RECENT STATE CONSTITUTION- MAKING 79 



STRUGGLE FOR NEW CONSTITUTION IN CONNECTICUT 



The ingenuity of the New Englander has become proverbial. Of 

 the people of this section of the country, none have enjoyed a greater 

 reputation for shrewdness than the Connecticut Yankees. This reputa- 

 tion has been preserved in the tradition of their manufacture and sale 

 of wooden nutmegs. However, ingenious as they are in many ways, 

 they have not as yet been able to frame a constitution suited to the 

 needs of modern times. 



The present constitution was adopted in 1818. It provided that 

 each town should have two representatives in the lower house of the 

 legislature. According to the distribution of the population at that 

 time, this apportionment was fairly just. However, with the shifting of 

 population to cities and the consequent decline of the rural towns, 

 representation has become very unequal. Since 1818 two feeble efforts 

 have been made to correct this evil. An amendment adopted in 1874 

 provided that a new town of 5,000 should have two representatives in 

 the lower house, and another amendment adopted in 1876 required a 

 new town to have at least 2,500 inhabitants to be entitled to one rep- 

 resentative. These amendments were wholly inadequate to correct the 

 abuse that had grown up. At present the thirteen cities, which con- 

 tain over half the population of the State, have only about one-tenth of 

 the representation in the lower house. In the house of representatives 

 there are two hundred and fifty-two members, and the thirteen cities 

 with over half the population have twenty-six of these. The town of 

 Union with four hundred and twenty-eight inhabitants has as many 

 members in the house as New Haven with a population of 108,000. x 



It is plain that such an arrangement gives the power in the legisla- 

 ture to the delegates from the rural districts. These are jealous of 

 their power and desire to keep it. In recent times, when the injustice 

 of the apportionment of representatives has become fully apparent, 

 there have been vigorous protests on the part of the delegates from the 

 cities. Finally, after a long agitation, the legislature submitted to the 

 electors at a special election in October, 1901, the proposition to hold 

 a convention to frame a new constitution. The proposition was adopted. 



1 R. H. Whitten, New York Slate Library Bulletin, No. 72, p. 27. 



