man when determined shall preside over the meeting, while electing his respective speaker or moderator and no longer, and every speaker and moderator when elected, shall immediately proceed to the choice of his respective clerk, if none there be, and the said clerk when determined, together with the said speaker or moderator shall then manage his respective meeting, while electing their respective president, and committee of elections, who when elected, shall join in the superintendancy and proceed to the election of the required civil officers.

The term of service of the said moderators, presidents and committees of elections, shall expire on completing the elections and duty required of them to superintend; but the said speakers shall serve as speakers during the other business of the meeting, unless previously removed, and the said clerks shall severally continue to perform the duty of all other official business constitutionally required of them, and be severally denominated Columbian, district, county and town clerks; and so distinguished from the meetings of jurisdictional territory, in which they be severally elected; and all of which clerks, shall hold their several offices with good behavior, for years with the approbation of their respective legislative bodies, and till replaced by the appointment of others, and which clerks may respectively appoint their necessary assistant clerks.

SECTION 8. Every illegal voter who shall have voted, and every clerk who shall wilfully and unconstitutionally augment or diminish any civil officer's dividend, and every candidate not constitutionally qualified for his intended office, having special notice

* Unless the whole sovereign power of government, annually and directly returns to the people without any influence whatever from those already in office, those in office will take advantage of that power and so much abuse it, as to make of it an implement of de lusion to keep themselves in power, and more and more to abuse it till they are so powerful, that the people cannot remove them but by a civil commotion,

of his contest, shall publicly and immediately declive his competition, or be liable to a fine or other punishment, and the Columbian Congress, shall by law provide a uniform rule for inflicting the same, according to the aggravation of all such offences, as shall be committed from and after the adoption of the Columbian constitution.

ARTICLE IV.

SECTION 1. Every free male person of Columbia, attained to the age of twenty-one years, having residence sixty days in the town in which he shall vote, (that is where he hath his home) and which residence shall be lost only by the same time of absence, shall be considered in such town a legal voter, (7) and

(7) For detecting erroneous ideas, in regard to extending that most sacred of all rights suffrage to the poor, I at once observe, is he not the greatest sinner on earth, who even thinks of withholding from the robbed, that which God had endowed equally to all of us, if the want of a possession of property as the devil shall point out, dispenses with the rights of man in heaven, the devil will rob our maker of all his glory, but will not God put forth the wrath of his holy wars first and save his world. This denial of the poor makes all kings and all wars, and destroys our properties, liberties and happiness; then let us be obedient equals to our God of rights, and the rich man of the earth have a seat in heaven, as well as the poor in earthly possessions possess his abundant heaven. A man because putting away his private earthly property, does not argue that he puts away his Godly suffrage for more, his property in common stock is still his own, and does not God suffer us to possess the greatest of all wealth in virtue and talents. Free grace God suffers us all to have; a christian can carry more property in his soul, than all this earth can hold; then because a good man whose business is to do good and possessing his store in heaven, had he ought to be deprived of God's suffrage by the devil? how are we fellow citizens unless we are

all male persons twenty-one years old or upwards, other than legal voters, not more nor less than five shall be required to equal two in the angmentation of the actor's dividend, and all legal voters, whose name and age in years are not entered on the list of his respective town, shall at or before the commencement of the next following May meeting, tender to the clerk thereof the mention of his name and age in years, and await their enlistment, whose duty it shall be of every town clerk to arrange and annually exhibit in the open public of every May meeting, a regular alphabetical list of the names

fellow equals? do not let a thought so wicked and uncharitable pass our minds; what! because Adam was made first king, and withheld by his fall from his offspring by selfish evil, that horded up parental property or manual power of denial to posterity to get property, exclude or dehar in the present generation poor father's children, from their suffrage to the common stock of the common world. Does this argue that the poor man has no equal place in earthly society, till he can earn a hundred pound at a shilling a day to make him a voter, till then never enjoy earthly happiness. Shall the many be denied of the everlasting riches of God, and the few publican sinners enjoy the momentary palace of the devil, because the already property possessor says no, to those of the cottage, you shall not join us in aristocracy? does God deny the poor of their divine democracy? what! withhold from the robbed that which is his dear own, and that which is worth more than all this world is worth; yes, even he richest by giving the poor his right, withholds his property from destruction by war; if it is right that a stolen horse should be restored to the right owner, the suffrage of God's dear people (for the want of that which has made paupers for the devil) should be restored for the redemption of a dreadful wicked world. How can the poor denied their power, resist the oppression of the powerful that they may rise and get enough to make them voters? and who is to be the loser in giving to the right owners, that which takes from none, but restores heavenly happiness to all. The

K k

and age in years of all the legal voters, and record the said list in his respective town book, to be kept for pub lic perusal according to the regulations of the Columbi

an congress.

SECTION S. An alphabetical list of the names of all candidates, their places of residence and for what civil office they are intended, whose suffrage limits are not confined to towns, shall by the clerk of the meeting which determines them, be caused to be published three weeks prior to their pending election, in such public pa pers, if any there be, as shall circulate for the required information of proper characters for that purpose, unless the Columbian congress shall prescribe a different rule. And during night or the adjournment of any unfinished election meeting, the vote box containing the votes of any completed round of suffrage, shall be so securely enclosed in open meeting, under sealed paper superscribed over it with the signatures of the superintendants of the meeting thereof, and the box deposited in the care of the clerk, and the president at the commencement of and in the next following legal open meeting, open the said vote box, and the votes be canvassed by the superintendants as will prevent fraud; receiving and counting no votes after sun set.

SECTION 4. At every round of suffrage for electing all civil officers, every voter or member, shall openly and fairly in open meeting, deliver his vote to the

rich man worth a hundred thousand dollars, loses nothing by giving paupers a chance to get as rich as he. The opportunity of this world at the freedom of freemen, at once makes every man worth a hundred thousand dollars. And the Columbien constitution gaurantees to the rich all his obedient wealth from war and waste, it even lessens his taxes in the time of peace, as to revenue not required by war, the poor according to the Columbian constitution cannot vote money from thedient rich into common stock, because in this so essential glorious country, our valiant fathers have so attended to the generation in which we live, that a great majority of the Columbians are rich, of course the poor minority cannot vote away their property.

president of elections thereof, whose duty it shall be of every president superintending elections, to receive all unobjected votes, and all suspected votes declared by the superintendants receivable, and immediately within an aperture of a vote box, which every clerk of the elections of his respective meeting, shall have prepared for that purpose, drop the same in detail, from the same fair moving hand, in open public view as with which he shall severally receive them, without attempting the reading thereof, but with the consent of their deliverers, and every voter or member, shall at the delivery of his vote, if unknown to and requested by the said president or clerk, acquaint the said president with his name, and the said president shall mention at the reception of every vote, the name of its deliverer in the hearing of the clerk, and twice repeat the same, if by him. required, which the clerk shall again repeat, in the hearing of the president, and who shall enlist or note all voters or member's names, in the detail of their mention, at every round of suffrage, and none shall vote for civil officers but by ballot, nor be allowed but one candidate's name to be written thereon, nor yield but one ballot of the same number, to the same box, the same round of suffrage, for the choice of any civil officer, for the same degree.

SECTION 5. No director, commissioner, repre sentative or legislator, unless by casting lots from certain chosen numbers, as directed in the section next following, shall be considered legally elected who shall not have given him for meriting promotion, at least two thirds of all the votes yielded within the election territory, for that degree of office for which he shall contest, and all such officers as shall have two thirds of the votes, and such actors as shall have double the required number, shall be distinguished worthy officers, in addition to their other title and be commissioned according ly; and all worthy officers of the civil distinction, shall have the preference to those having the least number of votes for the same degree, which others, although in form, had been elected as hereinafter directed, shall not be considered legally elected, and shall be erased from the list, and which preference all worthy officers shall