"7. The legislature shall not borrow money or contract loans in the name of the people: but it may submit bills authorizing public loans to the people, which bills shall become binding when ratified by a majority of the voters at a general election."

It would occupy a larger space than the limits I had prescribed for this sketch will allow, were I to attempt to describe the judicial system proposed by the convention. It is novel and ingenious. It proposes that all the judges shall be elected by the people, and with this single exception, I must be allowed, at the hazard of being charged with heresy, to say, that I think it in some respects preferable to our present system. Among other novelties, is the plan it proposes, to substitute a court of appeals, consisting of forty or more district judges, for the existing court for correction of errors; and what is most curious, and to me entirely new, it proposes, that when these judges are assembled, they shall choose a president; and that thereupon "juries of twelve men each shall then be drawn from the judges present. These juries shall sit by alternation, or as cases may require, in the jury box, hear cases, retire, and bring in their verdicts, in like manner as other juries."

The proposed constitution abolishes capital punishment, and provides that "all frauds shall be punished as felonies." On the subject of legal coercive means of enforcing the performance of contracts, section ten of article eight proposes, that "No law shall be valid for the forcible collection of debts arising from voluntary agreement between individuals, wherein one party relinquishes his right to and possession of any species of property on the promise by the other party of another thing or equivalent. [This section shall apply only to debts contracted after the adoption of this constitution.]"

But the existence of the equal rights, as a distinct third political party, was now drawing to a close. Previous to the election in November, 1837, it amalgamated with the two other great parties. In the city of New-York, an immense majority of the loco-foco party fell back into the ranks of the democratic party.

I have some where before remarked, that three parties can not, for any considerable time, exist in a state; but there were one or two prominent causes which hastened the annihilation of the loco-foco party. The first I shall mention, was Mr. Van Buren's message to congress at the extra session of September, 1837, which was received with the entire and cordial approbation of the equal rights party. What rendered it the more pleasing to that party, was that, if it did not place the president in an attitude of war against the banks, it at all events placed the banks in a belligerent attitude against him.

Although the party had existed for nearly two years in the city, very few persons in the country had joined their standard. The prospect, therefore, of becoming a successful state party without the aid of the entire whig party, was extremely remote, if not perfectly hopeless. How much the loco-foco party could depend on the whigs to carry out their principles, was evinced by the conduct of Tallmadge and Curtis, who no sooner had obtained their election, than they seemed to be in haste to convince their loco-foco friends that they did not intend to be bound by their pledges. I am assured by a gentleman perfectly well acquainted with the political action of the loco-focos, that "the political course of Edward Curtis and F. A. Tallmadge so displeased the equal rights party as disposed it more than any thing else to a re-union with the democratic republican party." Committees of conference were created as well by the Tammany as by the equal rights party; several friendly meetings were held between these com

mittees as the representatives of their respective parties, and finally a declaration of principles, drawn by the equal rights men, was formally adopted by the general committee of Tammany Hall, and the union was effected in October, 1837.

A correspondent possessing a highly enlightened and philosophic mind, after speaking of the loco-foco party, adds "The workingmen's party and the equal rights party have operated as causes producing effects that will shape the course of the two great parties of the United States, and consequently the destinies of this great republic. The mere party politician cannot see this; but to him who discerns the philosophy of historical events, it will be of deep interest."

CHAPTER XLII.

FROM JANUARY 1, 1839, TO DECEMBER, 1840.

The legislature assembled on the 1st day of January, 1839.

George W. Patterson, of Livingston county, was chosen speaker. He received seventy-nine votes and was elected; forty-one votes were given to Thomas Armstrong, the democratic candidate, and one vote was given to James A. Lawrence, of Onondaga, probably by Mr. Patterson. I cannot name Mr. Lawrence without stopping to add, even in this brief sketch, that he was one of the most candid, upright and useful members of that house.

The governor's message, though obnoxious to the complaint I have so often made in relation to similar communications, in being too long, was an able document, and written in an easy and elegant style. In the first part of it he made several insinuations against the party which lately had had possession of the state government, and indeed in various other parts are to be found pretty severe reflections upon their policy. He intimates an opinion that too much power and patronage, and too great a latitude of discretion had been conferred on the canal commissioners. On that subject he makes the following judicious remarks:

"With the extention of our internal improvements, there has been an immense and unlooked for enlargement of the financial operations and the official power and patronage of the canal commissioners and the canal board. These operations are conducted, and this power and patronage exercised and dispensed with few of those requirements as to accountability and publicity enforced with scrupulous

care in every other department of the government. So inconsistent and unequal are the best efforts to maintain simplicity, uniformity and accountability throughout the various departments, that a great, mysterious and undefined power has thus grown up unobserved, while the public attention has exhausted itself in narrowly watching the action of more unimportant functionaries. It is a proposition worthy of consideration, whether greater economy and efficiency in the management of our present public works, would not be secured; a wiser direction given to efforts for internal improvement throughout the state, and a more equal diffusion of its advantages be effected by constituting a board of internal improvements, to consist of one member from each senate district. This board might be divided into two classes, the term of one of which should expire annually. It should discharge all the duties of the present canal board; should audit all accounts, have the general superintendence of the canals, and all other public works, with powers of investigation in regard to those in which the state has an interest by loan or otherwise; report upon all special applications for surveys, or aid, and annually submit a detailed statement of its proceedings to the legislature. It is the worst economy to devolve upon officers constituted for one department, duties appurtenant to others. Its universal results. are diminished responsibility and diminished efficiency in both the principal and incidental departments."

On the subject of the lunatic asylum, then being constructed, the governor expresses his sentiments in a manner very impressive. He says, "Among all His blessings, none calls so loudly for gratitude to God as the preservation of our reason. Of all the inequalities in the social condition, there is none so affecting as its privation. He sees fit to cast upon our benevolent care those whom he visits with that fearful affliction. It would be alike un