ved into its original
elements, and that all disfranchised classes should have a voice
in such revision and be represented in such convention. To secure
this to the people of the State, is clearly your duty.

Says Judge Beach Lawrence, in a letter to Hon. Charles Sumner: "A
State Constitution must originate with and be assented to by a
majority of the people, including as well those whom it
disfranchises as those whom it invests with the suffrage." And as
there is nothing in the present Constitution of the State of New
York to prevent women, or black men from voting for, or being
elected as delegates to a Constitutional Convention, there is no
reason why the Legislature should not enact that the people elect
their delegates to said Convention irrespective of sex or color.
The Legislatures of 1801 and 1821 furnish you a precedent for
extending to disfranchised classes the right to vote for
delegates to a Constitutional Convention. Though the Constitution
of the State restricted the right of suffrage to every male
inhabitant who possessed a freehold to the value of L20, or
rented a tenement at the yearly value of forty shillings, and had
been rated and actually paid taxes to the State, the Legislatures
of those years passed laws setting aside all property
limitations, and providing that all men--black and white, rich
and poor--should vote for delegates to said Conventions. The act
recommending a convention for the purpose of considering the
parts of the Constitution of this State, respecting the number of
Senators and Members of Assembly--and also for the consideration
of the 23d article of said Constitution, relative to the right of
nomination to office--"but with no other power or authority
whatsoever," passed April 6, 1801. Session Laws 1801, chap. 69,
page 190, sec. 2, says:

And be it further enacted, that the number of delegates
chosen shall be the same as the number of Members of
Assembly from the respective cities and counties of the
State, and that all free male citizens of this State, of the
age of twenty-one years and upward, shall be admitted to
vote for such delegates, and that any person of that
description shall be eligible.

The above law was passed by the Legislature of 1801, which