5. Do you approve of inserting in the Constitution an article prohibiting the manufacture, or sale, or keeping for sale of alcoholic or intoxicating liquor as a beverage, as proposed in the amended Constitution? 6. Do you approve of amending article 6 of the Bill of Rights making the same non-sectarian, as proposed in the amended Constitution? 7. Do you approve of amending the Constitution with reference to representation in classed towns, as proposed in the amended Constitution? (J. 1889, pp. 254-5.) VOTE ON SEVEN AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION SUBMITTED TO THE PEOPLE ON SECOND TUESDAY OF MARCH, 1889. No. 1. No. 2. No. 3. No. 4. No. 5. No. 6. No. 7. COUNTIES. Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes. No. Belknap 2,280 453 2,252 504 1.959 1,466 548 1,831 323 3,089 510 2,359 Total.. 38,352 11,654 37,872 12,218 34,990 12,224 35,768 11,530 25,786 30,976 27,737 20,048 30,002 12,846 Constitution unchanged since 1889. The following table shows the dates of the approval of the several acts of the Legislature from 1889-1902, providing for taking the sense of the qualified voters on the expediency of calling a convention to revise the constitution, and the aggregate, the affirmative, and the negative votes on the question as returned by the town clerks: Pursuant to the last mentioned vote the General Court by an act approved March 21, 1901, which is printed in full on a following page, provided for the election on November 4, 1902, of delegates to a constitutional convention, to assemble at Concord on the second day of December following. The Basis of Representation in New Hampshire Previous to the Adoption of the Constitution of 1783. The people of New Hampshire first appear as participants in a representative legislative body in 1641, when, in response to an order from the General Court of the Colony of Massachusetts, the town of Hampton sent one deputy to the General Court at Boston. Strawberry Bank, or Portsmouth, was admitted to a similar privilege in 1642, and Dover in 1643. From this time until 1679, when the jurisdiction of Massachusetts over New Hampshire terminated, each of these towns was represented, sometimes by one deputy and sometimes by two, in the General Court of Massachusetts. 66 September 18, 1679, New Hampshire entered upon a separate political existence by the commission of its first independent chief magistrate, John Cutt, a merchant of Portsmouth, as president. With him were associated nine councillors. This commission provided that within three months after taking oath of office the president and council should . . . issue forth Sum'ons under Seal by Us appointed to be used in the nature of writs for the calling of a Generall Assembly of the said Prov: using & observing there such rules and methods (as to the persons who are to Chuse their deputies, & the time and place of meeting) as they shall judg most convenient." An examination of such commissions of later governors as have been published, including those in the volume of Province Papers now (1902) in press, does not reveal any essential modification of these directions for convening a General Assembly. In pursuance of the foregoing instructions, the first Assembly was convened at Portsmouth, March 16, 1680. It consisted of eleven members, three each from Portsmouth, Dover and Hampton, and two from Exeter. The aforesaid towns at this time had respectively 71, 61, 57, and 20 inhabitants qualified to vote, so that the original basis of representation was about one member to twenty voters. This first Assembly passed the following act, which was approved by the governor and council: "It is enacted by this assembly and the authority thereof, yt ye severall constables in each town of ye province doe warne and call together the free men of theire respective townes, on ye first Monday in february, annually, and from among themselves to make their election of Deputies for ye Genll Assembly, who are to meet at Portsmo on ye first Tuesday of March, by ro of ye Clock in ye forenoon, and ye number of Deputies for each towne to be as followeth, vizt: 3 for ye towne of Ports, 3 for ye towne of Hampton, 3 for ye towne of Dover, and 2 for ye towne of Exeter, whose names, after their election and acceptance, ye severall Consa" shall make return of to ye Assembly, as above under their hands . . ." This Assembly at the same time defined "freemen " by the following act: "It is ordered by this Assembly and the authority thereof, yt all Englishmen, being Protestants, yt are settled Inhabitants and freeholders in any towne of this Province, of ye age of 24 years, not viceous in life but of honest and good conversation, and such as have 201 Rateable estate without heads of persons having also taken the oath of allegiance to his Maj, and no others |