370 HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY. [1847. 



favored a law that would authorize the vote to be taken on the 

 broad question of removal, the anti-removalists were led into the 

 belief that this course was adopted because it was impossible for 

 their opponents to unite on any one location, and consequently 

 that they would run no risk in submitting the question of re- 

 moval to a vote of the people, 'provided^ that it should be taken 

 between Chester and any one of the sites that had been men- 

 tioned. Under this erroneous impression their opposition was 

 directed almost wholly against the party who opposed deciding 

 upon any site till after the question of removal had been decided, 

 and they ventured to say in their remonstrance to the Legisla- 

 ture that they " do not believe it is fair and equal justice to 

 array the friends of all the locations suggested (six in numbei') 

 against the present Seat of Justice, for were any one place se- 

 lected by the petitioners, we [they'] are confident that two-thirds 

 of the votes of the people would he found against it." 



Though every reasonable effort was made to induce our repre- 

 sentatives to go for a bill authorizing a general vote on the 

 question, it was soon discovered that they would not favor any 

 plan that did not fix upon a site in advance. The bill that had 

 been prepared by the committee of correspondence was called 

 up by Mr. Larkin, and being opposed by him, it was of course 

 defeated by a large majority. 



The conduct of our representatives was very unsatisfactory to 

 the removalists, and had the effect of exciting them to greater 

 efforts for carrying their favorite measure. The removal com- 

 mittee of correspondence, in a published address to the citizens 

 of the County favorable to removal, denounced the treatment 

 their bill had received at the hands of the Legislature, and ex- 

 horted their friends to a steady and unyielding persistence in 

 their efforts, until the present untoward circumstances that sur- 

 rounded the subject should be removed, and the clearest rights 

 appertaining to citizens of a republican government should 

 have been yielded to them. 



During the autumn of 1846 various efforts were made to 

 secure the election of a strong removalist to the House of Rep- 

 resentatives, but these efforts failed, and Sketchley Morton, Esq., 

 a lukewarm anti-removalist, was elected, pledged, however, to 

 advocate the passage of a law that would fairly submit the 

 question of removal to a vote of the people of the County. 



The removalists who had opposed fixing a site for the pro- 

 posed new seat of justice, finding that under existing circum- 

 stances no bill could be passed in that shape, gradually yielded 

 the point, and the result was the passage of the act of 1847, 

 entitled " An act concerning the removal of the Seat of Justice 

 of Delaware County." This act provided that at the next 



