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we are at this time.

He was aware that some gentlemen were very anxious to show their love of the people, and they desire that this question should be decided out of mere love to the people, and to have the opportunity of showing their attachment to them. It was urged, as a reason why we should postpone this question, that the committee have not considered the propositions of the authorities of Harrisburg and Philadelphia. This he considered no objection, because these propositions are before the Convention, and when we come to take the matter into consideration, we can consider them. and make up our minds accordingly. He hoped that the motion to postpone would not be agreed to.

Mr. BELL hoped that the Convention would not agree to postpone the subject, as he considered that we had all the information before us, necessary to come to a correct understanding of the case.

Mr. STERIGERE then withdrew his motion to postpone.

The question then recured on the motion of Mr. STEVENS.
Mr. EARLE called for the yeas and nays, which were ordered.

Mr. DUNLOP intended to vote for thsi amendment, and begged the attention of the Convention, for a few minutes, while he gave the reasons why he should give his vote. In the first place, if we meet again in October, at this place, it is most probable that our labors will not be concluded when the Legislature meets, and then it will be necessary for us to find some other Hall to hold our sessions in, because it is not to be expected that the Legislature will give us up this one, and go out in search of one themselves. This will be attended with great inconvenience. If we meet in the Church, we will be cramped up in little narrow seats without desks: and he presumed every gentleman would have to carry a shingle along to write upon. It was not to be expected that they will move the pews, and we will be shut up in narrow seats, with strait backs, which will be very uncomfortable to gentlemen who have been accustomed to sit here in fine armed chairs. He would put it to gentlemen how they would like to sit up there as straight as an old maid, forenoon and afternoon, in these narrow church pews. For himself, he would rather be confined in the stocks, provided he could lie down. If we are to go there, the place would be fitted up by the authorities, and as it would be but a temporary matter, it was not to be expected that we could have good desks, and chairs, and such conveniences as we have in this Hall now. It would be asking too much, to expect this. He did not believe that the borough of Harrisburg would go to any great expense in fitting up this Church for our accommodation. If we go to the court house, it will be nearly as bad. It could not be put in any fit condition for our reception, unless the whole inside was taken out, and then it would be a cramped up, and confined place, in which we would not have room to turn round. In Phila delphia we might be well accommodated, and have access to all the books we might wish to see. We would also have a good au lience there, which would make us more careful as to what we said, than we generally are.-But the people had a jealousy, though he believe i an unreasonable one, of the influence of the city: an he was conf leat they would not assent to our sitting there. In fact, he saw no alternative, but to adjourn over to April, and re-assemble here. We could then go on in a favorable season of the year, and despatch our business. If we are forced to meet this fall, and have to meet in Philadelphia, it may be the means of bringing

the Convention into disrepute, as no one could shut his eyes to the fact that a great many of the people, of the country, were opposed to having bodies of this kind assemble there. There was no necessity for us to be in haste with our deliberations, as they cannot be submited to the people at the fall elections, and no harm can be done by delaying the completion of our business; and there may be much good result from it. We have heard, from high authority, that a great change is taking place in the country, in relation to the subject of reform. The people are becoming more and more conservative. There was a great change taking place among the radicals, and agitators, themselves. In the county of Philadelphia, where all the reforms have been concocted, a great reaction had taken place. The people, at large, changed their opinions, as well as individuals. The public sentiment of the country was but little more stable, than were the sentiments of individuals. It was but the other day, that we were to have nothing in the country but hard money: and the whole cry was, that we were to have an exclusively metallic currency; but now he had understood that the course of certain politicians had been changed, and we have it from the Albany Regency, that they are not in favor of an exclusively metallic currency, and that they are willing to tolerate banking institutions.

Mr. PURVIANCE called the gentleman from Franklin to order. He considered the range of the gentleman too wide, and entirely irrelevant to the question.

Mr. DUNLOP: Perhaps the range was too wide for the gentleman's understanding, but other gentlemen will comprehend the argument. To show how frequent and sudden were the changes of sentiment and principle in individua's, he wished to refer to a few facts. There were now gentlemen on this floor, who had voted for a United States Bank, and held that it was a Constitutional and useful institution, who at the very sight of it now turned pale. There were gentlemen here who, a few years ago considered that institution a necessary official agent of the Government, and now they receive it as a deadly monster, or pretend to receive it as such, an perhaps it is only preten e. We have heard from all quarters of the country that great changes are taking place; and many gentlemen are becoming alarmed in relation to the subject of Constitutional reform. Many of the radicals are becoming alarmed in consequence of the informat on which has been received from the county of Philadelphia. He had heard some radicals say they would like to go home and consult their constituents in relation to some of the matter of reform here. Some of them would be glad to save the independence of the Judiciary. He considered that it was only necessary to refer the Convention to these constant changes in the public mind, to satisfy them that it would be right to give publie opinion time to fix itself on something which it would stand to. There was a time when the ralicals were likely to sweep from the face of the Commonwealth our most useful institutions; but we have seen these agitators, one after another, fall before the blast of popular indignation.— When we have seen these things take place within the last few days, can any one believe that there are not changes taking place in pable opinion. The public mind was never steady. It was always agitated like the shifting sands of the desert of Arabia. He wished to let the people know how little we have done for the time and the money we have spent. He wished to let

the people know that we were spending a thousand dollars a day; and to tell the sober minded farmers that this reform of the Constitution was about to cost them a quarter of a million of dollars. He wished to let the reformers of Juniata county know that their reforms would cost the people of the State, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars It had been said that the people cared nothing about these expenses, and that they were satisfied with our work, and anxious that we should go on and make changes. But he knew better than this, as there was nothing which attracts public attention quicker, than this matter of expenses; and he was satisfied that when these enormous expenses were laid before them, they would work radical changes in the public sentiment of this Commonwealth.— Public opinion had been regulated by the small township politicians, and little lying printers, and through them the representatives of the people had been e'ected. Public opinion had been manufactured by the bar-room and grog-shop politicians, who use all their efforts to carry men into the Legislature to carry out their views, and unfortunately for the country, they have been too successful. But the people of the country are rising in their indignation against them, and they will be put down. We are now at the flow of this tide of public opinion, and we shall be at its ebb when we meet again. He would give public opinion time, and it will work itself right.

Mr. CUMMIN rose for the purpose of replying to some of the remarks of the gentleman from Franklin, (Mr. DUNLOP). Mr. C. held in his hand the bill of expenses of the Convention, which the gentleman had read for the purpose of alarming the people. The gendeman had asserted that there had been a waste of time of this Convention by making long speeches, to the amount of some thousands, and yet this gentleman had made perhaps as many speeches as any other on this floor. For this inconsistency, Mr. C. had rebuked the gentleman, and it seemed to have some effect for a time. The gentleman however, had broken out again, without reserve, in support of an amendment of his friend from Adams, (Mr. STEVENS) but what that amendment was, he knew not, as that some gentlemen has bewildered us so with amendments, that there was no telling what it was. He supposed, however, it was the same amendment which the gentleman from Adams had offered six times-five times by himself, and once by his friend, without either addition or diminution. It was impossible for him to follow the gentleman in all his meanderings, his logic, sophistry, and other hard words, which being no scholar, he could not understand. The gentleman has given us a history and exposition of the United States Bank, as though the amendment of the gentleman from Adams, was a bill to re-charter that bank. What business has that gentleman to occupy the attention of this Convention at this time, with the subject of the United States Bank? There is no bill before us to re-charter that institution, nor have we any article before us respecting the bank. Then why did he waste so much time on a subject not before the Convention? This is the orator who sums up the expenses of the Convention, on account of long speeches; yet there is no gentleman in the Convention who wastes more of its time than this same logical gentleman. The gentleman appeared to be dissatisfied with every thing-nothing suited him. He was neither pleased with the city nor the country, the church nor the court house.— He was opposed to going to Philadelphia, for fear of the wrath of the peo

ple, and he would not sit in the German Church, as it was only fit for children or old maids-the backs of the seats were strait up, and you were confined as if you were in the stocks. The gentle man must at least have been to church once, or otherwise he could not describe so minutely the punishment which people endure there. Again, he condemns the court house, and says it is an unfit place to set in. Now, it would be recollected by many gentlemen here, that the Legislature sat in the court house for many years, and they found it a very commodious house. Mr. C. had been there himself, and he thought himself as good a man as the gentleman from Franklin. But in the gentleman's other denunciation, he has seen fit to use indecorous and unbecoming language towards the people of this Commonwealth, to use such language towards them as was unbecoming a gentleman on this floor.

The CHAIR clled Mr. C. to order. It was not in order to indulge in personal remarks.

Mr. CUMMIN said he would bow to the admonition of the Chair. He came here with a disposition to give no offence to any member of the Convention; yet there was abusive language thrown out frequently by the gen leman from Franklin, which it was necessary to repel. It was unbecoming the dignity of this honorable Convention, that such reproaches should be thrown upon members of this body, and their constituents, as we have heard, on more occasions than one, thrown upon them by the gentleman from Franklin.

Mr. BROWN, of Philadelphia, replied to the assertion of the gentleman from Franklin, (Mr. DUNLOP), that great changes had taken place in the county of Philadelphia on the subject of reform, denying it in any and every sense in which it was made. The people of the county were, by an overwhelming majority, in favor of amending the Constitution; and, although they might have doubted, and may still doubt, whether such amendments as they desire will be made by what has been called a conservative Convention, yet, when the amendments he (Mr. B.) had no doubt would be made, were presented to their consideration, they would meet their full approbation. But the gentleman frem Franklin said, that they were changing on the subject of limiting the tenure of the Judiciary. Now, Mr. B. would say, that not the least indication of any such change had been manifested; on the contrary, the people of that county had too strong an evidence of the independence and integrity of a Judiciary of limited tenure in their District Court, not to be in favor of limiting all Judges. So far from the people of Philadelphia county changing against reform, he had letters, which were at the service of any gentlen.an, from some of the first men in the city of Philadelphia, belonging to the conɛervative party, approving of the reform proposed. Mr. B. then replied to Mr. Dunlop on the subject of the expenses of the Convention. He supposed that that gentleman did not mean this part of his remarks for the Convention, but for the people of Cumberland, Franklin and Adams, to whom he had told the Convention a few days before, he was speaking. He trusted that when that gentleman went before those people, he would tell them how much of that expense he had (Mr. D.) voted for. But, (said Mr. B.) who is it that is to be charged with the expenses of the Convention! Certainly not the radicals. The conservatives had told them before we assembled, that they had a majority. Their first act proved that they had

a majority. The election of a President, certainly not a radical, placed the whole action of the Convention in the hands of the conservatives. Whatever was therefore of good or evil, was attributable to the conservatives. It all belonged to the conservatives. The radicals had no responsibility. He did not wish to attribute blame to any one, not even to the conservatives, on this subject. He did not believe the expenses of th Convention were worth the talk they had occasioned. These expenses were all predicated upon, and regulated by those of the Legislature; and he did not believe the people of Pennsylvania would regard the expense in improving their form of Government, in carrying on the great work of perfecting their free institutions, and making them conformable to the light and spirit of the age; and Mr. B. said he knew the gentleman from Franklin (Mr. DUNLOP), was too high-minded and honorable a man to appeal to the mere dollar-and-cent passion of the people of Cumberland, Franklin, and Adams, when he brought the subject of reform before them. He will tell them all the Convention have done, and all he believes, in his heart, they will do. He will show them his votes on this subject, and will appeal to their high and lofty patriotism in favor of reformi. He will tell them that all the charges of jacobinism and agrarianism, which were made against us poor radicals, were false and unfounded; and will ask them to judge of the changes we make, without prejudice or passion, looking only at what is made, and forgetting who has made them, or what they may have cost. It we have acted wrong, he will tell the people who have so acted; but he will not ask the people to punish themselves for our fault, by rejecting good and wholesome reform. He will tell them that the Convention, conservative as it is, can do no harm, and may and will do much good. It will enlarge and liberalize the institutions of the State. On the subject of adjourning until April, (Mr. B.) said. the gentleman from Franklin says reform is at the flood now, and it will soon be at the ebb. When, (said Mr. B.), will be the greatest ebb, if not after the October election? Those opposed to all reform will then have had an opportunity to appeal to the people, and if they want no reform, that will be the time to determine; and Mr. B. said he, for one, was willing to meet the people in this Hall now, or in October; but he hoped it would not be deemed necessary to put it off longer than the period already fixed.

Mr. FLEMING, of Lycoming, said that if we adjourned over for three months, it was a longer time than our constituents would approve; but, to add six months more to the recess, was altogether out of the question. If we met here next spring, as soon as the warm weather commenced, we should meet the same objections, on the score of the unhealthiness of the place and se son, that we have met at this session. Another adjourn ment would then be necessary to the next fall or spring, occasioning a degree of delay and expense which the public would never tolerate.In the first place, it was his opinion that we ought not to have ad journed at all. This season of the year was the most pleasant for such an assembly that could be chosen; but, after adjourning for three months, without any substantial reason, he wished to know what reason could be given for defering the whole business of the Convention for a year. In what situation would it place us with the people? Was it believed by any one, that they would sanction such a course?

He would ask the advocates of this resolution for an adjournment, why

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