such an extension
of suffrage as the legislature might in their wisdom deem expedient to
propose, was presented.

That, influenced by that petition, as well as by other considerations,
the legislature at that session requested the qualified voters, or
freemen, as they are called with us, to choose delegates at their
regular town meetings to be holden in August, 1841, for a convention
to be holden in November, 1841, to frame a written constitution.

That the result of the last meeting of this legal convention in
February, 1842, was the constitution[118] accompanying this statement,
marked ----, which, in case of its adoption by the people, would have
been the supreme law of the State.

[Footnote 118: Omitted.]

Most of the above facts are contained in the printed report of a
numerous committee of the legislature at their session in March, 1842,
which report was adopted by the legislature.

That in May, 1841, after said legal convention had been provided for
by the legislature, and before the time appointed for the choice of
delegates by the qualified voters (August, 1841), a mass meeting was
held by the friends of an extension of suffrage at Newport, at which
meeting a committee was appointed, called the State committee, who were
authorized by said mass meeting to take measures for calling a
convention to frame a constitution.

That this committee, thus authorized, issued a request for a meeting
of the male citizens in the several towns to appoint delegates to the
proposed convention.

That meetings (of unqualified voters principally, as we believe) were
accordingly holden in the several towns, unauthorized by law, and
contrary to the invariable custom and usage of the State from 1663 down
to that period; that the aggregate votes appointing the delegates to
that convention were, according to their own estimate, about 7,200,
whereas the whole number of male citizens over 21 years of age, after
making a deduction for foreigners, paupers, etc., was, according to
their own estimate, over 22,000.

That this convention, thus constituted, convened in Providence in
October, 1841, and the constitution called the "people's constitution"
was the result of their deliberations.

That at subsequent meetings of portions of the people in December, 1841,
by the authority of this convention alone (elected, as its delegates had
been, by about one-third of the voters, according to their own standard
of qualification), all males