And now, in conclusion, while thanking gentlemen for the kind attention with which they have honored me, let me express briefly the result to which I have come. I have openly declared my convictions with regard to the District System, and in accordance with these have recorded my votes in this Convention. These votes, which reveal my inmost desires on this matter, I would not change. But the question is not now between the District System, which I covet so much for Massachusetts, and the proposed amendments, but between these amendments and the existing system. On this issue I decide without hesitation. I shall vote, Sir, for the propositions of amendment before the Convention, should they come to a question on their final passage, not because they are all that I desire, not because they satisfy the requirement of principles which I cannot deny, not because they constitute a permanent adjustment of this difficult question, but because they are the best which I can now obtain, because they reform grievances of the existing system, and because they begin a change which can end only in the establishment of a Representative System founded in reality, as in name, on _Equality_. Their adoption will be the triumph of conciliation and harmony, and will furnish new testimony to the well-tempered spirit of our institutions, where "jarring interests, reconciled, create The according music of a well-mixed State." BILLS OF RIGHTS: THEIR HISTORY AND POLICY. SPEECH ON THE REPORT FROM THE COMMITTEE ON THE BILL OF RIGHTS, IN THE CONVENTION TO REVISE AND AMEND THE CONSTITUTION OF MASSACHUSETTS, JULY 25, 1853. As Chairman of the Committee on the Bill of Rights, Mr. Sumner submitted a Report, on which, in Committee of the Whole, he spoke as follows. Mr. Chairman,--As Chairman of the Committee on the Preamble and Bill of Rights, it is my duty to introduce and explain their Report. It will be perceived that it is brief, and proposes no important changes. But in justice to the distinguished gentlemen with whom I have the honor of being associated on that Committee, I deem it my duty to suggest that the extent of their labors must not be judged by this result. It appears from the proceedings of the Convention of 1820, that the Committee on the Bill of Rights at that time sat longer than any other Committee. I believe that the same Committee in the present Convention might claim the same preëminence. Their records show twenty different sessions.