Addresses: by John A. Martin. Delivered in Kansas.Martin, John Alexander
History
Addresses: by John A. Martin. Delivered in Kansas.
Martin, John Alexander
Kansas
It is doubtful whether the organic law of any other State in the Union
has more successfully survived the mutations of time and inconstant
public sentiment, and the no less fluctuating necessities of a
swiftly-developing Commonwealth. Of its seventeen articles, only four,
and of its one hundred and seventy-eight sections, only eight, have ever
been amended. And of the eight amendments adopted, only five have
revoked or modified the principles or policy originally formulated, the
others being changes demanded by the growth of the State, or by the
events of the civil war. The first amendment, ratified in 1861, provides
that no banking institution shall issue circulating notes of a less
denomination than $1—the original limitation being $5. In 1864 the
provision requiring all bills to originate in the House of
Representatives, was repealed; and a section intended to prevent U. S.
soldiers from voting, but which was so worded that it deprived our
volunteers of that right, was also repealed. In 1867 an amendment was
adopted disfranchising all persons who aided the “Lost Cause,” or who
were dishonorably discharged from the army of the United States, or who
had defrauded the United States or any State during the war. In 1868 the
State Printer amendment was ratified. In 1873 the number of Senators and
Representatives, originally limited to 33 and 100, respectively, was
increased to 40 and 125. In 1875 three propositions, each having in view
biennial instead of annual sessions of the Legislature, were adopted.
And in 1880 the Prohibition amendment was ratified. These are all the
changes that have been made in our organic law during nearly a quarter
of a century.
PARTING AT WYANDOTTE.
It would violate the proprieties of such an occasion to comment on the
personal feuds or partisan broils which once or twice marred the general
harmony and orderly progress of the proceedings. These were very few,
indeed, and none of them, I think, outlasted the Convention. The members
parted, when the final adjournment came, with mutual respect and
good-will, and the friendships formed during the session have been
unusually warm and enduring.
SUBSEQUENT HISTORY.
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