406 



KENTUCKY. 



victs outside the Penitentiary ; providing for the 

 government of counties, cities, and towns by uni- 

 form laws ; providing a uniform system of courts ; 

 limiting the rates of local taxation; allowing 

 county officers regular salaries, instead of fees; 

 and providing an easy method of constitutional 

 amendment by vote of the people. Under the 

 old Constitution amendment was impossible. The 

 date of the State election was changed from Au- 

 gust to November. The number of grand jurors 

 was reduced from 16 to 12, and the General As- 

 sembly may provide that three fourths of a jury 

 may render a verdict in civil cases. The pro- 

 slavery provisions of the old Constitution were 

 replaced by a declaration in the Bill of Rights 

 prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude, 

 except as a punishment for crime, whereof the 

 party shall have been duly convicted. The time 

 for the regular meeting of the General Assembly 

 was changed from December to the first Tuesday 

 after the first Monday in January of the odd- 

 numbered years. Senators' shall be chosen for 

 four years, half of their number being elected 

 every second year, and Representatives shall be 

 chosen for two years. The number of Senators 

 shall be 38, and of Representatives 100. Other 

 provisions are as follow : 



No person who may have been a collector of taxes 

 or public moneys for the Commonwealth, or for any 

 county, city, town, or district, or the assistant or dep- 

 uty of such collector, shall be eligible to the General 

 Assembly, unless he shall have obtained a quietus 

 six months before the election for the amount of such 

 collection, and for all public moneys for which he 

 may have been responsible. The General Assembly 

 shall have no power to enact laws to diminish the re- 

 sources of the sinking fund as now established by 

 law until the debt of the Commonwealth be paid, but 

 may enact laws to increase them. 



The General Assembly may contract debts to meet 

 casual deficits or failures in the revenue ; but such 

 debts shall not at any time exceed five hundred thou- 

 sand dollars : Provided, The General Assembly may 

 contract debts to repel invasion, suppress insurrection, 

 or, if hostilities are threatened, provide for the public 

 defense. 



No act of the General Assembly shall authorize any 

 debt to be contracted in behalf of the Commonwealth, 

 except for the purposes above mentioned, unless pro- 

 vision be made therein to levy and collect an annual 

 tax sufficient to pay the interest stipulated, and to 

 discharge the debt within thirty years ; nor shall 

 such act take effect until it shall have been submitted 

 to the people at a general election, and shall have re- 

 ceived a majority of all the votes cast for and against 

 it: Provided, The General Assembly may contract 

 debts by borrowing money to pay any part of the 

 debt of the State, without submission to the people, 

 and without making provision in the act authorizing 

 the same for a tax to discharge the debt so contracted, 

 or the interest thereon. 



The General Assembly shall have no power to re- 

 lease, extinguish, or authorize the releasing or extin- 

 guishing, in whole or in part, the contract, indebted- 

 ness, liability, or obligation of any corporation or 

 individual to this Commonwealth, or to any county 

 or municipality thereof. 



The General Assembly shall ha^e no power to limit 

 the amount to be recovered for injuries resulting in 

 death, or for injuries) to person or property. 



No act, except general appropriation bills, shall be- 

 come a law until ninety days after the adjournment 

 of the session at which it was passed, except in cases 

 of emergency. 



No bill shall become a law until the same shall 

 have been signed by the presiding officer of each 



of the two Houses in open session ; and before such 

 officer shall have affixed his signature to any bill, 

 he shall suspend all other business, declare that such 

 bill will now be read, and that he will sign the same 

 to the end that it may become a law. The bill shall 

 then be read at length and compared. 



The credit of this Commonwealth shall never be 

 given or loaned in aid of any person, association, mu- 

 nicipality, or corporation. 



The Governor and Lieutenant-Governor shall be 

 elected for the term of four years, and shall be inelig- 

 ible for re-election. The Governor shall have the 

 power to fill vacancies by granting commissions, 

 which shall expire when such vacancies shall have 

 been filled according to the provisions of this Consti- 

 tution. 



The Lieutenant-Governor shall, by virtue of his 

 office, be President of the Senate, have a right, when 

 in committee of the whole, to debate and vote on all 

 subjects, and when the Senate is equally divided, to 

 give the casting vote. 



A Treasurer, Auditor of Public Accounts, Register 

 of the Land Office, Commissioner of Agriculture, La- 

 bor, and Statistics, and an Attorney-General shall bo 

 elected by the qualified voters of the State at the same 1 

 time the Governor is elected, for the term of four 

 years. 



The Attorney-General shall have been a practicing 

 lawyer eight years before his election. 



The Treasurer, Secretary of State, Commissioner of 

 Agriculture, Labor, and Statistics, Attorney-General 

 and Register of the Land Office shall be ineligible to 

 re-election for the succeeding four years after the ex- 

 piration of the term for which they shall have been 

 elected ; and the A uditor of Public Accounts shall be 

 ineligible to re-election for the succeeding four years 

 after lie shall have held the office for two succeeding 

 terms. 



The Court of Appeals shall have appellate jurisdic- 

 tion only, which shall be coextensive with the State. 



This court, after 1894, shall consist of not fewer 

 than five nor more than seven judges. They shall 

 be elected by districts, and the General Assembly 

 shall divide the State into districts, in each of which 

 one judge shall be elected. 



A circuit court shall be established in each county. 



Every male citizen of the United States of the age 

 of twenty-one years, who has resided in the State one 

 year and in the county six months, and in the pre- 

 cinct in which he offers to vote sixty days, next pre- 

 ceding the election, shall be a voter in said precinct 

 and not elsewhere. 



Not more than one election each year shall be held 

 in this State, or in any city, town, district, or county 

 thereof. All elections of State, county, city, town, or 

 district officers shall be held on the first Tuesday aft- 

 er the first Monday in November ; but no officer of 

 any city, town, or county, or of any subdivision there- 

 of, shatl be elected in the same year in which mem- 

 bers of the House of Representatives of the United 

 States are elected. District or State officers, includ- 

 ing members of the General Assembly, may be elected 

 in the same year in which members of the House of 

 Representatives of the United States are elected. All 

 elections by the people shall be between the hours of 

 6 o'clock A. M. and 7 o'clock p. M., but the General 

 Assembly may change said hours, and all officers of 

 any election shall be residents and voters in the pre- 

 cinct in which they act. The General Assembly shall 

 provide by law that all employers shall allow em- 

 ployed, under reasonable regulations, at least four 

 hours on election days in which to cast their votes. 



The cities and towns of the State shall be divided 

 into six classes, according to population, and the or- 

 ganization and powers of each class shall be defined 

 by general laws. 



The tax rate of cities, towns, counties, taxing dis- 

 tricts, and other municipalities, for other than school 

 purposes, shall not, at any time, exceed the following 

 rates, viz : For all towns or cities having a popu- 

 lation of 15,000 or more, $1.50 on the hundred dol- 



