3. Residence in the State for the year preced ing. Our present Constitution requires that naturalization shall precede voting by at least ten days; 4. Residence in the election district for the last a memorial referred to us asks that this interval thirty days. 5. Freedom from crime. 6. Exemption from dependence on through pauperism or guardianship. be extended to sixty days. We have fixed on thirty days as the proper time. We would stop others the hunting out and dragging up before courts of indifferent and often reluctant immigrants in order The material changes we recommend are these, to crowd them into citizenship, in order to affect 1st. Strike out all discriminations based on color. by their votes the result of a pending election. Slavery, the vital source and only plausible ground This is the object of the present requirement of of such invidious discrimination, being dead, not ten days' interval; and it will be far more comonly in this State, but throughout the Union, as pletely accomplished by extending the prescribed it is soon to be, we trust, throughout this hemis-term to thirty days. It is well, moreover, that phere, we can imagine no tolerable excuse for the terms of citizenship and residence in the elecperpetuating the existing proscription. Whites tion district should be identical, so as to avoid and blacks are required to render like obedience complexity and possible misapprehension. Should to our laws, and are punished in like measure for we extend the interval between naturalization their violation. Whites and blacks were in- and voting to sixty days, the change would be discriminately drafted and held to service to fill inveighed against as impelled by a spirit of hosour State's quotas in the war whereby the Repub-tility to adopted citizens, or by a desire to impede lic was saved from disruption. We trust that we naturalization. We trust the Convention will asare henceforth to deal with men according to sent to our proposition. their conduct, without regard to their color. If so, the fact should be embodied in the Constitution. specific and unambiguous as possible, and to fix them, so far as may be, in the Constitution. We propose that public paupers shall not be voters. We hold that to allow the inmates of almshouses, subsisting upon the charity of the As to disfranchisement of criminals and lawbreakers, what we propose is very nearly identical with what is now prescribed, partly by the ConWe ask you to abolish the present requirement stitution, partly by statute. It has seemed to us of four months' residence in a county as a pre-advisable to make the qualifications of voters as requisite to voting. This exaction bears hardly on such residents of cities as spend their summer mainly in the country, and cannot afford to maintain a double residence. Thousands of intelligent and patriotic young mechanics, employed as carpenters, bricklayers, painters, plumbers, gas-public, to vote, is to accord an excessive influence fitters, etc., by masters located in our great cities, are sent out to work in neighboring counties for periods over which they have no control, and in November find their right to vote anywhere questionable, if not invalid. Hundreds of Methodist and other clergymen who are assigned to new charges in summer, find themselves disfranchised ⚫when our State election comes around. Under circumstances which impel doubt as to the right of a citizen to vote, the conscientious refraiu, while the unscrupulous insist. We hold it wise to abolish a requirement which debars thousands of capable and worthy citizens, while it is a constant incitement to distortion or suppression of truth, to dissimulation and perjury. and power over the results of our elections to the keepers of those establishments, whose retention in office is often at stake, each of whom can appeal with effect to his boarders not to vote him out of house and home. The end is now awkwardly contemplated in the provision that no pauper shall gain or lose a residence by reason of his stay in an almshouse; but it is evaded by sending the paupers, under watchful keepers, just prior to an important election, to the towns or wards whence they came, there to be registered and vote, when they are welcomed back to their old haunts as patriots who have been absent in their country's and their keeper's service. Specific disfranchisement will add to the wholesome horror of pauperism now cherished by most Americans, and there seems to be no good reason for allowing paupers to govern by their votes the policy of our country and State, and at the same time enabling them to supersede a keeper who may have been so cruel as to require the able-bodied among them to work. At all events, let this matter be dealt with frankly. At present, a resident in any county for four months is allowed to vote at the poll of any district wherein he actually resides on the day of election, though he may be a total stranger in that district, and does not pretend to have resided in it two days, only he must vote to fill an office he could not have voted to fill before his change of residence. But how are inspectors to know the contents of his folded ballot? And how are Having thus briefly set forth the considerations frauds to be prevented in districts where the pre- which seem to us decisive in favor of the few and ponderance of one party is overwhelming? It moderate changes proposed above, we proceed to seems advisable to your committee to require an indicate our controlling reasons for declining absolute residence by the voter of thirty days in to recommend other and, in some respects, more the district where he tenders his ballot. This important innovations. will give time for proper scrutiny, and will, when Your committee does not recommend an extenaccompanied by an efficient registry, afford a sub-sion of the elective franchise to women. stantial barrier against fraud. And the cases ever defensible in theory, we are satisfied that must be few indeed where the requirement of a public sentiment does not demand, and would not thirty days' residence before voting will work sustain, an innovation so revolutionary and sweepindividual hardship or affect the result of an im-ing, so openly at war with a distribution of duties portant election. and functions between the sexes as venerable and How pervading as government itself, and involving | confident that the experience of our State and of transformations so radical in social and domestic the civilized world, fully justifies these requirelife. Should we prove to be in error on this head, ments. Unless the ballot-box is to be regarded the Convention may overrule us by changing a and treated as a spittoon, no person should be few words in the first section of our proposed allowed to vote whose right to do so is not fully article. ascertained and unquestionable. In a rural neighNor have we seen fit to propose the enfranchise-borhood, where every one who approaches the ment of boys above the age of eighteen years. ballot-box is known to dozens of either party, the The current of ideas and usages in our day, but frauds of unregistered voting may be mainly conespecially in this country, seems already to set fined to those districts where the ascendency quite too strongly in favor of the relaxation, if of one party is practically unchecked; but in not total overthrow of parental authority, espec- any densely peopled districts where hundreds offer ially over half-grown boys. With the sincerest to vote who are known only to their few cronies, good will for the class in question, we submit that the case is totally different. Not to register the they may spend the hours which they can spare names of the voters, so as to give time for defrom their labors and their lessons more usefully liberate and general scrutiny, not merely by the and profitably in mastering the wisdom of the few who may chance to be present when a parsages and philosophers who have elucidated the ticular vote is tendered, is to stimulate knavery science of government, than in attendance on mid- and offer a premium on fraud. It is to pronight caucuses or in wrangling around the polls. claim the right of suffrage worthless and The proposition that a tax should be assessed proffer to each vagrant or felon half a dozen on and collected from voters, is commended, like votes at every election which he may condesome others by plausible analogies. The rightful scend to patronize. To uphold a registration and intimate connection between taxation and of deeds, yet oppose a registration of voters, Representation was a potent watchword of our is virtually to assert a higher value, a more Revolutionary fathers; yet we cannot ignore precious importance in our lands than in our the fact that the Constitution of 1821 having like liberties. Doubtless some frauds will be commitits predecessors, embodied this principle, an amend-ted where suffrage is so nearly universal, no matment striking out this qualification and thus ter what safeguards may be thrown around the establishing manhood suffrage, was adopted by the elective franchise; but to maintain that registraLegislature of 1825, and ratified by an overwhelm-tion, while it does afford protection to the titles ing popular vote in 1826; yeas, 127,077; nays, 3,215. We do not feel called upon to appeal from their judgment. whereby we hold our lands, will give none to our right of suffrage is to defy reason and insult our common sense. Your committee would urge that this precious right, so fundamental to all others, be carefully shielded from corruption, and that the main safeguards against its abuse should not be left to unstable and fluctuating statutes, but should be firmly imbedded in the Constitution. Your committee, having thus fulfilled the duty HORACE GREELEY, Nor have we chosen to adopt any of the schemes of disfranchising illiterate persons which have been referred to us. We freely admit that ignorance is a public evil and peril, as well as a personal misfortune, and we are ready to march abreast with the foremost in limiting its baleful influence. But men's relative capacity is not absolutely measured by their literary acquirements; and the State requires the illiterate, equally with others, to be taxed for her support, and to shed their blood in her defense. We prefer that she shall persist in her noble efforts to instruct and enlighten all her sons by means less invidious and more geuial than disfranchisement. Were there no other consideration impelling to this decision, we should rest on and defer to the forcible truths, that ability to read and write is not absolute, but comparative; that inspectors of election are fallible and swayed by like passions with other men-and that they might be tempted, in an exciting and closely contested election, to regard with a partial fondness, almost parental, the literary acquirements of those claimants of the franchise who were notoriously desirous of voting the ticket of those inspectors' own party, while applying a far sterner and more critical rule The undersigned, while cordially concurring in to those who should proffer the opposite ballots. many of the objects sought to be accomplished by Our present Constitution authorizes the Legis- the majority of the committee of which they are lature to pass laws designed to ascertain, by members, differ as to several of the conclusions proper proofs, the persons entitled to exercise reached by them. The undersigned would prefer the right of suffrage. We recommend that those to preserve, as far as possible, the language laws shall provide for a registration of all the of the existing Constitution, on the subject of legal voters, to be completed at least six days be- the elective franchise, to which usage and fore each State election, and that none other than the decisions of the courts have given defiregistered electors shall vote. Your committee are nite interpretations. They would prefer, also, Mr. J. BROOKS-Before the question is put upon the printing of this report, I would like to ask one or two questions. The PRESIDENT The Chair would inform the gentleman from New York [Mr. Brooks], that the report will be printed under the rules. Mr. CASSIDY, from the same committee, submitted a minority report, as follows: Uor M to retain most of the provisions of the present be respected by all when it is equal in its requirearticle in regard to the pre-requisites of residence, ments in regard to all. etc., and especially that which exacts of a nat- As respects the extension of suffrage to colored uralized citizen that he shall have perfected his the same as to white citizens of the State, the citizenship ten days before election, instead of re-undersigned submit that if the regeneration quiring, as the article proposed by the committee of political society is to be sought in the indoes, a term of thirty days. corporation of this element into the constituThe inevitable effect of the change is to deprive ency, it must be done by the direct and explicit of their votes, in the elections of 1868 and 1869, all vote of the electors. We are foreclosed from that numerous class, who on the faith of existing any other course by the repeated action of the regulations, may have declared their purpose to State. In 1846 this question was submitted become citizens, on or about the tenth day, ante- in a separate article to be voted on, at the cedent to the elections of 1866 and 1867, and who same time with the Constitution itself; and was expected to perfect their citizenship in the pre-negatived by a vote of 223,884 to 85,306. It scribed two years from that date. If the change was again submitted in 1850, and was again shall thus operate to the disfranchisement of defeated by a vote of 337,984 to 197,503. A many thousand citizens, in two important | similar submission was provided by a concurrent elections, one of which involves a contest for the resolution of the Legislature of 1859, which, by Presidency of these United States, that injustice the neglect of the State officers to provide for its will more than counterbalance any supposed good publication, was defeated; but its fate may to be attained by the change. The ten days fairly be regarded as further evidence of the interposed by the Constitution of 1846 give ample indifference of the public toward a change. time for the inspection of the registry, and of the rolls of the courts; and afford all the opportunity that either party may need to take measures against the parties to a fraud. Let us not commence the work of reforming our Constitution by practically disfranchising so large a class of our most useful citizens. we The undersigned are of opinion that the Convention will depart from its representative character if, after these repeated manifestations of the popular will, it should enact this extention of the suffrage without such a separate submission. It would be unfair to the people to declare: that, whereas, they have again and again The provision which makes the giving or the refused to accept this change, therefore taking of a bribe a ground of challenge and a dis- will incorporate it into the Constitution and qualification to vote, though it may exclude many compel them either to reject that instrument, from the suffrage, is liable to no such objection. or to accept this measure. If the reform is It aims at a great and growing evil and it strikes an organic one, and if other changes in our only at the criminal. Corruption is the leprosy political system involve this also; and if, of political society, and the taint is infectious. The under new influences, popular opinion has been venality of the elector is the source of the corruption | modified, let us meet the question and decide it of the official. The representative who secures his upon its simple merits. To make it dependent seat by the expenditure of money only reimburses upon the fate of financial articles or of changes himself for his outlay, when he sells his vote or in the judicial structure, or of innovations of doubtbarters his legislative influence. No penal enact-ful popularity, would be unjust to the class who ment has yet sufficed to check this evil; but in making it a ground of challenge at the polls, we call the vigilance of parties to our aid; diminish their temptation to corrupt practices; and find in their mutural rivalries the machinery of a selfexecuting law. While the undersigned believe that all registry laws are expensive, vexatious and onerous, more often depriving the honest voter of a right than closing the opportunity of fraud against a dishonest one, and while the history of political contests, shows that they have served, as the agency for many of the great conspiracies against the elective franchise; yet they regard the provision of the Committee "that all such laws shall be uniform in their requirements in every part of the State," as a compensation for many of the evils of the system, and a most valuable safeguard against abuse. It will effectually prevent the Legislature from imposing restrictions upon one community and awarding license to another; and we shall no longer have to endure the existence of three or four separate systems of election imposed on different parts of the State by the caprice or jealousy of sectional majorities. If a registration of voters is necessary before election, let every citizen be made to conform to its requirements. The law will be more likely to | solicit this extension of privileges. To force its acceptance against the convictions of the main body of the constituency, by relaxing severe but just restrictions upon delegated power, or by concessions to local or monied interests, would be an obvious wrong of which this body could not be consciously guilty. The submission of the question by itself is so direct and honest, as to tend to disarm the jealousy with which this question has been regarded by the people. It is without embarresment or difficulty in practice, and whether the mode of separate submission be extended to other articles or not, the popular will may be consulted in regard this without trouble or expense. For the sake, therefore, of disembarrassing the Convention from the further consideration of this subject, and of relieving the wise and salutary reforms to be secured by the Revised Constitution, from an unnecessary complication, the undersigned beg leave to offer the following resolution, as an amendment to the report of the majority. Resolved, That a proposition further to extend the elective franchise to colored men be submitted, to be voted on separately from the rest of the Constitution. As to the extension of suffrage to women, the # 3 : undersigned reserve, for the present, any expression of opinion. All of which is respecfully submitted. WILLIAM CASSIDY, JOHN G. SCHUMAKER. Mr. GREELEY-I was instructed by the Committee to move that the majority report be made a special order for Tuesday. I suppose this being the only report of the kind, it would naturally come up on that day, but I move that it be made the special order for Tuesday, July 9th, at 12 o'clock, M. Mr. WEED-My only objection to making this subject a special order for July 9th is this, that as I have learned, many of the members of this body wish to adjourn over and not hold sessions to-morrow or Monday, and then there would be no opportunity, on the part of the members of this body, to instruct themselves from the report made by the committee. They would have no opportunity to see it printed or have it placed upon our files. For that reason, it seems to me, it should not be made a special order on Tuesday. As the gentleman from Westchester [Mr. Greeley] has said, this being the only report of the kind, as a general order, it would come up on Tuesday, if printed, and the Convention vote to take it up; but if two-thirds of this body vote to make it a special order, it will require a two-thirds vote, at that time, to postpone it, whether a majority of the Convention wish to take it up or not. probable we shall have a quorum. It is very important that we should understand this proposition. At whatever time this shall come up, I have no doubt that every member will desire to be present, if not to take part in the discussion, at least to hear the discussion, and be present to record his vote for or against the report. I hope, therefore, we shall make it a special order. Mr. ALVORD-I desire to continue my remarks but a very few moments longer. It is an impossibility in the position we now occupy-the probability being there will be hardly a quorum present in this Convention to-morrow, and we shall adjourn over unquestionably until Monday if not still farther-that we shall have this document in a printed form laid upon our tables so we can look over and examine it, between now and the 9th day of July. We should have it upon our tables to be enabled, if necessary to carry it home with us during the recess, so that we can look at and examine this question in reference to both these reports, and decide as to the manner in which this Convention should act. Under the rules, as they now exist, this being the only report of the kind from a standing committee it will come up as a matter of course in the general orders, and it will be then at the disposition of a majority of this Convention. Let it be so disposed of, and when we shall come together again on the 8th or 9th of July, I will go with any member of the Convention to set it down at the Mr. MERRITT This Convention has already earliest practicable moment as a special order, in ordered the printing of the proceedings and de-order that full notice can be given to members of bates in the daily newspaper to be laid upon our the time when it will come up. desks, and the objection of the gentleman from Mr. LIVINGSTON moved to amend the motion Clinton [Mr. Weed], is entirely obviated, as we by inserting "Wednesday, at 11 o'clock,” instead shall have both the report of the majority and of "Tuesday, at 12.” minority before us. Mr. GREELEY The committee had no particular choice about this matter. I supposed the Convention might have some choice as to the day, but if the Convention choose to fix another time we shall agree to it. Mr. ALVORD —I am opposed to making this a special order, and it seems to me there is great force in the remarks made by the gentleman from Clinton [Mr. Weed]. In our regular order of business to-morrow, if this report shall be laid upon our table, it comes up. Mr. MERRITTI believe, sir, I have not yielded the floor. Mr. GREELEY-I hope not, Mr. President. If the gentleman from Onondaga [Mr. Alvord] will move for an earlier day, I have no objection. I should not like to postpone the consideration of this report upon the idea that the Convention will be thin on Tuesday, as I think we have agreed to meet on Monday evening. If we set this down for Tuesday, we shall have a full session, if we put it off until Wednesday, it will be simply throwing away another day. I cannot accept the amendment of the gentleman from Kings [Mr. Livingston]. The question was then put upon the amendment of Mr. Livingston, and it was declared to be lost. The question then recurred upon the motion of The PRESIDENT- The gentleman from St. Lawrence [Mr. Merritt] says he has not yielded the floor. The Chair supposed he had yielded | Mr. Greeley. and recognized the gentleman from Onondaga [Mr. Alvord]. Which was lost by the following vote: Ayes-Messrs. A. F. Allen, N. M. Allen, Mr. MERRITT This being the first report Andrews, Archer, Axtell, Ballard, Barker, Bell, made from any standing Committee, and one of Bickford, E. A. Brown, Carpenter, Cassidy, the most important which is to come before this Clinton, Cooke, Corbett, Curtis, C. C. Dwight, body, it is very proper that we should all under- T. W. Dwight, Eddy, Ely, Endress, Farnum, stand on what day it will be taken up for con- Field, Flagler, Folger, Fowler, Francis, Frank, sideration. Resolutions, memorials and other Fuller, Garvin, Goodrich, Gould, Grant, Graves, business which is likely to come before the Greeley, Hadley, Hale, Hammond, Hand, HitchConvention, can be presented at any time cock, Houston, Huntington, Ketcham, Kinney, It is understood by this adjournment, which Landon, Lapham, A. Lawrence, M. H. Lawrence, is to take place over the 4th of July, that Lee, Livingston, Ludington, Merrill, Merritt, Merthe Convention will not come together until win, Miller, Monell, Murphy, C. E. Parker, PresiMonday or Tuesday of the next week. We dent, Prindle, Prosser, Rathbun, Reynolds, Root, may meet on Monday evening, but it is not Roy, L. W. Russell, Schumaker, Seaver, Silvester, Sheldon, Smith, Stratton, M. I. Townsend, Van Mr. GREELEY-I would inquire of the Campen, Van Cott, Wakeman, Wales, Williams-chairman of the committee [Mr. Seaver], how 78. Noes-Messrs. C. L. Allen, Alvord, Baker, Beckwith, Bergen, J. Brooks, Champlain, Chesebro, Church, Cochran, Colahan, Conger, Daly, Ferry, Gerry, Hardenburgh, Hitchman, Jarvis, Kernan, Larremore, Law, A. R. Lawrence, Mattice, More, Morris, Nelson, Paige, A. J. Parker, Potter, Robertson, Rumsey, Schell, Schoonmaker, Seymour, Spencer, Strong, Tappen, Tilden, S. Townsend, Tucker, Veeder, Weed, Wickham-43. Mr. FOLGER, from the Committee on the Judiciary, submitted the following report: many the resolution calls for? Mr. SEAVER-Sixteen hundred. The question was then put on the resolution reported by the committee, and it was declared adopted. Mr. SEAVER, from the Committee on Printing, submitted the following further report. ALBANY, JUNE 28, 1867. The Committee on Printing, to whom was referred the subject of the compensation_of_the Stenographer to the Convention, respectfully report. The standing Committee on the Judiciary reports that it has had under consideration the That after due consideration of the subject, resolution referred to it in relation to certain your committee are of opinion that the fairest information from clerks of courts, and have and most equitable plan of compensation is to pay the Stenographer a stipulated sum for a given amount of work, and your committee would, therefore, recommend the adoption of the following resolution: amended the same so as to read as follows: Resolved, That the compensation of the stenographer to this Convention be fixed at five dollars per page of the printed proceedings and debates of this Convention, as the same are now printed and placed upon the files of members; such compensation to include and cover all the expenses of assistant stenographers and clerks that may be employed by the said stenographer in the performance of any and all of his duties as stenographer to this Convention. J. J. SEAVER, Chairman. Mr. KERNAN-I would like to inquire of the chairman of the committee, about what per diem, that will give each man employed. Resolved, That the Secretary of the Convention request, by circular addressed to the clerk of each county in the State; the clerk of the Court of Common Pleas, in the city and county of New York; the clerk of the Superior Court, in the city and county of New York; the clerk of the Superior Court, in the city of Buffalo; the clerk of the City Court of the city of Brooklyn, and of any other city; the clerk of any recorder's court; the clerk of any mayor's court; the clerk of the court of General Sesssions in the city and county of New York; the clerk of the court of Oyer and Terminer of the city and county of New York; the clerk of the Marine court of the city and county of New York; that such clerks respectively report to this Convention, as speedily as practicable, how many causes were on the calendar of the court or courts of which he Mr. SEAVER-I think Mr. President, that is the clerk, at the terms thereof for the year end-will give the Stenographer a per diem of about ing January 1st, 1867, and what was the oldest twenty dollars per day, though reckoning our and what was the youngest date of issue thereof, labors to proceed as they have for the last three or (including therein the calendar of the general four weeks it will afford him but little or no compenterm, the special term, and the circuit or trial sation; it will give his principal assistant whom he term, if such term there be); and at such terms has employed, one hundred dollars per week; how many causes were argued; how many another sixty dollars; another twenty-five dollars; were submitted, and in courts where there are another eighteen dollars; another, twelve dollars trials and references, how many were tried and per week. I have consulted with persons who are how many were referred, and in the case of the familiar with the employment of stenographers clerk of a criminal court, how many indictments and who may perhaps be called experts in judgwere pending at the last term thereof, and how ing what would be a fair compensation for permany were tried or otherwise and in what manner sons engaged in that business, and I am informed disposed of. that the compensation proposed by the committee is no more than just and fair for the service required. There is one thing further, Mr. President; The question was then put on the resolution this Convention has been in the habit of adas reported by the committee, and it was declared adopted. And as amended the committee recommend the adoption of the resolution. Mr. SEAVER, from the Committee on Printing, submitted the following report: ALBANY, JUNE 28, 1867. Your Committee to whom was referred the following resolution, to wit: journing from Friday until Monday or Tuesday, and we may presume, judging from the temper of the Convention heretofore manifested, that it will hereafter adjourn, very likely from Friday till Monday, for most of the session; that seems to be the feeling, though we may be driven to a greater amount of effort, and Resolved, That twice the usual number of greater labor during the remainder of the session, copies of the Constitution, with notes and refer-after the recess to be taken to celebrate the 4th ences, be printed for the use of the Convention of July, and thus avoid such long adjournments. Respectfully recommend that the said resolution But it must be borne in mind that, while the Conbe agreed to, and that copies thereof, as fast as vention is thus adjourning, the stenographer, has printed, be placed upon the files of this Conven- to remain here, and also keep his force of assisttion. ants under pay, so as to command their services whenever the Convention returns to its duties. J. J. SEAVER, Chairman. |