XXX. No Secretary of this State, Attorney-General, or clerk of any court of record, shall have a seat in the Senate, House of Commons, or Council of State.

XXXI. No clergyman, or preacher of the gospel, of any denomination, shall be capable of being a member of either the Senate, House of Commons, or Council of State, while he continues in the exercise of his pastoral function.

XXXII. No person who shall deny the being of God, or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority of either the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office, or place of trust or profit, in the civil department, within this State.

XXXIII. The justices of the peace, within their respective coun ties in this State, shall in future be recommended to the Governor for the time being, by the representatives in General Assembly; and the Governor shall commission them accordingly and the justices, when so commissioned, shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall not be removed from office by the General Assembly, unless for misbehavior, absence, or inability.

XXXIV. There shall be no establishment of any one religious church or denomination in this State, in preference to any other; neither shall any person, on any pretence whatsoever, be compelled to attend any place of worship contrary to his own faith or judgment, nor be obliged to pay for the purchase of any glebe, or the building of any house of worship, or for the maintainance of any minister or ministry, contrary to what he believes right, or has voluntarily and personally engaged to perform; but all persons shall be at liberty to exercise their own mode of worship: provided, that nothing herein contained shall be construed to exempt preachers of treasonable or seditious discourses, from legal trial and punishment.

XXXV. No person in the State shall hold more than one lucrative office at any one time; provided that no appointment in the militia, or the office of a justice of the peace, shall be considered as a lucrative office.

XXXVI. All commissions and grants shall run in the name of the State of North Carolina, and bear test, and be signed by the Governor. All writs shall run in the same manner, and bear test, and be signed by the clerks of the respective courts. Indictments shall conclude, against the peace and dignity of the State.

XXXVII. The delegates for this State to the Continental Congress, while necessary, shall be chosen annually by the General Assembly, by ballot; but may be superseded, in the mean time, in the same manner; and no person shall be elected to serve in that capacity for more than three years successively.

XXXVIII. There shall be a sheriff, coroner, or coroners, and constables, in each county within this State.

XXXIX. The person of a debtor, where there is not a strong pre

sumption of fraud, shall not be continued in prison after delivering up, bona fide, all his estate, real and personal, for the use of his creditors, in such manner as shall hereafter be regulated by law. All prisoners shall be bailable by sufficient sureties, unless for capital offences, when the proof is evident, or the presumption great.

XL. Every foreigner who comes to settle in this State, having first taken an oath of allegiance to the same, may purchase, or by other just means, acquire, hold, and transfer land, or other real estate, and after one year's residence be deemed a free citizen.

XLI. A school or schools shall be established by the Legisla ture, for the convenient instruction of youth, with such salaries to the masters, paid by the public, as may enable them to instruct at low prices; and, all useful learning shall be duly encouraged and promoted in one or more universities.

XLII. No purchase of lands shall be made of the Indian natives, but on behalf of the public, by authority of the General Assembly. XLIII. The future Legislature of this State shall regulate entails, in such a manner as to prevent perpetuities.

XLIV. The declaration of rights is hereby declared to be part of the Constitution of this State, and ought never to be violated on any pretence whatsoever.

XLV. Any member of either house of General Assembly shall have liberty to dissent from and protest against any act or resolve which he may think injurious to the public, or any individual, and have the reasons of his dissent entered on the journals.

XLVI. Neither house of the General Assembly shall proceed upon public business, unless a majority of all the members of such house are actually present; and that upon a motion made and seconded, the yeas and nays, upon any question, shall be taken and entered on the journals: and that the journals of the proceedings of both houses of the General Assembly shall be printed, and made public, immediately after their adjournment.

This Constitution is not intended to preclude the present Congress from making a temporary provision, for the well ordering of this State, until the General Assembly shall establish government agreeable to the mode herein before described.

AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION,

Made in Convention, June 4, 1835, and ratified by the People, November 9, to take effect January 1, 1836.

ARTICLE I.

SEC. I-1. The Senate of this State shall consist of fifty representatives, biennially chosen by ballot, and to be elected by districts; which districts shall be laid off by the General Assembly, at its first session after the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-one; and afterwards, at its first session after the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one; and then every twenty

years thereafter, in proportion to the public taxes paid into the treasury of the State, by the citizens thereof; and the average of the public taxes paid by each county into the treasury of the State, for the five years preceding the laying off of the districts, shall be considered as its proportion of the public taxes, and constitute the basis of apportionment: Provided that no county shall be divided in the formation of a senatorial district. And when there are one or more counties having an excess of taxation above the ratio to form a senatorial district, adjoining a county or counties deficient in such ratio, the excess or excesses aforesaid shall be added to the taxation of the county or counties deficient; and if, with such addition, the county or counties receiving it shall have the requisite ratio, such county and counties each shall constitute a senatorial district. 2. The House of Commons shall be composed of one hundred and twenty representatives, biennially chosen by ballot, to be elected by counties according to their federal population, that is, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons; and each county shall have at least one member in the House of Commons, although it may not contain the requisite ratio of population.

3. This apportionment shall be made by the General Assembly, at the respective times and periods when the districts for the Senate are herein before directed to be laid off; and the said apportionment shall be made according to an enumeration to be ordered by the General Assembly, or according to the census which may be taken by order of Congress, next preceding the making such apportionment.

4. In making the apportionment in the House of Commons, the ratio of representation shall be ascertained by dividing the amount of federal population in the State, after deducting that comprehended within those counties which do not severally contain the one hundred-and-twentieth part of the entire federal population aforesaid, by the number of representatives less than the number assigned to the said counties. To each county containing the said ratio, and not twice the said ratio, there shall be assigned one representative; to each county containing twice, but not three times the said ratio, there shall be assigned two representatives, and so on progressively; and then the remaining representatives shall be assigned severally to the counties having the largest fractions.

SEC.II-1. Until the first session of the General Assembly, which shall be had after the year eighteen hundred and forty-one, the Senate shall be composed of members to be elected from the several districts hereinafter named, that is to say, the first district shall consist of the counties of Perquimons and Pasquotank; the 2d district, of Camden and Currituck; the 3d district, Gates and Chowan; the 4th district, Washington and Tyrrell; the 5th district, Northampton; the 6th district, Hertford; the 7th district, Bertie; the

8th district, Martin; the 9th district, Halifax; the 10th district, Nash; the 11th district, Wake; the 12th district, Franklin; the 13th district, Johnston; the 14th district, Warren; the 15th district, Edgecomb; the 16th district, Wayne; the 17th district, Green and Lenoir; the 18th district, Pitt: the 19th district, Beaufort and Hyde; the 20th district, Carteret and Jones; the 21st district, Craven; the 22d district, Chatham; the 23d district, Granville; the 24th district, Person; the 25th district, Cumberland; the 26th district, Sampson; the 27th district, New-Hanover; the 28th district, Duplin; the 29th district, Onslow; the 30th district, Brunswick, Bladen, and Columbus; the 31st district, Robeson and Richmond; the 32d district, Anson; the 33d district, Cabarrus; the 34th district, Moore and Montgomery; the 35th district, Caswell; the 36th district, Rockingham; the 37th district, Orange; the 38th district, Randolph; the 39th district, Guilford; the 40th district, Stokes; the 41st district, Rowan; the 42d district, Davidson; the 43d district, Surry; the 44th district, Wilkes and Ashe; the 45th district, Burke and Yancy; the 46th district, Lincoln; the 47th district Iredell; the 48th district, Rutherford; the 49th district, Buncombe, Haywood and Macon; the 50th district, Mecklenburg: ----each district to be entitled to one senator.

2. Until the first session of the General Assembly after the year eighteen hundred and forty-one, the House of Commons shall be composed of members elected from the counties in the following manner, viz. The counties of Lincoln and Orange shall elect four members each. The counties of Burke, Chatham, Granville, Guilford, Halifax, Iredell, Mecklenburg, Rowan, Rutherford, Surry, Stokes, and Wake shall elect three members each. The counties of Anson, Beaufort, Bertie, Buncombe, Cumberland, Craven, Caswell, Davidson, Duplin, Edgecomb, Franklin, Johnston, Montgomery, New-Hanover, Northampton, Person, Pitt, Randolph, Robeson, Richmond, Rockingham, Sampson, Warren, Wayne, and Wilkes shall elect two members each. The counties of Ashe, Bladen, Brunswick, Camden, Columbus, Chowan, Currituck, Carteret, Cabarrus, Gates, Greene, Haywood, Hertford, Hyde, Jones, Lenoir, Macon, Moore, Martin, Nash, Onslow, Pasquotank, Perquimons, Tyrrell, Washington, and Yancy shall elect one member each.

SEC. III-1. Each member of the Senate shall have usually resided in the district for which he is chosen for one year immediately preceding his election, and for the same time shall have possessed and continue to possess in the district which he represents, not less than three hundred acres of land in fee.

2. All free men of the age of twenty-one years, (except as is hereinafter declared) who have been inhabitants of any one district within the State twelve months immediately preceding the day of any election, and possessed of a freehold within the same district of fifty acres of land, for six months next before and at the day of election, shall be entitled to vote for a member of the Senate.

3. No free negro, free mulatto, or free person of mixed blood, descended from negro ancestors to the fourth generation inclusive, (though one ancestor of each generation may have been a white person,) shall vote for members of the Senate or House of Commons. SEC. IV.-1. In the election of all officers, whose appointment is conferred on the General Assembly by the Constitution, the votes shall be viva voce.

2. The General Assembly shall have power to pass laws regulating the mode of appointing and removing militia officers.

3. The General Assembly shall have power to pass general laws regulating divorce and alimony, but shall not have power to grant a divorce or secure alimony in any individual case.

4. The General Assembly shall not have power to pass any private law to alter the name of any person, or to legitimate any persons not born in lawful wedlock, or to restore to the rights of citizenship any person convicted of an infamous crime; but shall have power to pass general laws regulating the same.

5. The General Assembly shall not pass any private law, unless it shall be made to appear that thirty days notice of application to pass such law shall have been given, under such directions and in such manner as shall be provided by law.

6. If vacancies shall occur by death, resignation or otherwise, before the meeting of the General Assembly, writs may be issued by law. the Governor, under such regulations as may be prescribed by

7. The General Assembly shall meet biennially, and at each biennial session shall elect, by joint vote of the two houses, a Secretary of State, Treasurer, and Council of State, who shall continue in office for the term of two years.

ARTICLE II.

SEC. 1. The Governor shall be chosen by the qualified voters for the members of the House of Commons, at such time and places as members of the General Assembly are elected.

2. He shall hold his office for the term of two years from the time of his installation, and until another shall be elected and qualified; but he shall not be eligible more than four years in any term of six years.

3. The returns of every election for Governor shall be sealed up and transmitted to the seat of government, by the returning officers, directed to the Speaker of the Senate, who shall open and publish them in the presence of a majority of the members of both houses of the General Assembly. The person having the highest number of votes shall be Governor; but if two or more shall be equal and highest in votes, one of them shall be chosen Governor by joint vote of both houses of the General Assembly.

4. Contested elections for Governor shall be determined by both houses of the General Assembly, in such manner as shall be prescribed by law.

5. The Governor elect shall enter on the duties of the office on