voting for town taxes as is
contained in the other constitution.

The provision, therefore, in relation to the great subject in
dispute--the elective franchise--is substantially the same in the two
constitutions.

On the 21st, 22d, and 23d March last the legal constitution, by an
act of the legislature, was submitted to all the persons who by its
provisions would be entitled to vote under it after its adoption, for
their ratification. It was rejected by a majority of 676 votes, the
number of votes polled being over 16,000. It is believed that many
freeholders voted against it because they were attached to the old form
of government and were against any new constitution whatever. Both
parties used uncommon exertions to bring all their voters to the polls,
and the result of the vote was, under the scrutiny of opposing interests
in legal town meetings, that the friends of the people's constitution
brought to the polls probably not over 7,000 to 7,500 votes. The whole
vote against the legal constitution was about 8,600. If we allow 1,000
as the number of freeholders who voted against the legal constitution
because they are opposed to any constitution, it would leave the number
of the friends of the people's constitution 7,600, or about one-third of
the voters of the State under the new qualification proposed by either
constitution.

It seems incredible that there can be 14,000 friends of the people's
constitution in the State, animated as they are by a most extraordinary
and enthusiastic feeling; and yet upon this trial, in the usual open and
fair way of voting, they should have obtained not over 7,600 votes.

The unanimity of the subsequent action of the legislature, comprehending
as it did both the great political parties--the house of representatives
giving a vote of 60 in favor of maintaining the existing government of
the State and only 6 on the other side, with a unaminimous vote in the
senate--the unanimous and decided opinion of the supreme court declaring
this extraordinary movement to be illegal in all its stages (see
----[119]), a majority of that court being of the Democratic party, with
other facts of a similar character, have freed this question of a mere
party character and enabled us to present it as a great constitutional
question.

Without presuming to discuss the elementary and fundamental principles
of government, we deem it our duty to remind you of the fact that the
existing government of Rhode I