power of the General Assembly, and that was, that "the Acts of the Assembly shall not be repugnant to the laws of this our realm of England"! So that unless the Assembly transcend those oppressions of the British Government that caused the Revolutionthe Charter imposes upon it no restrictions or restraints! Yet, as a matter of fact, the Assembly has transcended even these bounds. For while the Parliament of Britain taxed the colonies, without allowing their representation in the National legislature, leaving the colonists free to choose delegates to their own Provincial Assemblies, and to manage their county and town matters as they pleased, the Assembly of Rhode Island taxes its subjects, without allowing the great majority of them any vote, any where, either in town, city, county, State or National matters! The Charter too, empowers the Executive, during the recess of the Legislature, to establish and enforce "all methods, orders, rules and directions" that it may deem proper! So that, as one writer has remarked, "there is, under the Charter, a despotic Assembly in perpetuam, and a despotic Executive, ad interim, against whom the people" have no manner of protection. Those acquainted in R. Island, for 30 years past, know very well, that this absolute omnipotence and irresponsibility of the General Assembly have been the proverbial and taunting boast of those by whom its power had been wielded, and who have, insolently and insultingly, set the people at defiance.

CHOICE OF RULERS.

SECURITY OF RIGHTS.

Will it be said that the people have had their remedy, in the choice of their rulers? To what portion of the people may this be said? And to whom? Can it be said to the poor, who most need the protection of the government? None but holders of real estate, and their eldest sons, are even eligible for election to the station of "freemen," or voters. And what is their comparative number? The number of adult white males, in 1840, was computed at 25,600, and the whole number of votes polled at the Presidential election, that year, was 8662, being the largest number ever polled in the State. So that less than one-third governed the other two-thirds. Estimates, at other times, have been made, that three-fifths, and sometimes three-fourths, of the entire adult male population have been disfranchised. [A sufficient refutation, by the bye, of the pretense that the people have all along, or until lately, been generally satisfied with the existing order of things!]

But the story of minority usurpation does not end here. The inequalities of representation have been hinted at. See a few exemplifications of this inequality. "One free-holder in Bar

rington," it is said, "has as much weight in the government as twenty-one free-holders in Providence, nine in Cumberland, or eighteen in Smithfield." Again, "one free-holder in Newport is -equal to four in the former, or three in the latter place." Once more. In 1840, "seventy-two representatives were chosen. Of these, thirty-eight, more than a majority, were chosen from towns possessing a population of 29,036 inhabitants, and which cast 2,846 electoral votes. The remaining thirty-four representatives were chosen from towns possessing a population of 79,801 inhabitants, and which cast 5,776 electoral votes." So that, while 8,662, or about one-third of the adult male population, had the right of suffrage, and nominally governed the State, yet 2,846, or less than one-eighth, chose the majority of the popular branch of the Assembly, and really held the balance of power.'

Thus much for the security of human rights in R. Island, arising from popular election. The next plea we hear is, that the minority have governed with so much justice, that the people can trust them with their rights, and therefore the Sovereignty of the People is not worth contending for. This plea comes from the pen of President Wayland. Let us examine it.

Security for their rights, and especially security from the encroachments of the government, is among the inalienable rights of the people-the guaranty of all the rest of their rights. How can it be said, then, that the minority govern with justice, when they govern without the consent of the governed? How can individual rights be said to be safe, in the keeping of those who not only refuse to secure them, but absolutely take them away? The security and the rights of the disfranchised of Rhode Island rest upon the same basis as the security and the rights of the disfranchised of the South. Happy people! They are protected, forsooth, by their kind masters, who rob them!

The Charter Government permits suffrage, as a privilege, to be extended or contracted at its pleasure. It resolutely refuses to recognize the right. This the present contest discloses. It can give, and it can take away. It, and not the People, is Sovereign. It follows that there has been no permanency-nothing upon which the voter himself can rely-in respect to the exercise of the franchise. The power that made him a "freeman," can unmake him. The "Assembly" that fixed the qualification to $134 value of real estate, and changed it half a dozen times, can fix it at $134,000, if it pleases, and there is no remedy. It might extend the franchise in the manner it has sometimes promised (but neglected) to do, and then take it away again, at its pleasure. Not only the Assembly, but the town meeting of exclusives, claims, by delegation, the same right to exclude whomsoever it pleases, and whatsoever qualifications they may possess.

The "governed" have no power to demand any redress or amendment. This was a necessary feature of the "Royal Charter," and those who wrongfully pretend to have inherited its kingly powers, very distinctly assert, now, at the point of the bayonet, and in the abused name of "law and order," the same. disorganizing and lawless claim.

"Under the Charter," says an able writer,* "the people can have no rights secured to them independent of the Governmenteven the Act "declaratory of certain rights of the people of this State' is but a Legislative Act, and may be repealed whenever the Legislature think proper." The people hold all their rights, just as the southern slave holds certain articles of property, during the good pleasure of his master.

OTHER RIGHTS INVADED-ADDITIONAL BADGES OF SERVITUDE.

It has been accounted the peculiar hardship of the American slave, that he can not sue, in a court of law, as could the slaves of the ancient Greeks and Romans. But two-thirds, at least, of the adult white males of R. Island may, in this particular, be ranked with the southern slaves, and below the slaves of the Athenians.

In R. Island-"No person whatever, since the Revolution, has been permitted to bring a suit at any court of law in the State, except he be a free-holder, or except he procure a freeholder to endorse his original writ, or cause of action." This, too, in the face of the " Act declaring certain rights, &c," (above named,) which says:-" Every person within this State ought to find a certain remedy, by having recourse to the laws, for all injuries or wrongs which he may receive in his person, property or character." "And yet," says the same writer, "by another Act it is provided that no person who is not a free-holder shall have, out of the Clerk's office, any writ, &c. or unless some sufficient free-holder shall endorse his Christian and surname on the back of the same-thereby denying that any of the people of this State are persons' entitled to redress, but free-holders, or owners of real estate."

The right of trial by Jury has been thought one of the great safeguards of freedom. "But this right," it is affirmed on good authority,t "is enjoyed by less than two-fifths of the citizens of Rhode Island." None but "freemen" are empanneled and can sit as jurors. This fact, by the bye, puts additional terrors into the hands of the Charter government, by whom the Constitutional Governor Dorr and his adherents are charged with the crime of

B. Cowell, Esq. of Providence.

"A Member of the Boston Bar," in Review of "Wayland's Discourse."

high treason. They can not be tried by their peers. They must be tried by those who can not be considered impartial jurors. And besides, all the Courts of Justice are so created and constructed as to be but "Star Chamber" Courts, "a shield to the government, rather than to the people."

Another law of Rhode Island, authorizes the Town Council, when any person comes within their limits, whom they dislike, or whom, for any cause they desire to get rid of, or whom, in the words of the law, 'they shall determine to be an unsuitable person to become an inhabitant' of their town, to give notice to that person, (he not being a freeman,) to depart out of the town within a certain period, on penalty, if he fail to go, of being bound for one year into servitude, TO ANY CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES!*

Very plainly, by this Statute, any new resident, not a freeholder, might be "bound out into slavery at the South! What a parallel have we here to those infamous laws by which free colored citizens are sold into slavery! Another section of the same Act "renders it imperative on all who entertain strangers, to report them within seven days, to the President of the Town Council."*

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY OUTRAGED.

Under shelter of the enactments just mentioned, Official Town Dignitaries and others have, ever and anon, annoyed and insulted with the threat of banishment, itinerant and transient Missionaries, Agents, and others, who have sojourned temporarily in the State. In so doing, they have treated with utter contempt that clause of the U. S. Constitution that guaranties to the citizens of each State the right of free and peaceful sojourn in every other State. Here, again, we trace the close resemblance between the lawless despotism of the slave States, and that of the Charter Government of Rhode Island. That Anti-Slavery lecturers should have had the terrors of this law held over them, need excite no surprise. But it is not, perhaps, so commonly known that others have fallen under the same ban. A single specimen may suffice. Rev. William Fuller, a respectable minister of the gospel, [as "regularly educated and ordained" as the most fastidious, could desire,] was preaching, about ten or twelve years ago, at Washington Village, in Rhode Island, in a house erected by the contributions of Christians, many of whom were disfranchised. His services were highly appreciated by a portion of the inhabittants. But his faithful testimony against rum-selling, made him obnoxious to a number of "the free-holders," by whom he was

"A Member of the Boston Bar," in Review of "Wayland's Discourse."

formally notified that he should be banished from the town, unless he altered his style of preaching. He pursued the even tenor of his way, until the threat was literally fulfilled. Either by order of the town authorities, or else by vote of the "freemen" in open town meeting, (we are not positive which,) he was authorititavely and officially ordered to leave the town, with which order he peaceably complied, and left the town and the State. He had previously been an ordained minister in another town in Rhode Island-was afterwards settled at or near River Head, on Long Island, and has since supplied, for some time, the pulpit of the First Presbyterian Church in Utica. We are thus minute, to show that R. Island legislation, under the Charter, is not a dead letter, and that the persons recently described as low vagabonds and rebels, are not its only victims.

The banishment of a minister of the gospel, under authority of the Charter Government, for no crime but preaching against the sins of the "free-holders," is a precious comment upon the boasted guaranty of "freedom in matters of religious concernment," in the land of Roger Williams, showing how little any such guaranty is worth, under a government irresponsible to the people, and undefined by a Constitution.

Another specimen of the tone and style of Town Meetings of the "freemen," may be found in the resolution adopted and enforced, in Providence, a few years since, excluding all persons except themselves from the Town House, during Town Meetings.

POPULAR MOVEMENTS AGAINST DESPOTISM.

Not long after the State of Rhode Island assented to the Federal Constitution, in May 1790, there began to be movements in favor of a State Constitution, an extension of the suffrage, and an equalized representation. The petitions for this object became so importunate and so numerous, that, about the year 1797 or 8, the Charter Assembly felt constrained to call a Convention, not of the PEOPLE, however, but of the privileged free-holders. This Convention framed a Constitution, (if our information be correct,) which was submitted to the free holders, and rejected by them. These particulars we have from a clergyman, who was a member of the College in Providence at the time. In 1811, the effort was renewed, but with similar want of success.

From 1819 to 1822 inclusive, a period of four years, the State was agitated with the same discussion, but with no visible effect on the Charter Government.

In 1824 the Assembly called a Convention of the "freemen," to form a Constitution. This Convention recommended an equalized representation among the "freemen," but a motion to extend the suf. frage received but three votes. The proposed Constitution was rejected.