Right of the people to make and alter their constitution. Objects of free Religious freedom secured. serve the same for our posterity, we do declare that the essential and unquestionable rights and principles hereinafter mentioned shall be established, maintained and preserved, and shall be of paramount obligation in all legislative, judicial and executive proceedings. SECTION 2. All free governments are instituted for the protection, safety and happiness of the people. All laws, therefore, should be made for the good of the whole; and the burdens of the state ought to be fairly distributed among its citizens. SEC. 3. Whereas Almighty God hath created the mind free; and all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness; and whereas a principal object of our venerable ancestors, in their migration to this country and their settlement of this state, was, as they expressed it, to hold forth a lively experiment, that a flourishing civil state may stand and be best maintained with full liberty in religious concernments: we, therefore, declare that no man shall be compelled to frequent or to support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatever, except in fulfillment of his own voluntary contract; nor enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods; nor disqualified from holding any office; nor otherwise suffer on account of his religious belief; and that every man shall be free to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and to profess and by argument to maintain his opinion in matters of religion; and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect his civil capacity. ARTICLE IX. Of Qualifications for Office. SECTION 1. No person shall be eligible to any civil office, (except the office of school committee), unless he be a quali- Qualified fied elector for such office. ARTICLE XII. Of Education. SECTION 1. The diffusion of knowledge, as well as of virtue, among the people, being essential to the preservation of their rights and liberties, it shall be the duty of the general assembly to promote public schools, and to adopt all means which they may deem necessary and proper to secure to the people the advantages and opportunities of education. electors only eligible. Duty of the general assembly to promote public schools and education. public school SEC. 2. The money which now is or which may hereafter The permanent be appropriated by law for the establishment of a permanent fund. fund for the support of public schools, shall be securely invested, and remain a perpetual fund for that purpose. SEC. 3. All donations for the support of public schools, or for other purposes of education, which may be received by the general assembly, shall be applied according to the terms prescribed by the donors. Donations for support of public schools. general this article. SEC. 4. The general assembly shall make all necessary Power of the provisions by law for carrying this article into effect. They assembly under shall not divert said money or fund from the aforesaid uses, nor borrow, appropriate, or use the same, or any part thereof, for any other purpose, under any pretence whatsoever. EXTRACTS FROM THE GENERAL LAWS OF THE State of Rhode Island PERTAINING TO EDUCATION. Classification of voters as registered and unregistered. Registered voters, including personal property voters. SECTION 1. The two following classes of persons have, by the constitution, the first as registered and the second as unregistered voters, a right to vote in the election of all civil officers, and on all questions in all legally organized town, ward or district meetings: First, Every male citizen of the United States, of the age of twenty-one years, who has had his residence and home in this state for two years, and in the town or city, in which he may offer to vote, six months next preceding the time of his voting, and whose name shall be registered, in the town or city where he resides, on or before the last day of December in the year next preceding the time of his voting: Provided, that no person shall at any time be allowed to vote in the election of the city council of any city, or upon any proposition to impose a tax or for the expenditure of money in any town or city, unless he shall within the year next preceding have paid a tax assessed upon his property therein, valued at least at one hundred and thirty-four dollars. or real estate Second, Every male citizen of the United States, of the age Unregistered, of twenty-one years, who has had his residence and home in voters. this state for one year, and in the town or city, in which he may claim a right to vote, six months next preceding the time of voting, and who is really and truly possessed in his own right of real estate in such town or city of the value of one hundred and thirty-four dollars over and above all incumbrances, or which shall rent for seven dollars per annum over and above any rent reserved or the interest of any incumbrances thereon, being an estate in fee-simple, fee-tail, for the life of any person, or an estate in reversion or remainder, which qualifies no other person to vote, the conveyance of which estate, if by deed, shall have been recorded at least ninety days. Persons en titled to vote in a town for general SEC. 2. The following class of persons have, by the constitution, as unregistered voters, a right to vote in the election of all general officers and members of the general assembly, officers, etc., in the town or city in which they shall have had their resi- another town. dence and home for the term of six months next preceding the election: Every male citizen of the United States, of the age of twenty-one years, who has had his residence and home in this state for one year, and shall own any such real estate within this state, but out of the town or city in which he resides, as is described in the second clause of the first section of this chapter, and who shall produce a certificate from the estate in clerk of the town or city in which his estate lies, bearing date within ten days of the time of his voting, setting forth that such person has a sufficient estate therein to qualify him as a voter, and that the deed, if any, has been recorded ninety days. CHAPTER 7. Of the Registering, Listing and Returning Lists of Voters, and of Proof of their Qualification to Vote. Registry voters are to register themselves annually. Penalty for false certificate. Persons of a foreign birth to file proof of citizenship. SECTION 2. Registry voters to register them- 3. Names of property taxpayers to be 8. Proof of payment of taxes. Town clerks, etc., to furnish certi- SECTION 13. Town clerks to give certified copies of registration of voters and other records. 14. Electors entitled to certified lists of persons paying taxes, etc., and penalty for refusal to furnish same. SECTION 2. Every person who is or within a year may be qualified to vote, upon being registered, shall go to the town clerk of the town in which he resides, and shall annually, on or before the last day of December, register his name, and thereby certify to the truth of the facts stated in the appropriate heads of such registry. Every person who shall knowingly make any false certificate in registering his name in any such registry book shall be fined not exceeding fifty dollars, or be imprisoned not exceeding sixty days: Provided, that before any person's name shall be placed upon the voting list, if such citizen shall be of foreign birth, he shall file proof, at least five days before any meeting of the board of canvassers, with the town clerk, that he is a citizen of the United States, and such proof shall be subject to the approval of the board of canvassers of the town or ward wherein such person shall claim the right to vote. |