21 



which had been granted by the Constitution of 1776 to six other 

 borough toims,'^ 

 Convention of l83$ . 



The Convention of 1835 was proposed by the legislature for the 

 primary purpose of revising the system of representation in the 

 General Assembly so as to give greater weight to the increasingly 

 populous Peidmont and West, The legislatively predominant East 

 would not agree to call a convention except under very strict 

 limitations upon its power with respect to changes in the repre- 



Q 



sentation basis. Accordingly, the act T\rhich put to the people 

 the question of convention or no convention embodied the compromise 

 which made the convention possible.* that the Senators should be 

 elected from distiTlcts laid off by counties in proportion to the 

 public taxes paid to the State by the residents of the respective 

 countiesj and that the House of Commons should be apportioned one 

 member to each county, with the surplus distributed among the 

 counties in proportion to their federal population. It was left 

 to the convention to fix the number of Senators at not less than 

 3U nor more than ^0, and the nvimber of Commoners at not less than 

 90 nor more than 120, and to draft amendments based on the compromise. 

 The Convention was also authorized (but not required) to devise 

 amendments (l) abolishing the right of suffrage among free Negroes, 

 (2) abolishing borough representation, (3) modifying the dual office 

 holding prohibition, (U) equalizing the poll tax on slaves and free 



^Constitution of North Carolina, 1776, Sec, 3 



^Laws 18314-35, C. 1, C. 2, 



