numerous in our larger cities. We are an ingenious, active people, fiercely fond of money, and these characteristics we have introduced rankly into our politics. Thrift, which in some countries follows fawning, is more readily gained here by active partisanship; and so essential is one to the other, that though thrift may exist in other connections, active partisanship seldom long survives the absence of thrift. The funds of the State and of the Nation, every thing belonging to the public, or connected with Government, from which emolument can be extracted, into what 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 trail. Nor are politicians 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 multiplicator increased, the sin of anti-rentism would diminish, till the holy horror against it which is simultaneously bursting forth just now at every political meeting, would be converted into as fierce a rage against landlords 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 in the Convention is irresistible, should the people elect no delegates but those who will be nominated by the machinery of partisans whose powers are to be circumscribed. But assuming that the people will secure

And some years subsequently against Southern slavery.

an honest effort to achieve their own permanent supremacy, much will be gained in a new Constitution, by electing our one hundred 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 lawmaking power, which, when pure, is usually able to purify all other powers. The like may be 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 professions of our annually elected representatives. The principles which we wish to perpetuate, can be so interwoven 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 for 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 continually 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,

* This was adopted in the new Constitution, and also the provision as to Senators.

and make obedience to the popular will a State-prison offence. We have seen in our own Legislature that the present 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 impossibility 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 re-invested with a power that had been unwisely abandoned, never again let the sceptre depart from Judah till Shiloh come.*

If five able-bodied sailors were shipwrecked on an uninhabited 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 preponderance of three over two. This constitutes what men call the inalienable right of revolution, and but for this benevolent provision of nature, (instituted probably in pity of 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 governments have added the obligation of artificial compact; still the principle is not made universal, for so slow is the progress of truth when it conflicts with long. established error, that the constitutions of many States. prohibit the inhabitants from modifying their government without the assent of two-thirds of the Legislature; thus making the Legislature sovereign over the people, and committing the further essential error of enabling a minority of the Legislature to defeat the wishes of a ma

The Constitution of 1821 contained no provision for the calling of a Convention by the people to revise the then existing Constitution.

jority. The framers of these Constitutions probably supposed that the alteration of a statute is less important than the alteration of a Constitution, and hence that a statute should be 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 constitution 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 popular decision. By the Constitution of New-Hampshire, a poll is opened every seven years in the several towns, by the supervisors thereof, and the people vote 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 two-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 the good sense of the times, ours is a peaceful one. If those 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 Constitution, 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 Constitution 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 indispensable before a change can be effected in what was originally decreed by a simple majority, who acted in advance of experience, and consequently in the dark. An English writer of the last century, Godwin, says, substantially, in reference to this subject: "Everlasting innovation seems the true interest of man, but governments are perpetually the enemy of change. Instead of suffering us to proceed onward, they teach us to look backward for perfection, as if the human mind always degenerated-never advanced. Every scheme for embodying perfection must be injurious, for a present melioration will probably become a future defect." Let the people, therefore, not trust to even a majority of the Legislature for future constitutional amendments, but keep the power in their own only honest hands, like the citizens of NewHampshire, that by a vote in their own 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 separately or together; but the question will be disarmed of its chief cogency, when we cease from estimating the 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 commencement a devout acknowledgment of gratitude to God for permitting us to make choice of a form of government. Let us enlarge the prayer, and be able to thank God that we can abidingly exercise such a choice. We shall thus ensure, during all coming time, to ourselves and our posterity, the correction of evils before we become