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despotism; for some act of injustice or oppression has always agitated the State, and provoked hostilities from some quarter or another. The mob during the reign of Gov. Arnold, (N. B. We call it reign of Governors under the Kingly Charter,) of which Judge Staples makes mention in the quiet City of Providence, was no exception to this. For the collection of citizens, who on that occasion took justice into their own hands, had been long scandalised and outraged by a nuisance, from which no law seemed strong enough to protect them; from which they had appealed again and again to the authorities of the town, and used every effort of moral suasion to reform. The two neighborhoods of Olney's Lane and Snowtown, where several respectable families resided, (and many more owned property there, who dared not make it a place of residence,) contained a thicket of houses, which were unfortunately tenanted by some of the vilest and lowest offenders against the laws of decency, and the laws of the land. They were places where no person was safe to pass after dark, perfect Pandemoniums, where persons of all colors congregated together, to carry on their guilty revels, to conceal stolen goods, and to concert every scheme of iniquity of which the human mind can conceive. There can be no doubt that murders were sometimes perpetrated secretly in those abodes of guilt; as persons were sometimes missing there, of whom no account was ever after received; not to mention those beat to death in drunken fights-of young women found with broken bones, and expiring from the effects of brutal treatment.* No sleep in the neighborhood of those places could be had the long night through, unbroken by the screams of murder, or cries of distress of some kind, mixed with the

*Thomas Loyd Halsey, whose residence was on Prospect street, and but a short distance from the Lane, said, "he had no doubt more murders had been committed in that one lane, than in all the State besides, since its first settlement."

sound of the fiddle, and the drunken shouts of the depraved multitude.

To complain had been found inefficient to remedy the evil; and indeed, at the last, people had become somewhat afraid, lest the spirit of revenge should either fire their buildings or assassinate themselves. In this dilemma, after many years of forbearance, the people aggrieved, and it is believed respectable people, took up arms of clubs and brick-bats, and demolished the abodes of infamy and wretchedness. The occasion was a favorable one; it was the murder of a person sent to demand a Swedish sailor, who was retained in one of the houses in the Lane. The firing of that gun was a tocsin that called all hands to battle, and of all those receptacles of iniquity, but one on the close of that evening was left standing ; and that having a frame that resisted axes and firehooks, alone remained standing, a dismantled monument of the judgments of that night. Placards were fixed up, saying they would take Snowtown the next night, which they did, though the Governor called out a military force to protect the den of iniquity; and firing into the assailants, killed seven men, several of whom were persons whom curiosity brought to the scene of assault. It was urged in his behalf, that he had "twice commanded the people to disperse, and once fired blank cartridges " among them. Though no abettor or admirer of mobs, we must say, few ever did more good in shorter time; and the death of those young men caused much stir at the time. Several had left families, and were deeply deplored. But, accustomed as the people of the State had become to despotic power, it passed off without any action. There was no party bias in the case. The resistants were supposed to be about equally of all parties.

For many years there has been a spirit of resistance fostering in the people of Rhode Island, against the encroachments of arbitrary power. The health

ful action of the law, as its friends termed it, was too often found "a word and a blow, and the blow came first." It has often been found a fetter that has bound the poor debtor down to the earth, while it has let off the rich bankrupt unscathed. In the late transactions, it will be found, that while it stood. ready to protect violence and wickedness, it left the honest and unprotected to be insulted and pillaged by a merciless soldiery-whom avarice, and party spite, and demoniac passion, led on to excesses that have disgraced the State in the eyes of lookers on, and will long be remembered, after the heads that planned, and the hands that have executed them, shall be mouldering under the sod. W.

CHAPTER II.

THE CHARTER.

IN the very onset it may be well to examine the character and claims of this celebrated Instrument, which, until about two years ago, was acknowledged as the source of all Order, Government, and Law, in this falsely-called Free State of Rhode Island. Not by the majority of the people, indeed, was it so acknowledged; for these, for more than fifty years, had looked upon it as a dead body; and they had been, for nearly that length of time, continually entreating the Government to give it the rites of sepulture, and a decent burial. But it was the self-constituted Lords of the Assembly of King Charles, who saw so many virtues in the parchment of that dissolute monarch. It held for them, each and all, Letters-patent of Nobility. By it they assumed power to make such laws as best pleased themselves to alter those laws, or annul them, as they would, and when they would; and that without any regard to the interests of others — nay, it might be in direct

violation of those interests, though a majority of three-fifths of the entire population might be the sufferers. The majority, indeed, came to be regarded as plebeians by birth, and by habit, possessing no acknowledged rights, which could, by any extant possibility, be opposed to those of the self-constituted Government, which was, in defiance of all significance in language, continually affirmed to be the freest in the world. The People had, it is true, petitioned for a redress of grievances, for about fifty years; and during that time, had made some little stir about Democracy, and the Rights of the Majority; but they were easily frowned down, and, to a considerable degree, persuaded that there was no other way but tacit, if not real submission. Assembly saw that all this was very good. Therefore they determined never to change it. And all their minions cried, "Amen." They were living expositions of the trite fact, that arbitrary power, once obtained, though it be never so unjustly, is not willingly surrendered, unless, indeed, there be a true human heart, and a paramount CONSCIENCE, in the holder thereof. Thus far premising, I proceed to speak more particularly of the Instrument whose name is our present caption.

The

It may be interesting to the curious in such matters, (and who is not curious when any point of the history of his native State is involved in the question?) to know under what circumstances the Charter was obtained. It appears that originally the town of Providence, then comprising all of what is now Providence County, except Cumberland, constituted a distinct jurisdiction, as did also the Island of Rhode Island, and likewise Warwick. These several territorial divisions were first united and brought within one jurisdiction, by the Charter of 1643; which was obtained through the assistance of Sir Henry Vane. This Charter was very short, and

very loose in its terms. It shadowed forth a general power to establish such form of government as should obtain "the voluntary consent of all." There was so much difficulty experienced in obtaining this "voluntary consent " in favor of consolidating the different districts under one government, that it was not until the year 1647 that a general government was agreed upon, and established. The General Assembly was convened in that year, for the first time, and the place of convention was the town of Portsmouth.

In the same year were enacted the early Laws of Rhode Island. These were generally of an enlightened and liberal character, and were adopted with the following Preamble.

“And now, sith our Charter gives us power to govern ourselves, and such others as come amongst us, by such a form of civil government, as, by the voluntary consent, &c., shall be found most suitable to our estate and condition, it is agreed by this present Assembly, thus incorporated, that the form of Government established in Providence Plantations, is DEMOCRATICAL that is to say a government held by the free and voluntary consent of all, or the GREATER part of all, the free inhabitants."

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One of the first provisions had this clause: "No man in this colony shall be taken, or imprisoned, or be disseized of his lands, or liberty, or be exile, or any otherwise molested, but by THE LAWFUL JUDGMENT OF HIS PEERS." What an evident retrograde has been going on since that time! The unenfranchised man of Rhode Island could never be tried by his peers; because neither himself, nor his peers, were eligible to act as jurors; and, in later times, it has been no infrequent thing to see a man molested, injured in his property and character, and deprived of his liberty, without any "lawful judgment," or even any legal pretence. It cannot be doubted that

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