Presidential Candidates:: Containing Sketches, Biographical, Personal and Political, of Prominent Candidates for the Presidency in 1860Bartlett, D. W. (David W.)
History
Presidential Candidates:: Containing Sketches, Biographical, Personal and Political, of Prominent Candidates for the Presidency in 1860
Bartlett, D. W. (David W.)
Statesmen -- United States; United States -- Biography
"Now, let us stop to inquire how they redeemed the pledge to
submit the constitution to the people. They first go on and make a
constitution; then they make a schedule, in which they provide
that the constitution, on the 21st of December, the present month,
shall be submitted to all the _bonâ fide_ inhabitants of the
territory, on that day, for their free acceptance or rejection, in
the following manner, to wit: Thus acknowledging that they were
bound to submit it to the will of the people, conceding that they
had no right to put it into operation without submitting it to the
people, providing in the instrument that they should take effect
from and after the date of its ratification, and not before;
showing that the constitution derives its vitality, in their
estimation, not from the authority of the convention, but from
that vote of the people to which it was to be submitted for their
acceptance or rejection. How is it to be submitted? It shall be
submitted in this form: 'Constitution with Slavery, or
Constitution with no Slavery.' All men must vote for the
constitution, whether they like it or not, in order to be
permitted to vote for or against slavery. Thus a constitution made
by a convention that had authority to assemble and petition for a
redress of grievances, but not to establish a government. A
constitution made under a pledge of honor that it should be
submitted to the people before it took effect; a constitution
which provides on its face, that it shall have no validity, except
what it derives from such submission, is submitted to the people
at an election where all men are at liberty to come forward
freely, without hindrance, and vote for it, but no man is
permitted to record a vote against it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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