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laws as temporary, and at the succeeding session to declare them permanent. In practice under this clause of the constitution, bills were allowed to originate in the council as well as in the house of assembly, and in cases of disagreement between the two bodies upon any measure the matter was usually discussed in grand committee composed of both, the governor presiding. And although the final disposition of any measure was according to the pleasure of the house, the advisory power of the council had a strong tendency to prevent hasty and inconsiderate legislation. This article continued a part of the constitution until it was revised in 1786, when the provision for printing and postponing the passage of laws was expunged, and in addition to the advisory power of the governor and council, they were authorized to suspend the operation of a bill passed by the house until the next session of the legislature, when in order to become a law it must be again passed by the assembly.

This article in the original constitution in regard to the mode of enacting laws had been copied literally from the constitution of Pennsylvania, as was also a section which provided for the election by the freemen of the respective counties of "judges of inferior courts of common pleas, sheriffs, justices of the peace and judges of probate," who were to hold their offices "during good behaviour, removable by the general assembly upon proof of maladministration." The mode of choosing judges of superior courts was left to the discretion of the legislature, and they were always elected annually by joint ballot of the council and assembly; and on the revision of the constitution in 1786, it was provided that county officers should also be annually chosen in the same manner. This frame of government, thus modified, continued in operation long after the state became a a member of the federal union, furnishing the people with as much security for their persons and property as was enjoyed by those of other states, and allowing to each individual citizen all the liberty which was consistent with the welfare of others. '

'For the constitution of 1777, see Slade's State Papers, p. 241, and post. For that of 1786, see statutes of 1787. For a history of the formation of the first constitution, see Chipman's Memoir of Chittenden. See also Slade's State Papers, pp. 81, 221, and 511.

THE FIRST

CONSTITUTION

OF THE

STATE OF VERMONT,

ADOPTED

IN CONVENTION AT WINDSOR,

AT THE SESSIONS OF

JULY 2-8 AND DEC. 24, 1777.

INTRODUCTION.

THIS Constitution, with the exception of the Preamble and of less than fifty lines of the "Declaration of Rights" and "Plan or Frame of Government," is a copy of the first Constitution of Pennsylvania, which was framed in 1776 by a Convention of which BENJAMIN FRANKLIN was the President. Of one material feature, in which it differed from all the other state constitutions of that period except of Pennsylvania and Georgia, FRANKLIN was the author, and during his life a defender: this was the investment of a single body (the representatives of the towns and people, called the "General Assembly,") with exclusive and supreme legislative power, giving to the Governor, Lieutenant Governor and Council advisory power only in the preparation and amendment of bills, and executive power over laws and orders enacted by the General Assembly.

The variations in the Constitution of Vermont, from that of Pennsylvania, are all additions; and, to enable the reader to recognize them, these additions are all printed in Italic, leaving the remainder to stand as in the text of the Constitution of Pennsylvania. The most important additions,-which may be counted as the work mainly of Dr. THOMAS YOUNG, IRA ALLEN, Capt. HEMAN ALLEN, and THOMAS CHITTENDEN-are as follows:1

'See Dr. Young's letters, Appendix D. an account of Ira Allen against the State :

The following items are from

1777, Nov. 2. To 15 days going from Salisbury (Conn.) to Williamstown, (Mass.) and there with President Chittenden writing the Preamble to the Constitution, &c., from there to Bennington to confer with the Council [of Safety] respecting s'd Preamble-assisting to complete compiling from manuscript the Constitution of the State,

Expense money,

1777, Nov. 20. To cash paid John Knickerbacor for copying the Constitution for the press,

1777, Nov. 26. To 3 days going from Salisbury to Hartford to get the Constitution printed,

See Thompson's Vermont, Part II, p. 107.

£7 10 0
3 2 8

18 0

1 10 0

The editor has already suggested that the agents sent by Vermont to Congress, who had interviews with Dr. Young, would most probably be

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