The daily Madisonian. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1841-1845, 1842-01-08
~ ~ p,o,iJence M. vote ,,ood ,kns

As the terms "freemen and "no n freemen must h.
perfectly obivilus 10 THE independent and onfran
Chased citizens of New York, We shall exrlan them
In Rhode Island freeman u a man who baIpencd
to he the oldest OF his father or a man who ls
possessed of freehold estate, OF the value ef ons
hundred and 'hiriy-our dollars, In either case he
fore he is admitted free he must stand propnunded
three OF six calendar months We do not now exactly
recollect which, and his application must he gfsyely
considered by the 'lreenen in town meeting, and he
must prove by deed, or by the custom of pIiunogen-
turs, the may be- that he enled To his free
dom! If admitted free, after grave consultation by
the fathers he is then registered in the books and Is
allowed his suffrage II a man be worth hundreds at
thousands in personal mixed chatt'es, and has not
the freehold then he is dlsranchsed, and cannot
enjoy the right Of suffrage.
When admitted free, by forms and ccremonials 81
milar to those of the Knights of the Round Table he
can 20 10 the polls and exercise his suffrage. The
elections carried ON by ballot, and the suragan Is
required To write his name at length the back Of the
ballot ii Is then recorded in the town looks osethe
with the name OF the candidate candidates he voted
for.
The right of suffrage being restricted TO the free
holder and the oldest son of freeholder the result
is that only about one third of the mail adults Of the
State, of the age of twentyone years and upwards,
control the elections OF the whole population. All
the rest are strahchlsed-ensayed.
The mode of assessing taxes being general, and
imposed equally on freehoders and non-freeholders,
the consequence is that seyen-tenths of the State
burthens borne by the holders of personal estate
and yet they not allowed the right Of voting for
their Stale officers, for President Of the United States
or for members of Congress- And can any high
minded man, residing in or out of State wish such
state of things to exist We have not time go into
full sketch of the monstrosty of Rhode Island rule
under the old charter of Charles the Second. 1t will
be attended to hereafter.
BY the returns before us ii is to be seen that in
some OF the cities and towns even among the freed
men, OF Charles the Second, the vote for the adop-
ton OF the peoples constitution, and the establish
ment oil universal suffrage, restricted, of course by
the necessary moral guards and constitutional rules
OF liberal system Of political economy, has been
almost unanimous
In the city of Providence, one thousand aud fti,,-
eight ffenen voted for the Constitution, being it is
believed, within fifty of the sum total of King
ed over eleven hundred g Freedmens" votes during
the most exciting and desperate days of political flu
ry. 1t IS true that, in the year 1910, by the most
open and barefaced frauds the Harrison ma jory was
sweled to nearly quite thirteen hundred and fifty
On no previous occasion, since the days of Roger
Williams and old Sam Gorton, has it mustered
freehold vote beyond eleven hundred
The returns of the last three days of the canvass,
if we understand the above correctly, have not vet
been made. The polls have been kept open three
days at the public hastings, and three days after that
they were held open by committees regularly and le
galy constituted to receive the votes of the sick and
the infrm, who could not go to. the hastings They
were called upon, and their votes recorded in the
presence of witnesses The whole thing was done
by ballot, each voter endorsing his name. Rhode
Island is free, happy sovereign and independent
Long life to her