In the last fifteen days of the session the _projet_ of the
Constitution was printed for proof-reading and for corrections twenty-
four times. The record shows that there were but few changes made by
the Convention, and those were formal and unimportant; and never in the
canvass that followed was the suggestion made that the proposed
Constitution failed to represent the mind and purpose of the Convention.
The Address to the People of the State was written by me on the last
day of the Convention, August 1, 1853, and, as I now recall the events
of that day, it was not submitted to the committee, although the
members, by individual action, authorized me to make the report. On
the same day and upon the motion of Mr. Frank W. Bird, of Walpole, the
Convention adopted the following order:--
"Ordered, That the resolves contained in Document No. 128, and the
Address to the People signed by the president and secretaries, be
printed in connection with the copies of the Revised Constitution
ordered to be printed for distribution; and that thirty-five thousand
additional copies of said Constitution, with the Resolves and Address,
be printed for distribution, in accordance with the orders already
adopted." The Convention adjourned at ten minutes before two o'clock
on the morning of August 2. The work as a whole was rejected by the
voters of the State, but the mind and purpose of the Convention have
been expressed during the forty-four years now ended, in the many
amendments that have been engrafted upon the Constitution of 1780.
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