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that the legislature shall meet on the first Tuesday in January. If we now restrict the session to the first Tuesday of April, we shall require the legislature then to adjourn, no matter what may be the state of their business. This will put it in the power of a minority to close the session at that time, for the amendment requires that the session shall not be continued longer than the first Tuesday of April, without the concurrent votes of two-thirds of both houses. Any minority, perhaps a party minority, a factious minority, might thus have it in their power to defeat all the chief acts of the session. Every one acquainted with legislative proceedings, knows that the most important business of every session, is generally finished near the close of the session. Any vigorous opposition to a measure, especially if it was a subject of much deliberation and discussion, will defer its final passage through both houses, till near the close of the session. Thus it is plain that, by this amendment, we put it in the power of a small faction, consisting of only one-third of either house, to defeat the most important business of every session, and to render impotent the will of a large majority of both houses. A more unsafe measure, and one better calculated to defeat the expression of the public will, through the legislature, could not be devised. He believed that the first weeks of the session were, generally, most carefully employed in carving out and maturing the business, by the standing committees. But in the latter part of the session, there is always much hasty legislation, and much log-rolling. A great many bills,fall through, and lie over, as unfinished business, and many more are hastily passed without due consideration. The proposition to limit the session, would, in his opinion, have the effect to increase the hurry and confusion attending the close of a session, and, at the same time, to prevent the legislature from proceeding in its usual and proper course in the early part of the session.

The question was then taken on the amendment, offered by Mr. READ, and it was decided in the negative; yeas 41, nays 69, as follow, viz:

YEAS-Messrs. Banks, Barndollar, Bigelow, Clarke, of Beaver, Cleavinger, Cox, Crain, Crawford, Crum, Cummin, Darrah, Dickey, Dillinger, Dunlop, Fry, Fuller, Gamble, Gearhart, Gilmore, Grenell, Hayhurst, High, Ingersoll, Keim, Kiebs, Magee, M'Cahen, Merkel, Miller, Purviance, Read, Ritter, Royer, Shellito, Smith, of Columbia, Smyth, of Centre, Snively, Stickel, Taggart, White, Woodward-41.

NAYS-Messrs. Agnew, Baldwin, Barclay, Barnitz, Bedford, Biddle, Brown, of Lancaster, Brown, of Northampton, Carey, Chambers, Chandler, of Chester, Chandler, of Philadelphia, Chauncey, Clark, of Dauphin, Clarke, of Indiana, Cline, Coates, Cochran, Cope, Craig, Cunningham, Curll, Darlington, Denny, Dickerson, Donagan, Donnell, Fleming, Foulkrod, Harris, Hastings, Hays, Helffenstein, Henderson, of Allegheny, Henderson, of Dauphin, Hiester, Hopkinson, Houpt, Hyde, Kennedy, Kerr, Long, Maclay, Mann, Martin, M'Call, M'Dowell, M'Sherry, Meredith, Montgomery, Pollock, Porter, of Lancaster, Porter, of Northampton, Russell, Saeger, Scheetz, Scott, Sellers, Seltzer, Serrill, Sill, Sterigere, Sturdevant, Thomas, Todd, Weaver, Weidman, Young, Sergeant, President-69.

The section as amended was then agreed to.

Mr. MEREDITH suggested the expediency of taking the question on the remaining sections of the article without reading them; if no amendments were to be proposed.

Mr. PORTER, of Northampton, said, he wished to offer an amendment to the next section, allowing the house to elect a speaker pro tempore, in

the absence of the speaker. Much inconvenience had been felt in the house for the want of such a person.

On motion of Mr. SERGEANT,

The Convention then adjourned.

APPENDIX

TO THE

EIGHTH VOLUME.

APPENDIX.

Mr. STERIGERE,* of Montgomery county, rose and said:

Mr. Chairman, it is with extreme reluctance that I rise to say any thing on a subject which has already been discussed in this body for so many successive weeks. My reluctance arises, in a great measure, from the consciousness which I feel of my own inability to do justice to a subject which has been so ably debated on both sides of the house. Fifteen of the twenty delegates from Philadelphia city and county, have made seventeen speeches. I hope the committee will pardon one of the other one hundred and thirteen for trespassing on their time a brief period.

Sir, I am free to confess that this question is one which requires more deliberation and more talent, than I shall be enabled to bring into its discussion; and I must also say, that the reluctance with which I enter it, at all, is enhanced by the consideration that, after other gentlemen have been allowed the privilege of addressing the committee for one, or two or three days, in explanation of the views they may entertain, I am to be confined, under the operation of the rule which has very recently been adopted, to the space of a single hour.

It seems to me, that this does not afford sufficient time, even to glance at the various matters which have been introduced, much less to attempt a discussion of them.

I had entertained some hopes, frem the course which this debate has taken, for the last two or three days, that we were at least about to come directly to the subject, upon which we have to act; but I think that it has again been departed from by the remarks which have been made by the gentleman from the city of Philadelphia-who last addressed the committee, (Mr. Cope). Of all the gentlemen who constitute this body, I should have thought that he would have been the very last to introduce political topics, here or elsewhere, which he must have known could not have failed to excite a strong feeling among us.

But, Mr. Chairman, the lingering feeling of hostility which still exists against the great chief who has recently retired from public life, to enjoy that repose at the hermitage which his advanced years and his long and

* See page 23.

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