The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1900-11-28
&lattgman 4 SOurnaI
WEDNESDAY,, NOVEMBER %. 1yOo.
Constitutional Amendments.

OF the four proposals to amend the
Constitution the Senate has rejected
three-alowing proposals of amend
ment to be made at the regular bien-
nial sessions; changing time of holding
State election from September to No
vember, and meeting Of General AS
sembly from October TO January; di-
viding the State into thirty senatorial
districts according TO population. The
proposal authorizing the Legislature to
provide by law for filing vacancies in
the office of State Senator and of town
Representative was adopted.
All these proposals had merit, all
were important-the first of fundamen-
tai importance, and the third of almost
equal merit, embodying as it id the
principle, fundamental in Repubi-
can form of government, of represen-
tation on the basis of population. Other
strong reasons for its adoption were
given by its immediate onsor,Senator
Dunnet5. But the first was of primary
Importance. The fourth is entirely
right and proper, but of very little prac-
teal consequence, being chiefly mat
ter of detail.
A vote of the Senate to propose
these amendments to the House for its
concurrence would not be final. The
proceeding was simply initiatory, like
the introduction and first reading Of a
bill. Two stages would have to be
traversed before final adoption and in
corporation into the Constitution. Each
would have 10 be adopted by both
houses Of the General Assembly of 1902,
and be subsequently ratified by the vot-
ers at the March meeting of 1903,
The matter Of final action, or of action
looking to fnality, is lodged with the
next succeeding Legislature and with
the people. 1t was the office of the
Senate to propose, of the next sue
ceeding General Assembly and after
that the people to dispose. But the
Senate seems to have assumed the
right and exercised the power to pass
upon the merits of the proposals and to
settle finally the fate of three of them,
at least for ten years. This looks like
sheer usurpation.
The action of the Senate, in the in
stances specified, seems to be contrary
to the spirit of the amendment of 1870
respecting proposals of amendment
to the Constitution. Under its con-
etruction Of its province in the business
of initiating amendments, eleven SEN
ators have it in their power forever to
defeat even proposal to change the
fundamental law of the State, no mat
ter how strong the demand for change
may be, or how pressing the emer-
gency requiring a change. This is
popular government with vengeance.
1t is not, however, more inconsistent
with Republican principles than theCon-
shtution itself in respect of the basis of
representation in the General Assem-
bly,. The action of the Senate consists
only with the glazing inconsistency of
the Constitution, in the matter OF rep
resentation, which makes the little
town of Baltimore or Somerset or St.
George, with it's BAKERS dozen of vot-
ers, the peer in the House Of Represen-
tatives of Burlington with her 5000
voters. Dirt, not people, is made the
basis of representation; territorial
area varying all the way from thou
sand acres to thirty odd thousand, in
the two hundred and forty-six NUM-
cipalities of the State, sends it's one
Representative up TO the General AS
sembly.
The Constitution is wholly unrepub-
licsn. 1t was republican when it was
framed and adapted to the require
ments of State of some $4,000 inhab-
itants, abiding in wilderness. 1t is I'M
republican in its application to the
needs and requirements of commu-
nifty existing century and quarter
after its adoption. The document, as
it exists today, is an anachronism, a
bepatched, incoherent, inconsistent,
ramshackle affair, which, existing in
any State of the South, would excite
derision and incur fierce denunciation
for its disregard of the commonest prin-
ciple of popular government. And yet
this instrument, this burlesque on pop
ular government lis 30 sacred in the eyes
of some people that they look aghast
upon propositions to amend it in order
to bring it into harmony with republi-
can principles and with modern times.
The defects of the fundamental law
are aggravated many fold by the very
injurious political customs which have
grown up under it-that one in partic-
MAR which hianniallu Ala tho Ganaral