territory of one province into that of another, shall be exempt from transit duties. The same freedom shall also be enjoyed by the carriages, vessels, or animals used for their transportation, and no other duty, whatever its name may be, shall hereafter be imposed upon such articles and vehicles during their transit through the territory.

ART. 12. Vessels bound from one province to another shall not be compelled to enter, cast anchor, or pay duties on account of transit; and in no case shall any preference be given to one port over another, by means of commercial laws or regulations.

ART. 13. New provinces may be admitted into the nation, but no province shall be erected within the territory of another, nor shall two or more provinces be consolidated into one, without the consent of the legislatures of the interested provinces and of Congress.

ART. 14. All the inhabitants of the nation shall enjoy, subject to the laws regulating their exercise, the following rights, to wit: to work and engage in any lawful industry; to navigate and engage in commerce; to petition the authorities; to enter, remain in, travel through, or leave the Argentine territory; to publish their ideas through the press without previous censorship; to use and dispose of their property; to associate together for useful purposes; freely to profess their religion; and to teach and to study.

ART. 15. There shall be no slaves in the Argentine Nation. Those few now existing therein shall become free as soon as this constitution becomes law. The indemnifications which may have to be paid in consequence of this declaration shall be regulated by a special law. Contracts involving the purchase or sale of persons shall be criminal acts, for which the contracting parties, as well as the notary or official before whom they are executed, shall be responsible. Slaves introduced in any way whatever into the country shall become free by the mere fact of entrance into the territory of the republic.

ART. 16. The Argentine Nation does not recognize prerogatives of blood or of birth; personal privileges and titles of nobility shall not exist therein. All of its inhabitants are equal before the law, and their eligibility to office shall depend exclusively upon their fitness. Equality shall be the basis of taxation and of all public burdens.

ART. 17. Private property is inviolable, and no inhabitant of the nation shall be deprived of it except by judicial decision founded on law. Condemnation of property for a public purpose shall be authorized by law, and indemnification previously made. Congress alone shall have power to impose the taxes referred to in Art. 4. No personal service shall be required of anyone, except when ordered by law or by judicial decision founded on law. Authors and inventors shall be the exclusive owners of their works, inventions, or discoveries, for the length of time established by law. Confiscation of property is forever stricken out of the Argentine penal code. No armed body shall make requisitions or demand assistance of any kind.

ART. 18. No inhabitant of the nation shall be punished except after trial and conviction, under laws anterior to the commission of the offense; nor shall he be tried by special commissions, or removed from the jurisdiction of the courts which, under the laws in force at the time when the offense was committed, should take cognizance of his case. No one shall be compelled to testify against himself; nor shall anyone be arrested except by virtue of a written order of the proper authority. The defense of person and of rights before the courts shall be inviolable. Domicile, as well as epistolary correspondence and private papers, shall be inviolable, but a law shall determine in what cases and under what circumstances the former may be entered, and the latter seized. The penalty of death for political offenses, torture of all kinds, and whipping are abolished. The national jails shall be healthful and clean, intended for the safe-keeping and not for the punishment of the offenders detained therein, and any

measure which, under color of precaution, tends to inflict upon the prisoners more hardships than those required for their security shall cause the judge authorizing it to be held responsible.

ART. 19. Private actions which in no way offend public order or morals and are not injurious to a third party, shall be reserved to God alone, and are not subject to the authority of the state. No inhabitant of the nation shall be bound to do what is not ordered by law, nor shall he be forbidden to do what it does not prohibit.

ART. 20. Aliens shall enjoy in the territory of the nation all the civil rights of citizens. They may exercise their trade, business, or profession; own, buy, and transfer real estate; navigate the rivers and coasts; practice freely their religion; make wills, and contract marriage in conformity with the law. They shall not be compelled to become citizens or to pay forced extraordinary taxes. They may obtain naturalization by residing two consecutive years in the nation, but the authorities may shorten this period in favor of the applicant who affirms and proves that he has rendered services to the republic.

ART. 21. Every Argentine citizen shall be obliged to bear arms in defense of his country and of this constitution, in accordance with the laws enacted by Congress for that purpose, and in accordance with the decrees of the national executive. Naturalized citizens shall be free to render or to refuse military service during the ten years following the day on which they obtain their citizenship papers.

ART. 22. The people shall not deliberate, or exercise the powers of government, except through their representatives and authorities created by this constitution. Any armed force or gathering of persons assuming to be vested with the representation of the rights of the people and petitioning in their behalf shall be guilty of sedition.

ART. 23. In case of domestic disturbance or foreign attack, endangering the observance of this constitution and

the safety of the authorities created by it, a state of siege shall be proclaimed in the province or territory wherein public order is disturbed, and the constitutional guaranties shall be suspended within its limits. But during this suspension the President of the republic shall have no power by himself to condemn anyone or to inflict punishments. His power shall be limited in such cases, so far as persons are concerned, to arrest or transfer them from one place in the country to another, should they not prefer to leave the Argentine territory.

ART. 24. Congress shall promote the reform of the laws now in force, in all branches, and the establishment of trial by jury.

ART. 25. The federal government shall encourage European immigration, and shall not have power to restrict, limit, or obstruct, by taxation of any kind, the entrance into the Argentine territory of foreigners coming to it for the purpose of engaging in the cultivation of the soil, the improvement of industrial business, or the introduction and teaching of arts and sciences.

ART. 26. Navigation on the rivers in the interior of the nation is free to all flags, and subject to no other regulations than those proclaimed by the national authority.

ART. 27. The federal government shall be bound to strengthen the commercial and peaceful relations of the Argentine Nation with foreign countries, by means of treaties consistent with the principles of public law established by this constitution.

ART. 28. No principle, guaranty, or right recognized in the foregoing articles shall be altered by any law which may be enacted to regulate its exercise.

ART. 29. Congress shall not have power to grant to the national executive, or the provincial legislatures the power to grant to the provincial governors extraordinary powers, or the whole of the public authority, or to assent to submissions or

supremacy through which the lives, the honor, or the property of Argentines may be placed at the mercy of governments, or of any person whatsoever. Acts of this character shall be utterly void, and shall render their authors, or those who consent to them or authorize them with their signatures, liable to be called to account and to be punished as infamous traitors. to their country.

ART. 30. The constitution may be amended either wholly or in part. The necessity for such amendment shall be declared by Congress, by a vote of at least two-thirds of its members; but the amendment itself shall not be made except by a convention called for that purpose.

ART. 31. This constitution, the national laws which may be enacted by Congress in pursuance thereof, and treaties with foreign powers shall be the supreme law of the nation; and the authorities of each province shall be bound to abide by them, any provision in their own provincial constitutions or laws to the contrary notwithstanding. This rule shall not be applicable to the province of Buenos Aires, in so far as the treaties ratified after the compact of November 11, 1859, are concerned.

ART. 32. The federal Congress shall not pass any law. restricting the liberty of the press, or subjecting it to federal jurisdiction.

ART. 33. The declarations, rights, and guaranties enumerated in the constitution shall not be construed as involving the denial of any other rights and guaranties, not enumerated, but naturally derived from the principles of the sovereignty of the people and of the republican form of government.

ART. 34. The judges of the federal courts shall not at the same time be judges in the provincial courts. Neither shall a position in the federal service, whether civil or military, confer upon the official who holds it the rights of residence in the province wherein it is held, and which may not be his habitual abode, this provision applying to their being chosen