he
people from their duty of taking the census," (although he adds that he
does not know that such was the fact,) "while in others the officers
utterly refused to do their duty." "I know," he says, "that the people
of some of those counties ardently desired to be represented in the
Convention, for they afterwards, under the statements of Governor Walker
and myself, that they would probably be admitted, elected delegates and
sent them up to the Convention; but they were not admitted to seats."
In consequence of this failure or refusal to do their duty, only
the geographical half or the numerical fourth of the Territory was
represented in the Convention. Nor is it any excuse for the defaulting
officers, even if it had been true, that some of the people opposed the
execution of their duty. They professed to be acting under law; their
functions were plainly prescribed to them; and they were bound to make
the census and registry, whatever the disposition of the people. In a
land of laws, it is the law, and not any mere prevailing sentiment,
which prescribes and limits official duty. There is, however, no
evidence that the discharge of their task was rendered impossible by the
popular opposition, while there is evidence that they were very willing
to neglect it, and very willing to allow any obstacle, no matter how
trivial, to obstruct their performance of it. They were, in truth, as
everybody knows, the simple tools of the faction which started this
Convention movement, and not at all desirous to secure a fair and
adequate representation of the inhabitants.

That many of the people should be careless of the registration, and even
unfriendly to it, is natural, because they disapproved the plan, and
were hostile to the ends of the Convention. They doubted the authority
by which it had been summoned; they doubted both the validity and the
probable fairness of an election under such authority; and, moreover,
they were indifferent as to its proceedings, because they had been
assured that they would be called upon to pronounce _pro_ or _con_ upon
its results. The Convention, as actually constituted when assembled,
consisted of sixty delegates, representing about 1,800 voters, in an
electoral body of 12,000 in all,--or one delegate to thirty voters! A
convention so composed ought to have been ashamed of the very pretence
of acting in the name of the whole people. It would have been ashamed of
it, if it had contained men sincerely a