THE FIRST CONSTITUTION OF NEW YORK. 



By S. N. D. North. 



It is one hundred and eleven years since a body of men met in the 

 Court House in the village of Kingston on the Hudson/and solemnly 

 ratified the first Constitution of New York. Each member of that 

 convention, as he signed his name and kissed the Bible in token of his 

 fealty, knew that he was putting his signature to what might prove his 

 death warrant. The first Constitution of New York was full of ugly 

 treason to the king, and treason to the king was just then ticklish 

 business. New York city and Long Island were in possession of the 

 English forces ; the royal governor no longer issued his orders from a 

 British ship of war in the harbor; and Sir Henry Clinton's magnificent 

 scheme for dividing the colony of New York into segments, by fighting 

 his way up the Hudson to meet Burgoyne in his descent from Cham- 

 plain, and St. Leger in his eastward sweep from Oswego, was already 

 developed. Where men and means to checkmate this fatal plan were 

 coming from, not one of those civilian patriots could tell. They had 

 barely promulgated their Constitution, by the ordinance of April 22, 

 1777, and hurried George Clinton from the field to take the oath as 

 their first free governor, before the enemy came down upon the legis- 

 lature at Kingston and put it incontinently to flight. 



Hidden under some member's coat, the Constitution was hurried 

 through the woods to the back settlements. For a time it was doubtful 

 if the State of New York would ever see the light of day again. To 

 still profess loyalty to that Constitution seemed like laughing at fate. 

 But it emerged from the woods to rank as the best model of a free com- 

 monwealth the world had yet seen. It survived the crisis out of which 

 it was born to pass through the severest tests ever applied to the prin- 

 ciple of local self-government. The pressure which one hundred years 

 have crowded upon this Constitution in all its parts has forced into 

 exact adjustment the autonomy of government it establishes. Under 

 this strain the experiment those anxious men at Kingston put forth 

 with fear and trembling, has ceased to be an experiment, has become 



