111. The Officer-Elect. The candidate who has been declared elected is the officer-elect, but he has not yet become an officer. When the time has expired for which his predecessor was elected, and before the successful candidate can become an officer and assume the duties of his office, the Constitution provides (see Art. VII.) that every senator, representative, State, county and judicial officer shall take and subscribe to the oath of office, in which he swears or affirms that with the help of God he will support, obey and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and that he will discharge the duties of his office with fidelity. After he has taken the oath he assumes the duties of the office to which he was elected.

receives a plurality vote when he receives more votes than any other candidate for the same office; he receives a majority vote when he receives more than half the whole number of votes cast for any office.

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CHAPTER IV.

TO THE PEOPLE WE COME SOONER OR LATER.

66

To the people we come sooner or later; it is upon their wisdom and self-restraint that the stability of the most cunningly devised scheme of government will in the last resort depend.”—BRYCE.

112. The government of Pennsylvania, in State, county, city, borough and township, is the familiar tripartite form of government for which our ancestors so long contended in England and for which our forefathers made such costly sacrifices during the Revolutionary war.

113. The people, through their representatives whom they elect, make the laws, which are interpreted by judges whom the people choose, and which are executed by executive officers of their choice. So closely is the individual citizen connected with the government that any one of us, old or young, who may think of some plan by which the welfare of the people would be promoted, may form his ideas into a bill and send it to his representative in the General Assembly or in the Federal Congress, and it may be enacted into a law of the land.

114. The Constitution and laws of the State are but the expression of the will of the people as to the method of securing the best form of civil government, which implies the protection of all the rights and interests of the people, their lives, their property, their safety, their happiness and their prosperity.

The numerous officers chosen by the people, in State, county, city, borough and township, to administer the

laws and transact the public business, are responsible to the people for the care of the public interests entrusted to them; they are the public servants of the people; and while the term "public servants" may be to the thoughtless but a meaningless expression, to the more thoughtful it has all the significance intended by the Constitution when it uses the words "chosen to serve."

115. The government, in all of its departments, is "of the people, by the people, for the people." To the people we come sooner or later; on them, on the individual citizen, rest the stability and the security of the State. As we each of us realize our privileges, and with fidelity and loyalty live up to our responsibilities in the home, in the school, in township, in borough, in city, in State and in the nation, so shall we, like the favored people of old, "be blessed among the nations "- -so shall we worthily bear on the flag of the State, which is the emblem of its authority, and on the coat of arms of the State, which is the evidence of that authority, the ennobling motto written there by our fathers: "Virtue, Liberty and Independence "so shall be answered the prayer of the great founder of our State: "God bless the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania."

CONSTITUTION

OF THE

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA.

THE PREAMBLE.

WE, the People of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of civil and religious liberty, and humbly invoking His guidance, do ordain and establish this Constitution.

ARTICLE I.

DECLARATION OF RIGHTS.

That the general, great, and essential principles of liberty and free government may be recognized and unalterably established, WE DECLARE that

SECTION 1. All men are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent and indefeasible rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property and reputation, and of pursuing their own happiness.

SECTION 2. All power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority and instituted for their peace, safety, and happiness. For the advancement of these ends, they have, at all times, an inalienable and indefeasible right to alter, reform, or abolish their government, in such manner as they may think proper.

SECTION 3. All men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences; no man can, of right, be compelled to attend, erect, or support any place of worship, or to maintain any ministry, against his consent; no human authority can, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience; and no preference shall ever be given, by law, to any religious establishments or modes of worship.

SECTION 4. No person who acknowledges the being of a God, and a future state of rewards and punishments, shall, on account of his religious sentiments, be disqualified to hold any office, or place of trust or profit, under this Commonwealth.

SECTION 5. Elections shall be free and equal; and no power, civil or military, shall, at any time, interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage.

SECTION 6. Trial by jury shall be as heretofore, and the right thereof remain inviolate.

SECTION 7. The printing press shall be free to every person who may undertake to examine the proceedings of the Legislature, or any branch of government, and no law shall ever be made to restrain the right thereof. The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the invaluable rights of man; and every citizen may freely speak, write, and print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty. No conviction shall be had, in any prosecution for the publication of papers relating to the official conduct of officers, or men in public capacity, or to any other matter proper for public investigation. or information, where the fact that such publication was not maliciously or negligently made, shall be established to the satisfaction of the jury; and in all indictments for libels, the jury shall have the right to determine the law and the facts, under the direction of the Court, as in other

cases.