Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1880-10-27
Constitutional Amendments.

BY an amendment to the state consti
tuition, adopted in 1870, the senate is made
a sort of dry dock into which the ship OF
state may be towed once in ten years for
the purpose of examining her hull with a
view to making any changes or repairs the
storms and buffetings of decade may have
rendered necessary. The present legislative
session is the first under the new order OF
things which admits Of docking the old
ship, and accordingly she has been run into
the senate and the constitution thinkers have
commenced overhauling her. Inspector
Dunton advises that the biennial overhaul
ing of masts, yards, sails and rigging shall
be made while the ship is tied up during
the closing Of navigation by winters ice
and snow,-in other words that the general
assembly shall meet biennially on the first
Wednesday in January instead of October,
and that the first election under the amend
ment shall be held on the first Tuesday
after the first Monday in November in 1886.
This amendment aims at placing Vermont
in harmony with many of her sister states
in the matter of holding her elections, and
it is believed that, ultimately, uniformity
among all the states in this respect will be
secured in the interest of fair and impair
tial exercise of the right of suffrage. State
and national elections would then be held
simultaneously at a saving of time and ex.
pense and useless wear and tear of cam
paign machinery in the crisp autumn air,
instead of lighting our political fires at a
time when old Sol and the dog star combine
to render mortals sufficiently uncomfortable
without the added intensity of political
caloric. Our Solons would assemble at
season conducive 10 cool consideration of
weighty matters. At time when the mer-
curry is hunting the lower regions of the
thermometer for place marked by two
fair sized digits, hot headed legislation
would seem to be an impossibility but for
the fact that rather warm job was once
done by the legislature at an extra session
in the dead of winter when the reform
school was bounced out of Waterbury so
quickly that people hardly knew where it
went. And then, instead of being hurried
home by the savory odors that exhale from
thanksgiving tables in the late November
days, leaving much of their work at skies
and at sevens," the sunny days that announce
the advent of "sap weather would be the
goal at which the legislative locomotive
would whistle down-brakes, and many of
the evils of hasty or incomplete legislation
might disappear under this change. Still,
we apprehend that there is reasonable
doubt whether the farmers will wish to ex-
change their "freemen's meeting" day in
the mellow September weather for the
bleak air and sunless days of early Novem.
Der, and whether they will relish as keenly
sojourn at the capital amid the snow
blockades and singing cold of midwinter
as during the milder and freer autumnal
weather. But another time will come when
this and the following proposals of amend
ments can be more pertinently discussed
than the present.
Senator Gleed desires to interpose con-
stitutional prohibition against towns pledg-
ing their credit or creating in any way debt
in aid of railroads. The experience of many
towns in the state during the past ten years
in the matter of railway building will gain
this provision a favorable hearing.
Senator Henry apparently leads forlorn
hope in his proposal to reduce the number
of the ships crew in the forecastle to one
hundred and fifty. Against the abstract
doctrine on which it is proposed to construct
a new house of representatives consisting of
one hundred and fifty members, apportioned
among counties according to population, very
little can be said. As theory, much might
be written in its favor. Practically we be-
lieve it is impossible to secure the adoption
of this proposal, nor is the argument alto
gether in favor of its adoption.
Senator Dana desires to give the state an
opportunity to return to annual elections
and sessions of the Legislature. The tend
ency among other states is towards less fire.
quent elections, even where annual sessions
are maintained. Having tried the new sys-
tenn ten years, it is, perhaps no more than
just to give the people an opportunity to say
how they like it.
Senator Stafford proposes that no execu-
tive or Judicial Office shall be filled by
member of the legislature. Reason and |
common sense justify this prohibition.
If these or any other amendments that |
may be proposed at this session pass the |
senate by vote of two-thrds of its mem-
beers, and they are concurred in by ma.
jority of the members of the house. they will |
be referred to the next general assembly, |
and if majority of the senate and house
respectively concur in the same proposals of |
amendment or any of them, the general as
sembly is directed to submit the amendments
concurred in to direct vote of the freemen
of the state, and such of the amendments as
receive majority of the votes of the free.
men voting thereon shall become part of
the constitution of this state. This, in sub
stance is the ordeal through which an amend
ment must pass to become part of the or
ganic law of the state.