On the 21st, 22d, and 23d March last the legal constitution, by an act of the legislature, was submitted to all the persons who by its provisions would be entitled to vote under it after its adoption, for their ratification.  It was rejected by a majority of 676 votes, the number of votes polled being over 16,000.  It is believed that many freeholders voted against it because they were attached to the old form of government and were against any new constitution whatever.  Both parties used uncommon exertions to bring all their voters to the polls, and the result of the vote was, under the scrutiny of opposing interests in legal town meetings, that the friends of the people’s constitution brought to the polls probably not over 7,000 to 7,500 votes.  The whole vote against the legal constitution was about 8,600.  If we allow 1,000 as the number of freeholders who voted against the legal constitution because they are opposed to any constitution, it would leave the number of the friends of the people’s constitution 7,600, or about one-third of the voters of the State under the new qualification proposed by either constitution.

It seems incredible that there can be 14,000 friends of the people’s constitution in the State, animated as they are by a most extraordinary and enthusiastic feeling; and yet upon this trial, in the usual open and fair way of voting, they should have obtained not over 7,600 votes.

The unanimity of the subsequent action of the legislature, comprehending as it did both the great political parties—­the house of representatives giving a vote of 60 in favor of maintaining the existing government of the State and only 6 on the other side, with a unaminimous vote in the senate—­the unanimous and decided opinion of the supreme court declaring this extraordinary movement to be illegal in all its stages (see ——­[119]), a majority of that court being of the Democratic party, with other facts of a similar character, have freed this question of a mere party character and enabled us to present it as a great constitutional question.

Without presuming to discuss the elementary and fundamental principles of government, we deem it our duty to remind you of the fact that the existing government of Rhode Island is the government that adopted the Constitution of the United States, became a member of this Confederacy, and has ever since been represented in the Senate and House of Representatives.  It is at this moment the existing government of Rhode Island, both de facto and dejure, and is the only government in that State entitled to the protection of the Constitution of the United States.

It is that government which now calls upon the General Government for its interference; and even if the legal effect of there being an ascertained majority of unqualified voters against the existing government was as is contended for by the opposing party, yet, upon their own principle, ought not that majority in point of fact to be clearly ascertained, not by assertion, but by proof, in order to justify the General Government in withdrawing its legal and moral influence to prevent domestic violence?