The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1873-05-19
TIE Contribution OF WEIR.
MONT.

Our neighbour in fit of disagrceable med
dlcsomeness, wants the constitution of the
state changed. He does not find any partcu-
lar fault with it. lie only wants it made more
convenient to alter, so that in case fault
should hereafter be found it could be SOON
or corrected. But the GLOBE thinks the
Constitution and the arrangements for its
amendment are good enough. The State
Constitution has mouldy appearance, as
anything would have that had lain like a
mummy embalmed between book covers
for nearly a round hundred years. 1t
strikes us oddly, TO be sure, to be solemnly
assured in the manner of a very ancient
grandfather looking down on us benignant-
ly through the huge round spectaclcs of
the last century, that we shall not be re-
tanned as slaves after twenty-five, any of
us, or our wives Or daughters after the age
of eighteen, even if we came ''trom over
sea-" The blessed old constitution has not
heard of the late "cruel war;" nor of the
movements by which long before our great
civil strife slavery was swept clean from
all the hills and valleys of New England
1t sounds oddly in these times of going
to and fro in undammed and unimpeded
streams of emigration, to read the fatherly
permission, allowing to all people the
fright to emigrate from one state to an
other that will receive them"
We perceive something about imprison-
ment for debt in the old text, but it has
gone the way of mortal things more than
third of a century.
We have long since past any necessity
for a provision to regulate entails, or the
time for prohibiting the forfeiture of SUI
icides estate, or the forfeiture of articles
occasioning accidental death. The latter
relic, if in force now would cause the
loss of many locomotive wheel and car
wheel.
There is starched morality about the
provision that the house of representatives
=" shall consist of persons most noted for
wisdom and virtue" We wish it could al
ways be so. But if we cannot see the pic
ture as it is painted, it is some satisfaction
to see what the artists of the constitution
intended for a likeness of our legislatures.
All these provisions are dusty, but not
unclean. They may not be all needed now,
but they are harmless, and interesting as
relics of antiquity. So there does not appear
to be anything to alter, unless it might be
the manner Of making alterations, and it
seems scarcely worth while to 90 through
with so much for so little. When altera-
tions are called for, the manner of making
them might properly he incidentally con-
sidered.
But whether any system of changing the
constitution is to he found better than that
in use now in Vermont we have serious
doubt. We do not call to mind any better
arrangement in any other State. We have
the common method of preparing amend
mcnts in one legislature, voting ON them in
the next, and then submitting them to the
people. The work of changing the con-
stitution is made matter of much deliber-
alton, can only occur at regular intervals of
ten years, and is not therefore subject to
party impulses or undue haste.
Constitutions ought not to be changed
too frequently. The proof of the wisdom
of interposing difficulties in the way of
hasty changes is shown by the amendments
of the Vermont constitution, which have
possessed two excelencies, they have been
few in number, and such as ought to have
been made. The last is the change from
annual to biennial sessions of the legisla-
ture-a decided improvement, which has so
far worked well. Legislatures are too prone
to make and unmake laws and to bless in
dividuals and corporations at the expense
of slice off the general welfare, Once
in two years will give time to note the effect
of the laws of the previous session, and
avoid keeping the State in a perpetual whirl
of new acts flung out upon partial consid-
Grafton and after inadequate experience
So long as the present system works well