government under which they would live. Such pov/er could not nor- 

 mally be entrusted to the regular legislative body vjithout sacrific- 

 ing the stability and relative permanence of the fundamental law 

 and system of government which the safety and happiness of the State 

 and its people required. Hence there developed, during and shortly 

 after the Revolution, the concept of the convention of the people, 

 especially convened at infrequent intervals, composed of delegates 

 elected by the people for that particular service, and clothed with 

 the full powers of the sovereign people of the state — "the people 

 in convention assembled,"-' Because of this peculiar status, the 

 work of such conventions was often not submitted to the voters 

 for their approval, for the people had already expressed their 

 will, through their delegates, upon the matters acted upon in 

 convention. 



While the main function and the principal business of the 

 convention has always been the establishment or modification of 

 the fundamental law of the state, yet, being all-powerful, con- 

 ventions have often acted upon matters apart from the writing 

 and revising of state constitutions. Conventions in North Caro- 

 lina took this State into the Union, seceded from it, cast her 

 lot with the Confederate States, and then nullified the act of 

 secession and re-established the State as a member of the Union, 



It was this concept of the convention as the instrument for 

 the exercise of the sovereignty of the people that was generally 

 understood and accepted by the delegates to the North Carolina 

 Convention of 1835 when they wrote the first provision of our 



^Dodd, op. cit, supra note 2, chapters 1 and 2 



