nd their selection confined to single districts by a
majority of seventy-nine to thirty-one. An equally large majority
favoured the provision that no member of the Legislature should
receive from the governor or Legislature any civil appointment within
the State, or to the United States Senate. Charles O'Conor antagonised
the inhibition of an election to the United States Senate with much
learning and eloquence. He thought the power of the State to qualify
or restrict the choice of senators was inconsistent with the Federal
Constitution; but the great majority of the convention held otherwise.
Indeed, so popular did this section become that, in 1874, members of
the Legislature were prohibited from taking office under a city
government.

The period when property measured a man's capacity and influence also
seems to have passed away with the adoption of the Constitution of
1846. For the first time in the State's history, the great landholders
lost control, and provisions as to the land law became clear and
wholesome. Feudal tenures were abolished, lands declared allodial,
fines and quarter sales made void, and leases of agricultural lands
for longer than twelve years pronounced illegal. Although vested
rights could not be affected, the policy of the new constitutional
conditions, aided by the accessibility of better and cheaper lands
along lines of improved transportation, compelled landlords in the
older parts of the State to seek compromises and to offer greater
inducements. The only persons required to own property in order to
enjoy suffrage and the right to hold office were negroes, who
continued to rest under the ban until the adoption of the fifteenth
amendment to the Federal Constitution. The people of New York felt
profound interest in the great conflict between slavery and freedom,
but, for more than a quarter of a century after the Wilmot Proviso
became the shibboleth of the Barnburners, a majority of voters denied
the coloured man equality of suffrage. Among the thirty-two delegates
in the convention of 1846 who refused to allow the people to pass upon
the question of equality of suffrage, appear the names of Charles
O'Conor and Samuel J. Tilden.

The great purpose of the convention was the reform of the laws
relating to debt and to the creation of a new judicial establishment.
Michael Hoffman headed the committee charged with the solution of
financial problems. He saw the importance of devoting the resources