S. No bank shall make a note or security of any kind for a smaller sum than five dollars; and the General Assembly may increase such restriction to twenty dollars. 9. No dividends of profits exceeding ten per centum per annum on the capital stock paid in shall be made; but all profits over ten per centum per annum shall be set apart and retained as a safety fund. 10. Stockholders in a bank, when an act of forfeiture of its charter is committed, or when it is dissolved or expires, shall be individually and severally liable for the payment of all its debts, in proportion to the stock owned by each. 11. Banks shall be open to inspection, under such regulations as may be prescribed by law; and it shall be the duty of the Governor to appoint a person or persons, not connected in any manner with any bank in the State, to examine at least once a year into their state and condition; and the officers of every bank shall make quarterly returns to the Governor, of its state and condition, and the names of the stockholders, and shares held by each. 12. Non user for the space of one year, or any act of a corporation, or those having the control and management thereof, or intrusted therewith, inconsistent with or in violation of the provisions of this constitution, or of its charter, shall cause its forfeiture; and the General Assembly shall, by general law, provide a summary process for the sequestration of its effects and assets, the appointment of officers to settle its affairs; and no forfeited charter shall be restored. The foregoing provisions shall not be construed to prevent the General Assembly from imposing other restrictions and provisions, in the creation of corporations. 13. The General Assembly shall not pledge the faith and credit of the State to raise funds in aid of any corporation whatsoever. 14. The General Assembly shall, at its first session, have power to regulate, restrain, and control all associations claiming to exercise corporate privileges in the State, so as to guard, protect, and secure the interests of the people of the State, not violating vested rights or impairing the obligation of contracts. ARTICLE XIV. Amendments and revision of the constitution. 1. No convention of the people shall be called, unless by the concurrence of two-thirds of each House of the General Assembly. 2. No part of this constitution shall be altered, unless a bill to alter the same shall have been read three times in the House of Representatives, and three times in the Senate, and agreed to by two-thirds of each House of the General Assembly; neither shall any alteration take place, until the bill so agreed to be published six months previous to a new election for members to the House of Representatives; and if the alteration proposed by the General Assembly shall be agreed to, at their first session, by two-thirds of each House of the General Assembly, after the same shall have been read three times on three several days in each House, then, and not otherwise, the same shall become a part of the constitution. ARTICLE XV. The seat of Government. 1. The seat of Government of the State of Florida shall be and remain permanent at the city of Tallahassee, for the term and time of five years from and after the end of the first session of the General Assembly to be holden under this constitution; and, after the expiration of the said five years, the General Assembly shall have power to remove the seat of Government from Tallahassee, and fix the same at any other point; provided, that the General Assembly shall, immediately after the expiration of ten years from the end of the said first session thereof, fix permanently the seat of Government. ARTICLE XVI. General provisions. 1. The General Assembly shall have no power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves. 2. They shall have no power to prevent emigrants to this State from bringing with them such persons as may be deemed slaves by the laws of any one of the United States: provided, they shall have power to enact Jaws to prevent the introduction of any slaves who may have committed crimes in other States. 3. The General Assembly shall have power to pass laws to prevent free negroes, mulattoes, and other persons of color, from immigrating to this State, or from being discharged from on board any vessel, in any of the ports of Florida. 4. Treason against the State shall consist only in levying war against it, or in adhering to its enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason, unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or his confession in open court. 5. Divorces from the bonds of matrimony shall not be allowed but by the judgment of a court, as shall be prescribed by law. 6. The General Assembly shall declare, by law, what parts of the common law and what parts of the civil law, not inconsistent with this constitution, shall be in force in this State. 7. The oaths of officers, directed to be taken under this constitution, may be administered by any judge or justice of the peace of the Territory or State of Florida, until otherwise prescribed by law. ARTICLE XVII. Schedule and ordinance. In order that no inconvenience may arise from the organization and establishment of the State Government, it is declared: 1. That all laws or parts of laws now in force, or which may be hereafter passed by the Governor and Legislative Council of the Territory of Florida, not repugnant to the provisions of this constitution, shall continue in force until, by operation of their provisions or limitations, the same shall cease to be in force, or until the General Assembly of this State shall alter or repeal the same; and all writs, actions, prosecutions, judgments, and contracts, shall be and continue unimpaired; and all process which has heretofore issued, or which may be issued prior to the last day of the first session of the General Assembly of this State, shall be as valid as if issued in the name of the State; and nothing in this constitution shall impair the obligation of contracts, or violate vested rights, either of individuals, or of associations claiming to exercise corporate privileges in this State. 2. All fines, penalties, forfeitures, obligations, and escheats, accruing to the Territory of Florida, shall accrue to the use of the State of Florida. 3. All recognizances heretofore taken, or which may be taken before the organization of the judicial department under this constitution, shall remain valid, and shall pass over to, and may be prosecuted in the name of the State; and all bonds executed to the Governor of the Territory of Florida or to any other officer in his official capacity, shall pass over to the Governor or other proper State authority, and to their successors in office, for the uses therein respectively expressed, and may be sued for and recovered accordingly; and all criminal prosecutions and penal actions which have arisen, or which may arise before the organization of the judicial department under this constitution, and which shall then be depending, may be prosecuted to judgment and execution in the name of the State. 4. All officers, civil and military, now holding their offices and appointments in the Territory under the authority of the United States, or under the authority of the Territory, shall continue to hold and exercise their respective offices and appointments until superseded under this constitution; and all actions at law or suits in chancery, or any proceeding pending, or which may be pending, in any court of the Territory of Florida, may be commenced in or transferred to such court of the State as may have jurisdiction of the subject-matter thereof. 5. This constitution shall be submitted to the people, for ratification, at the election for delegate on the first Monday of May next. Each qualified voter shall express his assent or dissent to the constitution, by directing the managers of said election to write, opposite to his name, on the poll-book, either the word "constitution" or "no constitution." And in case the time of election for delegate be changed to any other day than the first Monday of May next, then the judges or clerks of the county courts, respectively, shall appoint managers to hold an election on the said first Monday of May, for ratification of the constitution; and said managers shall conduct said election in the manner provided by the laws of the Territory respecting elections, and make return of the result of such vote forthwith, by depositing the original poll-book in the clerk's office of their counties, respectively, and by transmitting a certificate of the result to the president of the convention, who shall forthwith make proclamation of the same; and in case the constitution be ratified by the people, and immediately after official information shall have been received that Congress have approved the constitution, and provided for the admission of Florida, the president of this convention shall issue writs of election to the proper officers, in the different counties, enjoining them to cause an election to be held for Governor, Representative in Congress, and members of the General Assembly, in each of their respective counties. The election shall be held on the first Monday after the lapse of sixty days following the day of the date of the President's proclamation, and shall take place on the same day throughout the State. The said election shall be conducted according to the then existing election laws of the Territory of Florida; provided, however, that in case of the absence or disability of the president of the convention to cause the said election to be carried into effect, the secretary of this convention shall discharge the duties hereby imposed upon the president; and, in case of the absence or disability of the secretary, a committee consisting of five, to wit: Leigh Read, George T. Ward, James D. Westcott, jr., Thomas Brown, and Leslie A. Thompson, or a majority of them, shall discharge the duties herein imposed on the secretary of the convention; and the members of the General Assembly, so elected, shall assemble on the fourth Monday thereafter at the seat of Government. The Governor, Representative in Congress, and members of the General Assembly, shall enter upon the duties of their respective offices immediately after their election under the provisions of this constitution, and shall continue in office in the same manner, and during the same period, they would have done had they been elected on the first Monday in October. 6. The General Assembly shall have power, by the votes of two-thirds of both Houses, to accede to such propositions as may be made by the Congress of the United States upon the admission of the State of Florida into the national Confederacy and Union, if they shall be deemed reasonable and just, and to make declaration of such assent by law; and such declaration, when made, shall be binding upon the people and the State of Florida as a compact; and the Governor of the State of Florida shall notify the President of the United States of the acts of the General Assembly relating thereto; and in case of declining to accede to such propositions, or any part thereof, the General Assembly shall instruct the Senators and Representatives of the State of Florida in Congress to procure such modification or alteration thereof as may be deemed reasonable and just, and assent thereto, subject to the ratification of the General Assembly by law as aforesaid. 7. The courts of this State shall never entertain jurisdiction of any grants of land in the Floridas made by the King of Spain, or by his authority, subsequent to the twenty-fourth day of January, eighteen hundred and eighteen; nor shall the said courts receive as evidence, in any case, certain grants said to have been made by the said King of Spain in favor of the Duke of Alagon, the Count Punon Rostro, and Don Pedro de Vargas, or any title derived from either of said grants, unless with the express assent of the Congress of the United States. Done in convention, held in pursuance of an act of the Governor and Legislative Council of the Territory of Florida, entitled "An act to call a convention for the purpose of organizing a State Government," passed 30th day of January, 1838, and approved 2d February, eighteen hundred and thirty-eight. In witness whereof, the undersigned, the president of said convention, and delegates representing the people of Florida, do hereunto sign our names, this eleventh day of January, anno Domini eighteen hundred and thirty-nine, and of the independence of the United States of America the sixty-third year; and the secretary of said convention doth countersign the same. ROBERT RAYMOND REID, President. E. Carrington Cabell, Jose Simeon Sanchez, J. B. Brown, I certify that the foregoing is a true copy from the original. JOSHUA KNOWLES, Secretary. [No. 46.]-AN ACT to take the sense of the people of this Territory on the policy and propriety of becoming a State. SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the Governor and Legislative Council of the Territory of Florida, That, at the next election for delegate to Congress for this Territory, it shall be the duty of the judges or inspectors of the election aforesaid, at every place or precinct where any such election may be held, to put the question to every voter who may present himself to vote, whether said voter wishes a State or Territorial Government; and the judges aforesaid, if he shall answer, shall, before any ballot is put into the box, write on the back of every ballot the answer of the voter presenting the same-State or Territory-as his answer may be; after which, the ballot shall be put into the box; and the judges of any such election shall, when they count over the votes, specify and set forth, in their certificate of the election held by them, to the Governor, how many votes were given for a State, and how many for a Territory; and the Governor shall, in his proclamation of the election, declare how many votes were for a State, and how many were for a Territory. SEC. 2. Be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of the sheriff of every county in this Territory to ascertain, by the first day of June next, the number of inhabitants, male and female, white, black, and colored, which may be in the several counties; and the sheriff of every county aforesaid shall immediately thereafter transmit, in triplicate, to the treasurer of the Territory, a certified copy of the number of persons found in the several counties, in the manner before mentioned; and the treasurer shall report to the next Legislative Council, in the first week of its session, |