years."

[The section proposed to be amended fixes the term at two years.]

II.

In Art. X, strike out section 2.

December in the year next preceding the time | Court shall be elected by the qualified electors, of his voting, and who shall show by legal of the respective counties for the term of four proof that he has for and within the year next preceding the time he shall offer to vote paid a tax or taxes assessed against him in any town or city in this State to the amount of one dollar, or that he has been enrolled in a military company in this State, been equipped and done duty therein, according to law, and at least for one day during such year, shall have a right to vote in the election of all civil officers and on all questions in all legally organized town or ward meetings: Provided, That no person shall at any time be allowed to vote in the election of the city council of the city of Providence, or upon any proposition to impose a tax, or for the expenditure of money in any town or city, unless he shall within the year next preceding have paid a tax assessed upon his property therein, valued at least at one hundred and thirty-four dollars.

SEC. 3. The assessors of each town or city shall annually assess upon every person whose name shall be registered a tax of one dollar, or such sum as with his other taxes shall amount to one dollar, which registry tax shall be paid into the treasury of such town or city and be applied to the support of public schools therein. But no compulsory process shall issue for the collection of any registry tax: Provided, That the registry tax of every person who has performed military duty, according to the provisions of the preceding section, shall be remitted for the year he shall perform such duty; and the registry tax assessed upon any mariner for any year while he is at sea shall, upon his application, be remitted, and no person shall be allowed to vote whose registry tax for either of the two years next preceding the time of voting is not paid or remitted, as herein provided.

The vote was:

Yeas 20,068; Nays 12,193.

[This section is as follows: "There shall be elected, biennially, in each county, by the qualified electors thereof, one school commissioner, said commissioners to constitute a State board of education, of which the State superintendent shall, by virtue of his office, be chairman; the powers, duties, and compensation of the members of said board shall be determined by law.” The effect of the adoption of the amendment would have been to make this office appointive by the Governor.]

The votes were:

I. Yeas 26,806; Nays 20,543.
Yeas 15,125; Nays 33,457.

II.

To amend Sec. 2, Art. X, so as to read:

SEC. 2. Railroads heretofore constructed or which may hereafter be constructed in this State are hereby declared public highways, and railroad companies common carriers. The legislature shall pass laws to regulate railroad freight and passenger tariffs, to correct abuses and prevent unjust discrimination and extortion in the rates of freight and passenger tariffs on the different railroads in this State, and enforce the same by adequate penalties; and to the further accomplishment of these objects and purposes may provide and establish all requisite means and agencies invested with such powers as may be deemed adequate and advisable.

[The present Sec. is in these words: "Railroads heretofore constructed, or that may hereafter be constructed in this State, are hereby declared public highways, and railroad companies common carriers. The legislature shall pass laws to correct abuses and prevent unjust discrimination and extortion in the rates of freight and passenger tariffs on the different railroads in this State; and shall from time to time pass laws establishing reasonable maximum rates of charges for the transportation of passengers and freight on said railroads, and enforce all such laws by

"SEC. 20. A Court of Probate shall be established in each county, with jurisdiction in all matters testamentary and of administration, in business appertaining to minors, and the allotment of dower, in cases of idiocy and lunacy and persons non compos mentis. The Judge of said | adequate penalties."]

Three proposed Amendments were submitted other officers intrusted with the supervision of at the November election in 1888:

It was rejected-yeas 12,967, nays 18,342. [The section proposed to be amended reads: "The supervision of public instruction shall be vested in a State superintendent and such other officers as the legislature shall direct. The State superintendent shall be chosen by the qualified electors of the State, in such manner as the legislature shall provide; his powers, duties and compensation shall be prescribed by law: Provided, That his compensation shall not exceed the sum of twelve hundred dollars annually."]

This proposed Constitutional Amendment was submitted at an election on April 2, 1889:

To amend Sec. 4, Art. VII, so as to read: "The chief justice and associate justices of the Supreme Court shall be severally known as justices of said court, with the same terms of office respectively as now provided. The Supreme Court shall consist of five justices (any three of whom shall be a quorum), to be elected as now provided. The justice having been longest a continuous member of the court (or in case two or more of such senior justices having served for the same length of time, then the one whose commission first expires), shall be ex officio the chief justice; and "

The vote was: Yeas 125,759; Nays 14,712.

XIV.

INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT HARRISON, MARCH 4, 1889.

Declaration of Independence, of the battle of Yorktown, and of the adoption of the Constitution; and will shortly celebrate in New York the institution of the second great department of our constitutional scheme of Government. When the centennial of the institution of the judicial department, by the organization of the Supreme Court, shall have been suitably observed, as I trust it will be, our Nation will have fully entered its second century.

There is no Constitutional or legal require- | ment that the President shall take the oath of office in the presence of the people; but there is so manifest an appropriateness in the public induction to office of the Chief Executive Officer of the Nation that from the beginning of the Government the people, to whose service the official oath consecrates the officer, have been called to witness the solemn ceremonial. The oath, taken in the presence of the people, becomes a mutual covenant; the officer covenants I will not attempt to note the marvellous and, to serve the whole body of the people by a faith-in great part, happy contrast between our counful execution of the laws, so that they may be the unfailing defence and security of those who observe them, and that neither wealth, station nor the power of combinations shall be able to evade their just penalties or to wrest them from a beneficent public purpose to serve the ends of cruelty or selfishness.

try as it steps over the threshold into its second century of organized existence under the Constitution and that weak but wisely ordered young nation that looked undauntedly down the first century when all its years stretched out before it.

Our people will not fail at this time to recall the incidents which accompanied the institution of government under the Constitution, or to find inspiration and guidance in the teachings and example of Washington and his great associates, and hope and courage in the contrast which thirty-eight populous and prosperous States offer to the thirteen States, weak in everything except courage and the love of liberty, that then fringed our Atlantic sea-board.

My promise is spoken; yours unspoken, but not the less real and solemn. The people of every State have here their representatives. | Surely I do not misinterpret the spirit of the occasion when I assume that the whole body of the people covenant with me and with each other to-day to support and defend the Constitution and the union of the States, to yield willing obedience to all the laws and each to every The Territory of Dakota has now a population other citizen his equal civil and political rights. greater than that of any of the original States Entering thus solemnly into covenant with each (except Virginia), and greater than the aggreother, we may reverently invoke and confidently gate of five of the smaller States in 1790. The expect the favor and help of Almighty God-centre of population when our National Capital that He will give to me wisdom, strength and fidelity, and to our people a spirit of fraternity and a love of righteousness and peace.

was located was east of Baltimore, and it was argued by many well-informed persons that it would move eastward rather than westward; yet This occasion derives peculiar interest from in 1880 it was found to be near Cincinnati, and the fact that the Presidential term which begins the new census about to be taken will show this day is the twenty-sixth under our Constitu- another stride to the westward. That which tion. The first inauguration of President Wash-was the body has come to be only the rich fringe ington took place in New York, where Congress was then sitting, on the 30th day of April, 1789, having been deferred by reason of delays at tending the organization of the Congress and the canvass of the electoral vote. Our people have already worthily observed the centennials of the

of the Nation's robe. But our growth has not been limited to territory, population and aggregate wealth, marvellous as it has been in each of those directions. The masses of our people are better fed, clothed and housed than their fathers were. The facilities for popular education have

been vastly enlarged and more generally dif- | fused.

bringing to the smelting furnaces and to the mill the coal and iron from their near opposing hills. Mill fires were lighted at the funeral pile of slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation was heard in the depths of the earth, as well as in the sky; men were made free, and material things became our better servants.

The sectional element has happily been

The virtues of courage and patriotism have given recent proof of their continued presence and increasing power in the hearts and over the lives of our people. The influences of religion have been multiplied and strengthened. The sweet offices of charity have greatly increased. The virtue of temperance is held in higher es-eliminated from the tariff discussion. We have timation. We have not attained an ideal condition. Not all of our people are happy and prosperous; not all of them are virtuous and law-abiding. But, on the whole, the opportunities offered to the individual to secure the com. forts of life are better than are found elsewhere and largely better than they were here 100 years ago.

The surrender of a large measure of sovereignty to the General Government, effected by the adoption of the Constitution, was not accomplished until the suggestions of reason were strongly reinforced by the more imperative voice of experience. The divergent interests of peace speedily demanded a "more perfect union." The merchant, the ship-master and the manufacturer discovered and disclosed to our statesmen and to the people that commercial emancipation must be added to the political freedom which had been so bravely won. The commercial policy of the mother country had not relaxed any of its hard and oppressive features. To hold in check the development of our commercial marine, to prevent or retard the establishment and growth of manufactures in the States, and so to secure the American market for their shops, and the carrying trade for their ships, was the policy of European statesmen, and was pursued with the most selfish vigor.

no longer States that are necessarily only planting States. None are excluded from achieving that diversification of pursuit among the people which brings wealth and contentment. The cotton plantation will not be less valuable when the product is spun in the county town by operatives whose necessities call for diversified crops and create a home demand for garden and agricultural products. Every new mine, furnace, and factory is an extension of the productive capacity of the State more real and valuable than added territory.

Shall the prejudices and paralysis of slavery continue to hang upon the skirts of progress? How long will those who rejoice that slavery no longer exists cherish or tolerate the incapacities it put upon their communities? I look hopefully to the continuance of our protective system and to the consequent development of manufacturing and mining enterprises in the States hitherto wholly given to agriculture, as a potent influence in the perfect unification of our people. The men who have invested their capital in these enterprises, the farmers who have felt the benefit of their neighborhood, and the men who work in shop or field, will not fail to find and to defend a community of interest.

Is it not quite possible that the farmers and the promoters of the great mining and manuPetitions poured in upon Congress urging the facturing enterprises which have recently been imposition of discriminating duties that should established in the South may yet find that the encourage the production of needed things at free ballot of the workingman, without distinchome. The patriotism of the people, which notion of race, is needed for their defence as well longer found a field of exercise in war, was energetically directed to the duty of equipping the young Republic for the defence of its independence by making its people self-dependent. Societies for the promotion of home manufactures and for encouraging the use of domestics in the dress of the people were organized in many of the States. The revival at the end of the century of the same patriotic interest in the preservation and development of domestic industries, and the defence of our working people against injurious foreign competition, is an incident worthy of attention. It is not a departure, but a return that we have witnessed. The protective policy had then its opponents. The argument was made, as now, that its benefits inured to particular classes or sections.

as for his own? I do not doubt that if those men in the South who now accept the tariff views of Clay and the Constitutional expositions of Webster would courageously avow and defend their real convictions, they would not find it difficult, by friendly instruction and co-operation, to make the black man their efficient and safe ally, not only in establishing correct principles in our National administration, but in preserving for their local communities the benefits of social order and economical and honest government. At least until the good offices of kindness and education have been fairly tried, the contrary conclusion cannot be plausibly urged.

I have altogether rejected the suggestion of a special Executive policy for any section of our country. It is the duty of the Executive to adIf the question became in any sense or at any minister and enforce, in the methods and by the time sectional, it was only because slavery ex-instrumentalities pointed out and provided by isted in some of the States. But for this, there was no reason why the cotton-producing States should not have led or walked abreast with the New England States in the production of cotton fabrics. There was this reason only why the States that divide with Pennsylvania the mineral treasures of the great southeastern and central mountain ranges should have been so tardy in

the Constitution, all the laws enacted by Congress. These laws are general, and their administration should be uniform and equal. As a citizen may not elect what laws he will obey, neither may the Executive elect which he will enforce. The duty to obey and to execute embraces the Constitution in its entirety, and the whole code of laws enacted under it. The evil

example of permitting individuals, corporations | obtruding our advice and never attempting unor communities to nullify the laws because they cross some selfish or local interest or prejudices, is full of danger, not only to the Nation at large, but much more to those who use this pernicious expedient to escape their just obligations or to obtain an unjust advantage over others. They will presently themselves be compelled to appeal to the law for protection, and those who would use the law as a defense must not deny that use of it to others.

If our great corporations would more scrupulously observe their legal limitations and duties, they would have less cause to complain of the unlawful limitations of their rights or of violent interference with their operations. The community that by concert, open or secret, among its citizens denies to a portion of its members their plain rights under the law, has severed the only safe bond of social order and prosperity. The evil works, from a bad centre, both ways. It demoralizes those who practice it, and destroys the faith of those who suffer by it in the efficiency of the law as a safe protector. The man in whose breast that faith has been darkened is naturally the subject of dangerous and uncanny suggestions. Those who use unlawful methods, if moved by no higher motive than the selfishness that prompted them, may well stop and inquire what is to be the end of this.

fairly to coin the distresses of other powers into commercial advantage to ourselves. We have a just right to expect that our European policy will be the American policy of European courts. It is so manifestly incompatible with those precautions for our peace and safety which all the great powers habitually observe and enforce in matters affecting them that a shorter water-way between our eastern and western seaboards should be dominated by any European government, that we may confidently expect that such a purpose will not be entertained by any friendly power.

We shall in the future, as in the past, use every endeavor to maintain and enlarge our friendly relations with all the great powers, but they will not expect us to look kindly upon any project that would leave us subject to the dangers of a hostile observation or environment. We have not sought to dominate or to absorb any of our weaker neighbors, but rather to aid and encourage them to establish free and stable governments, resting upon the consent of their own people. We have a clear right to expect, therefore, that no European government will seek to establish colonial dependencies upon the territory of these independent American States. That which a sense of justice restrains us from seeking, they may be reasonably expected will

An unlawful expedient can not become a per-ingly to forego. manent condition of government. If the educated and influential classes in a community either practice or connive at the systematic violation of laws that seem to them to cross their convenience, what can they expect when the lesson that convenience or a supposed class interest is a sufficient cause for lawlessness has been well learned by the ignorant classes? A com munity where law is the rule of conduct, and where courts, not mobs, execute its penalties, is the only attractive field for business investments and honest labor.

Our naturalization laws should be so amended as to make the inquiry into the character and good disposition of persons applying for citizenship more careful and searching. Our existing laws have been in their administration an unimpressive and often an unintelligible form. We accept the man as a citizen without any knowledge of his fitness, and he assumes the duties of citizenship without any knowledge as to what they are. The privileges of American citizenship are so great and its duties so grave that we may well insist upon a good knowledge of every person applying for citizenship, and a good knowledge by him of our institutions. We should not cease to be hospitable to immigration, but we should cease to be careless as to the character of it. There are men of all races, even the best, whose coming is necessarily a burden upon our public revenues or a threat to social order. These should be identified and excluded.

We have happily maintained a policy of avoiding all interference with European affairs. We have been only interested spectators of their contentions in diplomacy and war, ready to use our friendly offices to promote peace, but never

The

It must not be assumed, however, that our interests are so exclusively American that our entire inattention to any events that may transpire elsewhere can be taken for granted. Our citizens, domiciled for purposes of trade in all countries and in many of the islands of the sea, demand and will have our adequate care in their personal and commercial rights. necessities of our Navy require convenient coaling stations and dock and harbor privileges. These and other trading privileges we will feel free to obtain only by means that do not in any degree partake of coercion, however feeble the government from which we ask such concessions. But having fairly obtained them by methods and for purposes entirely consistent with the most friendly disposition toward all other powers, our consent will be necessary to any modification or impairment of the concession.

We shall neither fail to respect the flag of any friendly nation or the just rights of its citizens, nor to exact the like treatment for our own. Calmness, justice and consideration should characterize our diplomacy. The offices of an intelligent diplomacy or of friendly arbitration in proper cases should be adequate to the peaceful adjustment of all international difficulties. By such methods we will make our contribution to the world's peace, which no nation values more highly, and avoid the opprobrium which must fall upon the nation that ruthlessly breaks it.

The duty devolved by law upon the President to nominate and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint all public officers whose appointment is not otherwise provided for in the Constitution or by act of Congress, has become very burdensome and its wise and efficient discharge full of difficulty.