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Mr. JONES Considered the proposed section one of much importance. It contains a declaration of great general principles, and involves great consequences. A provision prohibiting banking or other incorporations would come very well under the general provisions. But a declaration of the genius of a Republic in relation to those equal rights which we claim for all citizens, would come more appropriately in the bill of rights. A declaration of principle may be either posi tive or negative. There have been introduced into this bill of rights many negative declarations; but this is a great positive principle-that no man shall have any rights which are not possessed by the citizens generally.

The question was then taken on the proposed section, and it was rejected.
Mr. ORD offered the following:

SEc. 16. Every person has a right to bear arms for the defence of himself and the State.

Mr. McCARVER moved to amend by saying, "provided they are not concealed arms." He did not think, however, that this was a proper subject for the Constitution. No attempt should be made to prevent the Legislature from regulating matters of this kind.

Mr. SHERWOOD was of the same opinion. To make a positive declaration that a man has not this right would be null and void, inasmuch as it would be in opposition to the Constitution of the United States, which provides that " lated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the peoa well reguple to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

Mr. Borrs was surprised that the gentleman from New York (Mr. Sherwood) should object to any provision here, because it was contained in the Constitution of the United States. After taking half-a-dozen provisions from that Constitution, word for word, such an objection came with rather a bad grace. He (Mr. Botts) would himself prefer having this provision under the legislative head. rights is a general declaration; the Constitution is a specific declaration. It is an admitted rule of construction that the bill of rights, or preamble, is of inferior A bill of force, and succombs to the Constitution. If there be in the Constitution a clause which conflicts with the bill of rights, the latter falls to the ground. He (Mr. Botts) desired to see all great principles involving the rights of citizens brought into direct operation in the body of the Constitution. He saw no necessity for mere declarations which could have no force or effect. For this reason he had voted against the subject of monopolies; and for the same reason he would vote against this.

Mr. SHERWOOD was not aware of having voted in the bill of rights for any provision which was directly secured to the people of California by the Constitution of the United States. But if he had done so, it was with the good example before him of the gentleman from Monterey, who had voted for a provision in regard to the law of attainder. That provision he would find in the Constitution under the limitation of the powers of Congress. of the Legislature. But Mr. Ord's proposition directly touches the rights of every It was introduced here to limit the powers

citizen.

The question was then taken, and both the amendment, and amendment to the amendment, were rejected.

Mr. ORD submitted the following amendment as an additional section.

SEC. 17. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable seizures and searches, shall not be violated; and no warrant shall issue but on probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, particularly describing the place to be searched, and the papers and things to be seized.

Mr. JONES moved to amend the latter part of the amendment by inserting "persons" instead of "papers," so as to read, "and the persons and things to be seized."

Mr. HASTINGS presumed it was a mere clerical error. Papers and things would just amount to "things and things."

Mr. ORD accepted the amendment.

Mr. GWIN said this section, as amended, was word for word from the Constitution of the United States, 4th article.

Mr. McCARVER objected to it in the bill of rights. He thought it properly belonged to another part of the Constitution.

The question was then taken on the proposed amendment, and it was adopted. Mr. ORD offered the following as an additional section:

SEC. 18. Treason against the State shall consist only in levying war against it, adhering to its enemies, or giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason, unless on the evidence of two witnesses to the same overt act, or confession in open court.

Mr. Borts proposed to strike out the latter clause, commencing "No person shall be convicted of treason," &c. He thought treason should stand on the same footing with any other crime, and should be proved to the satisfaction of a jury. It is well known, and is often the case, that circumstantial evidence is the strong. est in the world. It was said by one of the ablest jurists, that it is that kind of evidence which cannot lie. By this clause two witnesses are required to prove the overt act, when it can be proved without any. It is a provision which might often prevent crime from being punished. Besides, if you do not punish a man except upon the evidence of two witnesses, for treason, why will you permit him to go to the gallows for murder, except upon that evidence? The principle is either true or false. If you adopt it in one case, why not adopt it in all? Yet is there a member of this House who would be in favor of saying no crime shall be punished except upon the evidence of two witnesses? It is a strong incentive to crime to say in this Constitution, that treason, the greatest of crimes, shall have this advantage over all others; and that the prisoner may go scot free, unless this provision is complied with. He (Mr. Botts) would read a sentence from Blackstone in relation to the punishment of high treason.-[See Blackstone on high treason.]

Mr. GWIN considered the Constitution of the United States better authority than Blackstone.

The question was then taken on the amendment of Mr. Botts, to strike out the latter clause, and decided in the negative.

The original amendment was then adopted.

Mr. McCARVER had an amendment which he desired to offer as an additional section. It was in the following words:

SEC. 19. The Legislature shall, at its first session, pass such laws as will effectually prohibi free persons of color from immigrating to and settling in this State, and to effectually prevent the owners of slaves from bringing them into this State for the purpose of setting them free.

He deemed this necessary because the House had already made a provision prohibiting the introduction of slavery, the object of which he thought would be defeated by a system already in practice. He had heard of gentlemen having sent to the States for their negroes, to bring them here, on condition that they should serve for a specified length of time. He was informed that many had been liberated with this understanding. After serving a few years, they were to be set loose on the community. He protested against this. If the people of this Ter ritory are to be free against the curse of slavery, let them also be free from the herds of slaves who are to be set at liberty within its borders. He wished to have the sense of the House on this question. If the subject was neglected now, it would soon be necessary to alter the Constitution. In Illinois, this question was laid before the people in a separate article, and a majority of twenty thousand of the voters of that State supported it. Have we not greater reason to fear the introduction of free negroes here, than they had in Illinois? The slave owner, possessed of a hundred negroes, can well afford to liberate them, if they engage to serve him for three years. What is to support them after that? Are they to be thrown upon the community? He believed that if any State in the Union required protection from this class of people, it was California. It is the duty of gentlemen to make provision in this Constitution against the introduction of negro labor, as well as prohibit the introduction of slavery.

Mr. WOZENCRAFT said:

Mr. President: We have declared, by a unanimous vote, that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in this State. I desire now to cast my vote in favor of the proposition just submitted, prohibiting the negro race from coming amongst us; and this I profess to do as a philanthropist, loving my kind, and rejoicing in their rapid march toward perfectability.

If there was just reason why slavery should not exist in this land, there is just reason why that part of the family of man, who are so well adapted for servitude, should be excluded from amongst us. It would appear that the all-wise Creator has created the negro to serve the white race. We see evidence of this wherever they are brought in contact; we see the instinctive feeling of the negro is obedience to the white man, and, in all instances, he obeys him, and is ruled by him. If you would wish that all mankind should be free, do not bring the two extremes in the scale of organization together; do not bring the lowest in contact with the highest, for be assured the one will rule and the other must serve.

I wish to cast my vote against the admission of blacks into this country, in order that I may thereby protect the citizens of California in one of their most inestimable rights-the right to labor. This right is not only valuable, but it is a hely commandment-"by the sweat of thy brow shalt thou earn thy daily bread." I wish to inculcate this command, and encourage labor. I wish, so far as my influence extends, to make labor honorable; the laboring man is the nobleman in the true acceptation of the word; and I would make him worthy of his high prerogative, and not degrade him by placing him upon a level with the lowest in the scale of the family of man. I would remove all obstacles to his future greatness, for if there is one part of the world, possessing advantages over another, where the family of Japhet may expect to attain a higher state of perfectability than has ever been attained by man, it is here, in California. All nature proclaims this a favored land. The assertion that we would be unjust in excluding that part of the human race from coming here, has no foundation in reason. We must be just to ourselves-by so doing we avoid injustice to others. In claiming the right to labor we do not deny the same to others. The African is well fitted for labor, you would say. Why deny him our field? Sir, we do not deny him the right to labor; we are willing that he should have the boundless wastes of his native land for his field-a region where the all-wise Creator, in his wisdom, saw fit to place him; but we are not willing that he should be placed in our field, where, instead of good to either party, evil would come to both. We are not only reasonable but we are just. No one will deny that a free black population is one of the greatest evils that can afflict society. We know it to be so. We have witnessed enough to know it and deplore it. There is not an advocate for the admission of blacks that would be willing to take the negro by the hand in fellowship-that would be willing to extend to him the right of suffrage-that would be willing to admit him on a footing in our political or social confederacy. Is it just, then, to encourage by our silence the emigration of a class of beings who at best are dead weights in society-resting on our social institutions like an incubus of darkness?

I desire to protect the people of California against all monopolies--to encourage labor and protect the laboring class. Can this be done by admitting the negro race? Surely not; for if they are permitted to come, they will do so-nay they will be brought here. Yes, Mr. President, the capitalists will fill the land with these living laboring machines, with all their attendant evils. Their labor will go to enrich the few, and impoverish the many; it will drive the poor and honest laborer from the field, by degrading him to the level of the negro. The vicious propensities of this class of population will be a heavy tax on the people. Your officers will have to be multiplied; your prisons will have to be doubled; your society will be corrupted. Yes, sirs, you will find when it is too late that you have been saddled with an evil that will gall you to the quick, and yet it cannot be thrown off. You can prevent it now, by passing this section. It should be done now. Do not wait for legislative enactment-the Legislature may, and doubtless will, pass laws effectually to prevent blacks from coming, or being brought here, but it will be an extended evil even at that date. When this Constitution goes forth without a prohibitionary clause relative to blacks, you will see a black-tide setting in here and spreading over the land; you will see a greater curse than the locusts of Egypt. This is no fancy sketch-it is a plain assertion, based on a just knowledge of things, which requires no gift of prophecy to foresee. If you fail to pass this bill you will have cause to revert to my assertions.

The future, to us, is more promising than that of any State that has ever applied for admission into the Union. The golden era is before us in all its glittering splendor; here civilization may attain its highest altitude; Art, Science, Literature will here find a fostering parent, and the Caucasian may attain his highest state of perfectibility. This is all before us. It is within our reach; but to attain it we must pursue the path of wisdom. We must throw aside all the weights and clogs that have fettered society elsewhere. We must inculcate moral and industrial habits. We must exclude the low, vicious, and depraved. Every member of society should be on a level with the mass-able to perform his appropriate duty. Having his equal rights, he should be capable of maintaining those rights, and aiding in their equal diffusion to others. There should be that equilibrium in society which pervades all nature, and that equilibrium can only be established by acting in conformity with the laws of nature. There should be no incongruities in the structure; it

should be a harmonious whole, and there should be no discordant particles, if you would have a happy unity. That the negro race is out of his social sphere, and becomes a discordant element when among the Caucasian race, no one can doubt. You have but to take a retrospective view, and you need not extend your vision beyond our own land to be satisfied of this fact. Look at our once happy republic, now a contentious, antagonistical, discordant people. The Northern people see, and feel, and know, that the black population is an evil in the land, and although they have admitted them to many of the rights of citizenship, the admixture has acted in the political economy as a foreign, poisonous substance, producing the same effect as in physical economyderangement, disease, and, if not removed, death. Let us be warned-let us avoid an evil of such magnitude.

I will trespass on the patience of the House no further, Mr. President, than to express the wish that this clause may become an article in the Constitution.

Mr. GWIN said that this was clearly a legislative feature of the Constitution, and should come up in the legislative department.

Mr. McCARVER had no objection to letting it come up in another part of the Constitution, but as other provisions of a similar character had been placed in the bill of rights, he thought that was the proper position for it. He would, however, withdraw it, with the understanding that it should come up for consideration in the legislative department.

Mr. ORD had another amendment to offer, providing that no power of suspending the laws shall be exercised, unless by the Legislature or its authority. It was the same in substance as the amendment which he had offered the other day.

Mr. BOTTS objected to the proposition. He was opposed, in the first instance, to giving either the Executive or the Legislature the power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, but he preferred, of the two evils, that this power should not be placed in the hands of a single individual. He hoped he was not forbidden to doubt even the propriety of some of the provisions in the Constitution of the United States. What would be the interpretation of this clause, if adopted in this Constitution? That the laws of this State, which are, in part, the Constitution, may be suspended by the Legislature; that the Constitution itself may be suspended. Of course, it cannot be the laws passed by the Legislature that are referred to, because the Legislature has a right to suspend or repeal its own laws. It is unnecessary to say that the Legislature has power to suspend its own laws. The right to make laws gives it the right to suspend or repeal them. What other laws of the land are there, which nobody but the Legislature can suspend. There is but one other set of laws-those contained in your Constitution. It is, therefore, inevitable that the Legislature may suspend the laws of this Constitution. Mr. PRICE asked if the gentleman (Mr. Ord) would withdraw the amendment, and let it come in as a section at the final passage of the Constitution. Mr. ORD thereupon withdrew his amendment.

Mr. ORD submitted the following as an additional section, which was rejected : Szc. 19. All persons shall, before conviction, be bailable, by sufficient sureties, except for capital offences, where the proof is evident or the presumption great.

Mr. ORD offered the following, which was rejected:

That no free Government, or the blessing of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.

The last section of the report being now under consideration, as follows:

20. This enumeration of rights shall not be construed to impair or deny others retained by the people.

Mr. GWIN moved to amend by striking out and inserting the following, from the bill of rights of Arkansas:

This enumeration of rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people; and to guard against any encroachments on the rights herein retained, or any transgression of any of the higher powers herein delegated, we declare that everything in this article is excepted out of the general powers of Government, and shall forever remain inviolate; and that all laws contrary thereto, or to the other provisions herein contained, shall be void.

Mr. Borts proposed to amend the amendment. As his present proposition was the only definite one which he had offered in this bill of rights, he hoped it would be treated with some degree of indulgence. It was not to be found in the bill of rights of New York, or Iowa, or Arkansas; there was that objection to it, but he believed the spirit of it was broached in them all.

As constitutions are the instruments by which the powers of the people are delegated to their representatives, they ought to be construed strictly, and all powers, not expressly granted, should be taken to be reserved.

He (Mr. Botts) considered the original section picked up by the Committee extremely imperfect. He imagined the Committee had found it somewhere in the Constitution of New York or Iowa.

Mr. HALLECK stated that it was the closing article of the bill of rights of Iowa. Mr. Borrs suggested that it was probably the people of Iowa who got it in that way. He submitted to the House, whether this devotion to the particular States from which gentlemen happened to come, was proper here. No man reverenced the feeling more than himself-attachment to the place of his nativity. But may not this feeling be carried too far? Should not gentlemen on this floor remember that they are no longer cititizens of New York, or Missouri, Iowa, or Michigan, but citizens of California. This Convention should not reject the experience of others that had gone before it. It should draw wisdom from the spirit and meaning of all their constitutions, but not servilely copy them. He did not see why this Convention was not as capable of being original as any other that had ever met. He hoped gentlemen would not make a constitution like an old woman's spencer-composed of shreds and patches. If the amendment which he proposed did not meet the views of the House, let them alter the phraseology, but let there be at least one original section in the Constiution.

Mr. SEMPLE said: There is one important principle involved in the amendment, which requires some expression of opinion. It should be borne in mind, that there is a marked difference between the Federal Constitution, and that of a State. The Constitution of the United States, is a delegation of power from a confederation of sovereign and independent States. By the consent of the whole, each State is limited to a certain extent; and such powers as are not expressly prescribed in the Constitution, are reserved to the people. As it is impossible for the people, individually, to regulate taxes, organise towns and villages, and make and amend laws, they form a Legislature to conduct these operations for them. That Legislature is amenable to them, for the faithful discharge of its duties, either annually or biennially. No other state sovereignty can interfere with these rights. If the Legislature abuse its powers by passing injurious or objectionable laws, the people form a new Legislature to repeal or amend them. But for the general welfare of all, each State has delegated to the confederacy a portion of its sovereignty. If this were not so, any one of them would have power to levy war. They reserve, however, all rights pertaining to the regulation of their local affairs, as States. The General Government has no power to interfere with them in their individual capacity. Congress is therefore prohibited, by the Constitution, from infringing upon these reserved powers. Its duties are to regulate navigation and commerce with foreign nations, to supervise the affairs of the Republic, to declare war, and impose taxes for the support of the Government. All power which is not express. ly forbidden by the Federal Constitution, is left to the people and their represen. tatives in their State capacity. He (Mr. Semple) was opposed to all encroachments of the General Government on the rights of the States. And when gentlemen talk about restricting the Legislature from the exercise of any rights reserved to the people by the Constitution of the United States, it is assuming a power not delegated to this Convention. Are we to say how many sheriffs, and how many coroners are to be in the State? If so, why have a Legislature at all? It is impossible to direct your State Legislature what it shall do. You can only say what it shall not do— you can only embody certain fundamental principles of government in your Con

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