic tyranny, as some of our statesmen are fain to represent it - but that high and indomitable spirit of liberty, which GOD breathed in the soul of man, when he first pronounced it living- and formed after HIS OWN IMAGE and which no hand of clay ever bestowed or ever can bestow. This spirit was awake is awake and not till the universal heart of Rhode Island shall forget to cherish the names of her venerated founders not till the good seed which was planted by her noblest exiled son, when first she opened her maternal arms to receive him, shall be covered with the blight and mildew of death, and no

more spring up, and blossom, bearing precious fruits, shall that spirit be lulled by sorcery into forgetfulness of its rights and duties, or be compelled by force to surrender its high trust.

In regard to the People's Constitution, I would observe that a perfect work is not to be expected from one effort, even of the wisest and the greatest; but must be the result of a series of efforts. Of its general merits, pro and con, I leave those best qualified to judge for themselves, fully believing that, in most respects, it will be its own best vindicator.

It was finally submitted to the People, as recorded in the last chapter, and was adopted by a majority of 4746. Deducting 3000, supposed to be the number of persons insane, convicts, and under guardianship, from 26,142, the number of males in the State over 21 years of age, and you have 23,142, of whom a majority would be 11,572. 13,944 votes were given for the Constitution, which is 873 votes more than one-half of all the adult males in the State; and 2372 more than half of all those qualified to vote for the Constitution. After deducting from 23,142, the whole number who voted for the Constitution, we have a remainder of 9198, of whom 9146 did not vote, and 52 voted against the Constitution. There were 4960 freemen who voted for the Constitution; which, taking 8622, the number of votes polled in 1840, as the standard number of freemen, gives a majority of 1298 of all the freemen in the State. Was not, then, the making and adoption of the People's Constitution, eminently, pre-eminently the work of the PEOPLE; and that, too, even of the (so called) "legal people?" The fact challenges denial. There the names stand, in that goodly-sized book, inscribed in free and fair characters; and, with some few exceptions, there can be no question, that the act which placed them there, was as free, and fair. Among them I find