50 The First Constitution of Neio York. 



In 1846, another constitutional convention overhauled as much of 

 the original Constitution as the convention of 1821 had left un- 

 touched. The tendencies of 1821 were still dominant, and had reached 

 their extreme. The passion for permitting the people to pass directly 

 upon every man in the service of the government extended to the 

 judiciary. For the life-tenures, which had made the bench of New 

 York the most illustrious in the United States, short terms were sub- 

 stituted, and every judge was compelled to become a politician, for 

 thenceforth he must control a majority of the votes to reach the 

 bench. A fourth constitutional convention, in 1867, indicated the 

 development of a re-action. Its amendment to the judiciary article 

 making the term of the elective judges fourteen years, was the only 

 remnant of its generally excellent work, which survived the ordeal of 

 the suffrage. With the judiciary as thus constituted, there is nothing 

 thus far in results, which warrants any apprehension. 



A provision of the amended Constitution of 1847, requires the 

 legislature once in every twenty years to submit to the people the 

 question, Shall there be a constitutional convention called? By the 

 popular vote in the fall of 1886, another convention was ordered by 

 an overwhelming majority. Disagreement between the legislature 

 and the governor has thus far prevented the election and assembling 

 of that body. It is impossible to account for the popular judgment 

 that demands such a convention at this time, without apparent 

 thought or realization of the significance or the risk it involves, and 

 with no tangible or intelligent conception of any reform or advantage 

 that can result from it. The work of the constitutional commission 

 of 1874 resulted in the embodiment in the Constitution of every im- 

 portant modification of the organic law which has found approval in 

 the experience of other States, or was suggested by demonstrated de- 

 fects in the document as it then stood. If there are any specific 

 changes required in the Constitution, which are at all likely to meet 

 with popular acceptance at the polls, they are within reach through 

 the safer, more conservative and more rational method of separate 

 amendment, through the legislature, to be followed by the test of 

 popular acceptance at the polls. The advocates of a convention have 

 been challenged to name a single such change. They have failed to 

 meet the challenge. 



Why should we disturb the sacredness with which, naturally and 

 rightly, the people of the commonwealth come to inshrine their 

 organic law, by lifting it from it3 pedestal, and throwing it into an 

 arena of politicians and pseudo-statesmen, to be pulled and hauled, 



