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w York (State) Constitutional convention /8 94.

THE CONVENTION MANUAL

FOR THE

Sixth New York State Constitutional Convention,

1894.

AMERICAN

CONSTITUTIONS

COMPRISING

The Declaration of Independence, the Articles of
Confederation, the Constitution of the United
States, and the State Constitutions.

PREPARED IN PURSUANCE OF CHAPTER 8, OF LAWS OF 1893, AND
CHAPTER 228 OF LAWS OF 1894.

UNDER THE DIRECTION OF

JOHN PALMER, SECRETARY OF STATE.
JAMES A. ROBERTS, Comptroller.

THEO. E. HANCOCK, ATTORNEY-GENERAL.

By GEORGE A. GLYNN, SYRACUSE, Compiler.

Part 2. Vol, 1.

ALBANY:.

THE ARGUS COMPANY, PRINTERS,

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PREFACE.

Recognizing the importance of the work of revising the Constitution of the State of New York and the value to the Convention of having at hand the essential historical facts and fundamental principles of American government and also the results of Constitutional revision in our great Republic, the compiler presents in these volumes, in convenient form, the complete structure of the government of the United States and the Constitutions of the forty-four States of the union, together with the Declaration of Independence and Articles of Confederation.

Fully realizing, also, the great need of data regarding the origin and development of constitutional government, together with the different lines along which it has progressed in sister States as well as our own, the compiler has endeavored to make this work as complete and, at the same time, as concise as the proper exemplification will permit.

The Constitutions herein were in force in the several States January 1, 1894, and all were approved as official by the Secretaries of State.

Many of the most valued provisions of the Constitutions of our States had their origins in the charters under which the English colonies were originally governed. In many cases these charters contained rights and privileges more liberal than those under which British subjects were governed at home. The attempts made by the crown to annul these charters, or to substitute others less favorable to the liberties and less congenial to the colonists' views of self-government, were the causes of the earliest grievances of which nearly all the colonies complained. The original charters were so admirably suited to the wants of State

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