USA > Illinois > Washington County > History of Washington County, Illinois > Part 31
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32
CANAL,
The Illinois and Michigan Canal shall never be sold or leased until the specific proposi- tion for the sale or lease thereof shall have first been submitted to a vote of the people of the State, at a general election, and have been approved by a majority of all the votes polled at such election. The general assembly shall never loan the credit of the State, or make appropriations from the treasury thereof, in aid of railroads or canals : Provided, that any surplus earnings of any canal may be appropriated for its enlargement or extension,
SCHEDULE.
I. Laws in force remain valid. 3. Fines, Penalties, and Forfeitures.
3. Recognizances, Bonds, Obligations.
4. Present county Courts continued. All existing Courts continued. &. Persons now in Office continued.
That no inconvenience may arise from the alterations and amendments made in the constitution of this State, and to carry the same into complete effect, it is hereby ordained and declared :
¿ 1. That all laws in force at the adoption of this constitution, not inconsistent therewith, and all rights, actions, prosecutions, claims, and contracts of this State, individuals, or bodies corporate, shall continue to be as valid as if this constitution had not been adopted.
& 2. That all fines, taxes, penalties and forfeitures, due and owing to the State of Illinois under the present constitution and laws, shall insure to the use of the people of the State of Illinois, under this constitution.
¿ 3. Recognizances, bonds, obligations, and all other instruments entered into or executed before the adoption of this constitution, to the people of the State of Illinois, to any State or county officer or public body, shall remain binding and valid; and rights and liabilities upon the same shall continue, and all crimes and misdemeanors shall he tried and punished as though no change had been made in the constitution of this State.
¿ 4. County courts for the transaction of county business in counties not having adopted township organization, shall continue in existence and exercise their present jurisdiction until the board of county commissioners provided in this constitution is organized in pur- suance of an act of the general assembly ; and the county courts in all other counties shall have the same power and jurisdiction they now possess until otherwise provided by general law.
¿ 5. All existing courts which are not in this constitution specially enumerated, shall con- tinue in existence and exercise their present jurisdiction until otherwise provided by law. 6. All persons now filling any office or appointment shall continue in the exercise of the duties thereof according to their respective commissions or appointments, unless by this constitution it is otherwise directed.
*
*
*
*
*
¿ 18. All laws of the State of Illinois, and all official writings, and the executive, legisla- tive and judicial proceedings, shall be conducted, preserved and published in no other than the English language.
¿ 19. The general assembly shall pass all laws necessary to carry into effect the provisions of this constitution.
¿ 20. The circuit clerks of the different counties having a population over sixty thousand, shall continue to be recorders (ex-officio) for their respective counties, under this constitu- tion, until the expiration of their respective terms.
¿ 21. The judges of all courts of record in Cook County shall, in lieu of any salary pro- vided for in this constitution, receive the compensation now provided by law until the ad- journment of the first session of general assembly after the adoption of this constitution. ¿ 22. The present judge of the circuit court of Cook county shall continue to hold the circuit court of Lake county until otherwise provided by law.
¿ 23. When this constitution shall be adopt. d. and take effect as the supreme law of the State of Illinois, the two-mill tax provided to be annually assessed and collected upon each dollar's worth of taxable property, in addition to all other taxes, as set forth in article fifteen of the now existing constitution, shall cease to be assessed after the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and seventy.
& 24. Nothing contained in this constitution shall be so construed as to deprive the genera assembly of the power to authorize the city of Quincy to create any indebtedness for rail- road or municipal purposes, for which the people of said city shall have voted, and to which they shall have given, by such vote, their assent, prior to the thirteenth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine : Provided, that no such indebtedness, so created, shall in any part thereof be paid by the State, or from any State revenue, tax or fund, but the same shall be paid, if at all, by the said city of Quincy alone, and by taxes to be levied upon the taxable property thereof: And provided, further, that the general assembly shall have no power in the premises that it could not exercise under the present constitution of this State.
¿ 25. In case this constitution and the articles and sections submitted separately be adopt- ed, the existing constitution shall cease in all its provisions ; and in case this constitution be adopted, and any one or more of its articles or sections submitted separately be defeated, the provisions of the existing constitution (if any) on the same subject shall remain in force.
¿ 26. The provisions of this constitution required to be executed prior to the adoption or rejection thereof shall take effect and be in force immediately.
Done in convention at the capital, in the city of Springfield, on the thirteenth day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and seventy, and of the inde- pendence of the United States of America the ninety-fourth.
In witness whereof, we have hereunto subscribed our names :
CHARLES HITCHCOCK, President.
Digitized by Google
94
HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
William J. Allen,
Robert A. King,
Jesse C. Fox,
Thomas J Turner,
John Abbott,
Jas. McCoy,
Miles A. Fuller,
Wm. H. Underwood,
James C. Allen,
Charles E. McDowell,
John P. Gamble,
Wm. L. Vandeventer,
Elliott Anthony,
William C. Goodhue,
Addison Goodell,
Henry W. Wells,
Wm. R. Archer,
Joseph Medill,
John C. Haines,
George E. Wait,
Henry I. Atkins,
Clifton H. Moore,
Elijah M. Haines,
George W. Wall,
James G. Bayne,
Jonathan Merriam,
John W. Hankins,
R. B. Sutherland,
R. M. Benjamin,
Joseph Parker,
R. P. Hanna,
D. C. Wagner,
H. P. H. Brownwell,
Samuel C. Parks,
Joseph Hart, George R. Wendling,
Abel Harwood,
Chas. Wheaton,
Wm. G. Bowman Silas L. Bryon,
Edward Y. Rice,
Samuel Snowden Hayes,
John H. Wilson,
H. P. Buxton,
James P. Robinson,
Jesse S. Hildrup,
Orlando H. Wright,
Daniel Cameron, William Cary,
William P. Pierce,
ATTEST :- John Q. Harmon, Secretary.
Lawrence S. Church,
N. J. Pillsbury,
Daniel Shepard, First Assistant Secretary.
Hiram H. Cody,
Jno. Scholfield,
W. F. Coolbaugh
James M. Sharp, Henry Sherrell,
A. H. Swain, Second Assistant Secretary.
Alfred M. Craig, Robert J. Cross,
Wm. H. Snyder,
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, STATE OF ILLINOIS.
Office of Secretary.
John Dement,
Westel W. Sedgwick,
G. S. Eldridge,
Charles F. Springer,
James W. English,
John L. Tincher.
David Ellis,
C. Truesdale,
Ferris Forman,
Henry Tubbs
copy of the constitution of the State of Illinois adopted in convention the 13th day of May, 1870, ratified by a vote of the people the ath day of July, 1870, and In force on the 8th dey of Aug ist, 1870, and now on file in th's office. In testimony whereof I hereto set my hand and affix the Great Seal of State, at the city of Springfield, this 31st day of March, A. D. 1873.
GEO. H. HARLOW, Secretary of State.
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ; that they are en- dowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abol- ish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under ab- solute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of govern- ment. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States. To prove this let facts be submitted to a candid world :
He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained ; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature; a right inestima- ble to them, and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused, for a long time after such dissolution, to cause others to be elected ; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilatic.1, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the State remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the danger of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States ; for that purpose, obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for estab- lishing. judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislature.
He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power. He has combined, with others, to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws ; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation.
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us.
For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment, for any murders which they
should commit on the inhabitants of these States.
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world :
For imposing taxes on us without our consent :
For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury :
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences :
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies :
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundament- ally, the powers of our governments : For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the work of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun, with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress, in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A .prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time, of attempts made by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdic- tion over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which would inevit- ably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace, friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in GEN- ERAL CONGRESS assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which INDEPENDENT STATES may of right do. And, for the support of this declaration, and a firm reliance on the protection of DIVINE PROVIDENCE, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
JOHN HANCOCK.
Digitized by
O. H. Browning,
Peleg S. Perley,
J. S. Poage,
Milton Hay,
L. D. Whiting,
Lewis W. Ross,
Samuel P. Cummings,
O. C. Skinner,
I, GEORGE H. HARLOW, Secretary of the State of Illinois, do hereby certify that the foregoing is a true
95
HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.
WE, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this CONSTITUTION for the United States of America.
ARTICLE I.
SECTION 1. All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives. SECTION 2. The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several States, and the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature.
No person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty-five years, and been seven years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.
Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be deter- mined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons. The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct. The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each State shall have at least one Representative ; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hamphsire shall be entitled to choose three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Island and Provide nce Plantations one, Connecticut five, New York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia, ten, North Carolina five, and Georgia three.
When vacancies happen in the representation from any State, the Executive authority thereof shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies.
The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other officers, and shall have the sole power of impeachment.
SECTION 3. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote.
Immediately after they shall be assembled in consequence of the first election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three classes. The seats of the Senators of the first class shall be vacated at the expiration of the second year, of the second class at the expira- tion of the fourth year, and of the third class at the expiration of the sixth year, so that one- third may be chosen every second year; and if vacancies happen by resignation, or otherwise, during the recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary appointments until the next meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such vacancies. "No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the age of thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhab- itant of that State for which he shall be chosen.
The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote unless they be equally divided.
The Senate shall choose their other officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the office of President of the United States.
The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that purpose they shall le on oath or affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside. And no person shall be convicted without the con- currence of two-thirds of the members present.
Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States : but the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment according to law.
SECTION 4. The times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Represent- atives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law, make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators.
The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.
SECTION 5. Each house shall be the judge of the election, returns and qualifications of its own members, and a majority of each shall constitute a quorum to do business ; but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent members in such manner, and under such penalties as each house may provide.
Each house may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behaviour, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member.
Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such parts as may in their judgment require secrecy ; and the yeas and nays of the members of either house on any question shall, at the desire of one-fifth of those present, be entered on the journal.
Neither house, during the session of Congress, shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other place than that in which the two houses shall be sitting.
SECTION 6. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation for their ser- vices, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective houses, and in going to and return- ing from the same; and for any speech or debate in either house they shall not be questioned in any other place.
No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have beer increased during such time; and no person
holding any office under the United States, shall be a member of either house during his continuance in office.
SECTION 7. All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives ; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other bills.
Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the President of the United States; if he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it with his objections to that house in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the objections at large on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the objections, to the other house, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two-thirds of that House, it shall become a law. But in all such cases the votes of both houses shall be determined by yeas and nays, and the names of the persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered on the journal of each house respectively. If any bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted), after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law, in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their adjournment prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a law.
Every order, resolution or vote to which the concurrence of the Senate and House of Rep resentatives may be necessary (except on a question of adjournment), shall be presented to the President of the United States; and before the same shall take effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two-thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the rules and limitations prescribed in the case of a bill.
SECTION 8. The Congress shall have power-
To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States ; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States ;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States ;
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes. ;
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.