LEGISLATURE

1. Single senate districts except where a county may be entitled to more than one; senate to be elected for three years, to be classed, and one to three elected every year. 2. House to be elected annually, in separate districts when practicable.

3. To hold yearly sessions.

4. 21 senators and 52 representatives.

5. To be increased periodically until the senate shall number 40 and the house 100 members.

6. Their compensation to be $2 per day.

7. The governor to have a veto power, subject to a twothirds vote of both houses.

1. Legislature to be restricted from passing any bank law except a state bank and branches, and that either to be submitted to the people or to be reënacted by the succeeding legislature, and in either case the state to be responsible for its liabilities.

2. No loan or debt to be contracted against the state for any purposes except for the current expenses of the civil government of the state, or in time of war or insurrection for expenses on that account, unless the law for such loan or debt be approved by a majority of the voters of the state, and a sinking fund be created by a direct tax or application of other available revenues to pay interest and reimburse principal; and if such law be adopted by the people it shall become a constitutional obligation until discharged.

3. No law shall be passed to raise revenue from any particular branch or occupation in business that other trades, occupations, or branches of business shall be exempt from.

4. Taxes shall be [levied] upon all property equally (except that $200 worth of personal property shall be exempt from taxes to every taxable inhabitant having the same).

5. No religious test shall ever be required of persons to hold office under the state government.

6. No priest or minister of the gospel shall hold any civil office under the state government (except county or town offices).

7. The criminal code shall be humane and corrective, and the punishment of death shall be for murder, treason, or rape in the first degree, of which the trial jury shall be the judges.

8. The state officers, other than governor and lieutenant governor, shall be chosen by joint ballot of the two houses for two years, unless removed for cause by like joint ballot.

9. Four circuit judges to be chosen in like manner for a term of years, say six or eight or ten, and removable for cause as above.

10. Three supreme judges, to be nominated by governor and confirmed by senate, for life, good behavior, or sixty-five years of age; removable for cause.

11. No legislature shall pass any law whereby a person can be effectually released from his just liabilities.

12. No imprisonment for debt in this state.

13. Every resident inhabitant head of a family, male or female, who shall be the owner of forty acres of land upon which they reside may hold the same exempt from any debt or execution.

14. The school sections donated by Congress to the several townships in this state shall not be sold or alienated from the perpetual ownership of the citizens of such township, and shall not be rented for a term over thirty-three years, and shall be subject only to the control and management of the townships in which they are situated in such manner as may be provided by law.

15. All property acquired by females, either by inheritance, gift, or otherwise, shall not be liable for the debts of her husband, nor subject to his control without her approbation.

1. No chartered company to be incorporated not subject to repeal or alteration by the legislature.

2. All stockholders to be holden for the debts of the company for two years after they have ceased to be such stockholders.

3. A yearly publication of the names of all stockholders to be made in the state paper.

1. No note, bank note, or bill shall ever be made a lawful tender for a debt.

2. Any person passing a bank note for a valuable consideration shall be holden to any subsequent possessor of such note for the genuineness of the same and for the solvency of the bank, for three months after such paying or passing.

1. Any private banker, bank, bank agent, or broker who shall put in circulation in this state any bank bills, notes, checks, or certificates of deposit, shall be held personally liable for their payment if the bank fail, or refuse to redeem the same in specie. And in default of such redemption and payment the said private banker, bank officer, bank agent, or broker shall be liable and subject to the pains and penalties fixed by law for the crime of swindling.

For citizenship, either to be first, native born in United States; second, or naturalized; third, or declared intentions under United States laws; fourth, or file oath with clerk of a court of record to support Constitution of United States and of this state, and abjure allegiance to any foreign power, and actual residence in the state.

All white male citizens of twenty-one years and upwards, having either of the above qualifications and a residence in the territory of six months, shall have a right to vote at all state, county, and town elections, and none but those having a right to vote shall be eligible to an office.

Yours, etc.,

ROUGH HEWER.

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"ROUGH HEWER'S" SCHEME OF GOVERNMENT

CRITICIZED

[June 30, 1846]

We invite attention to the communication of our correspondent, "Rough Hewer." He has furnished a complete skeleton of a constitution, and many of his suggestions are highly important. But we do not, of course, agree with him upon all of them. The exception in favor of chartering a state bank and branches is, in our judgment, entirely out of the handle.

The war between the Democratic party and the banks is one which we are of opinion admits of no compromise, and can end in nothing short of the utter extermination of one or the other.

The suggestion that "no religious test shall ever be required of persons to hold office under the state government" will meet with universal approbation; but we cannot reconcile this with the suggestion which immediately followsthat we should establish an irreligious test, or a religious disqualification for holding office. We are firmly persuaded that, when the civil authority attempts to establish either, it is stepping beyond its legitimate sphere and entering upon a path which in one direction terminates in intolerance and persecution, and in the opposite direction in ghostly spiritual despotism, and that, when we have once entered upon it, we are as likely to bring up at one end of the route as the other, and no matter whether we begin with religious tests or religious disqualifications.

We question, also, whether the constitution is the proper place for an exemption law of any kind, and especially one of as doubtful expediency as the exemption of a definite quantity of real estate comprising an indefinite value.

We are glad, however, that our correspondent has laid these suggestions before the public. He states in a private

note that his object is merely to bring these points before the public mind that they may be received or rejected, and good-naturedly remarks that "you and your Democratic editors and the Whig editors and the Abolition editors and the bankites and ultras may fire your grape and canister and hot shot at any of the views put forth"; from which we infer that he would not mourn if some of his suggestions should meet with a decided negative.

We hope to hear from him again on some of the provisions suggested.

LEGAL ABSURDITIES-PLEADINGS

[July 7, 1846]

One of the greatest absurdities in courts of law is the present practice of pleading. To be well skilled in drawing a declaration requires great ingenuity in the telling of falsehoods. The written declaration of a plaintiff in an action seldom or never states a fact, and, to save the trouble of writing over a sheet of foolscap, printed blank forms are generally used; these printed forms answer for any state of facts within a certain class of actions, by merely filling up names and dates. A simple statement of facts in a declaration precisely as they occurred is not deemed good and sufficient in our fiction-loving courts; a great number of misrepresentations and perversions of the truth must be inserted in order to gain the favorable ear of the court. Why is it necessary to employ fiction in our courts more than in any other department of business, in order to elicit truth and to promote justice? Does the physician resort to chicanery to cure disease, or the minister to calumny to promote a healthful state of morals? Suppose a doctor were called to see a patient having a fractured limb; he tells the patient his limb is considerably fractured, but in order to effect a cure the patient must consider himself afflicted with a great number of maladies-there must be medical appliances for gout,