1857. No. 26. [ No. 26. ] REPORT of the Select Committee of the Senate "upon amendments to the Constitution." The Special Committee "upon amendments to the Constitution," have had the subject under careful consideration, and ask leave respectfully to report the result of their deliberations. A very hasty examination of the Constitution proved that very many amendments and alterations were required to make it what a Constitution or fundamental law really should be, to wit: a brief, but clear announcement of the great leading principles of civil government and human rights and duties, and not a detailed and complicated instrument, trespassing upon the legitimate province of the Legislature. Our Constitution is a labored work, replete with excellent and important provisions and safe-guards, but it is too comprehensive. Instead of an elementary, it is a minute legislative instrument. It ties up and restricts the Legislature too much in the performance of its legitimate duties, and thus hinders rather than promotes the general good. To make it what we conceive it should be, would require so many changes and so much abridgement as to amount to a revision, and could not be attained by proposing so numerous amendments to the people in the manner pointed out by the Constitution. It would not be practicable to propose all or any considerable part of the changes and modifications which we believe are required at one time to the people. It would be much like calling upon the electors in their sovereign capacity to frame or at least to revise the Constitution. We have therefore concluded to select out and propose only some four or five subjects which we deemed of particular importance, to wit: 1. We propose to remove the prohibition to license the manufacture and sale of spirituous liquors, and thus enable the Legislature to adopt some safe and effectual mode of regulating the subject. 2. We propose that the Legislature, so long as biennial sessions are continued, shall be allowed to sit eighty days, if necessary, and receive the present per diem. 3. We propose to restore to the Legislature the power to fix the salaries of the Governor, all the State officers, and the Judges of the Supreme, District and Circuit Courts. 4. We propose to allow appeals from the decisions of Boards of Supervisors of the counties. 5. We propose to restore to the Legislature the power to fix the salaries of the District Judge and District Attorney of the Upper Peninsula. We will not attempt to argue the reasonableness and necessity of these proposed amendments, as they are too obvious to require argument. We respectfully present herewith, Joint resolutions intended to provide for and propose to the people these amendments, and the adoption of which we would recommend. All of which is respectfully submitted. LANSING, February 5, 1857. A. H. REDFIELD, R. E. TROWBRIDGE, J. ROBERTS, GEO. JEROME. LEGISLATURE, No. 27. 1857. [ No. 27. ] REPORT of the committee on State Affairs upon the memorials of Ladies, praying the Legislature to grant them the privileges of the Elective Franchise. The committee on State Affairs, to whom was referred the petitions of Betsey P. Parker and 91 others, H. E. Parker, J. G. Dexter, and numerous other ladies, praying for such an amendment of the Constitution as will secure to women an equal right, with men, to the exercise of the privileges of Elective Franchise, have had the subject under consideration, and instructed their chairman to submit herewith a report: An innovation upon the right of suffrage, heretofore exercised exclusively by the male portion of our population, and by which the samé privilege may be extended to, and enjoyed by the female portion thereof, is one which demands at the hands of your committee a candid and careful consideration. In the outset we find ourselves impressed with the same diffidence, and laboring under an equal embarrassment to that, which might properly characterize claimants, who ask as a right, that which the policy of generations of men has refused to acknowledge. For us to interpose our opinion against that which the wisdom and usuage of nations, and the common sense of the people, have so long declared and confirmed, we readily see will involve us with the tendency of precedence and custom, which leads a people to endure evil rather |