Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1852-01-10
Revision of the Constitution.

GNcVlSkOn OF the CONSTITUTIONS
Our readers have no doubt remarked, among
the TRANSACTIONS Of the State Legislature, on
Wednesday, the merion of Colonel Schouler, of
the Alias, that it be
Ordered, That -, with such as the Senate
may Join, be a committee to take into considera-
tiOn the propriety of amending the Constitution
Of the Commonwealth, so as 10 accomplish,
among other things, substantially the following
results:
lst Senate of forty members, to be chosen
in single Senatorial Districts
I'd. A House Of Representatives Of from two
TO three hundred members, (mcre or Iess) which
shall give representation Of the people, founded
upon the principle of equality.
Sd. To provide for the election, directly by the
people, Of all officers who are now appointed by
the Governor and Council, except those of
judicial character
4th. To make the plurality system apply in all
elections for State officers by the people.
What Free Soiler or Democrat would have
supposed, after the late vehement and terrible de.
nunciaiions uttered by the Wings against the pro-
posal for Convention, to revise and amend the
Constitution, that such motion would come from
such source: We do not say this particularly
in reference TO the reforms specified in Mr..
Schouer's motion, but we say it in relation to the
specific admission which that n elton makes, of
there being necessity for the amendment of the
Constitution
Who does not remember WIKI what bursts of
fierce declamaon~Lhe Wing presses, and Wing
orators met the appeal to the people for Con-
yenton for this purpose? Who does not remem-
1, IL. r
arguments, they assailed the 'sCoalition,'' for
daring to hint that the Constitution needed
amendment? And now. almost at the first mo-
mens of the meeting Of the Legislature, Mr..
Schouler proposes, in the House of Representa-
tiVes, that the Constitution shall be amended
Two months ago it was pronounced by the
Wings to be Gothism, compounded with Vandal-
ism, to propose the simplest amendment of the
Constitution 1t was declared by all the Wings in
''Goihanl,' and the rest Of the Commonwealth, to
be atteck upon the glory. stability, and virtue
of Massachusetts, hint at the possibility or
necessity of such amendment AL who favored
the amendment of the Constitution were de-
nounced reckless innovators, and unprinciped
destructives; and even the Atlas was not sure that
they were not infected with the furlons blindness
and levellmg zeal of the Red Republicans of
France.
But 1t seems that the ideas of Gothism and
Vandalism have become fashionable now. The
barbarism Of progress has attained to respectable
ty, since the defeat OF the Wings. The laws,
whichwere necessary to our predecessors twenty
nine years ago, and which they passed in view
of their own circumstances, are not, after all, the
perfection of wisdom, and sufficient for the neces-
sites of Massachusetts, in all coming time In
short, the principles and propositions of the g Co.
alltion,' as the Wings designated the friends Of
full, fair, and free representation, were not bad
principles after all; it only the coalition
III the abstract, that was s'vile, VANDALISM, and
venal,' and all that sort of thing.
We have always expected that Wing
friends would see the error of their recent ways,
and that good handsome defeat at the polls
would open their eyes little, but we never ex-
pected that Colonel Schouler would have made
such desperate jump for The g Coalition train''
he has done, by introducing an order to revise
the Constitution, even before the Legislature was
organized.