FEATURES OF THE CONSTITUTION.
On the seventh day the Legislative and Judicial Committees reported. The Legislative article was considered next day. The Committee proposed that bills might originate in either House, but Mr. Winchell submitted a novel amendment, which required all laws to originate in the House of Representatives. This was adopted, notwithstanding the vigorous opposition of Mr. Thacher, the Chairman of the Committee, by a vote of 37 to 13. It survived the admission of the State only three years, being amended in 1864.
On the eighth day the Militia article was adopted; on the ninth day the Judicial article was perfected, and the article on Education and Public Institutions reported and discussed; and on the tenth day the Committees on County and Township Organizations, and Schedule, reported. The deathless pertinacity of a “claim” is illustrated by a petition presented that day, from one Samuel A. Lowe, a clerk of the so-called “Bogus Legislature,” who wanted pay for certain work he alleged he had performed. Only a year ago Mr. Lowe presented the same claim to Congress, and it was, I believe, allowed by the House. But the Kansas Senators made such determined war on it that Mr. Lowe can still sing, “A claim to keep I have.”
I have mentioned the fact that Mr. Winchell was the author of the section providing that all bills should originate in the House. It should be stated that Mr. Ingalls was the author of the provision that “in actions for libel, the truth may be given in evidence to the jury, and if it shall appear that the alleged libelous matter was published for justifiable ends, the accused shall be acquitted.” Another original provision of the Constitution is the Homestead section. This was first proposed by Mr. Foster, of Leavenworth county, on the sixth day of the session, and reported by the Committee on Miscellaneous and Amendments, on the thirteenth day. No other feature of the Constitution, perhaps, elicited more animated and earnest debate. It was discussed for several days; amended, referred, and again submitted. As originally reported, it provided for the exemption of “a homestead of 160 acres of land, or a house and lot not exceeding $2,000 in value, or real, personal and mixed property not exceeding $2,000, to any family.” This was adopted by a vote of 28 ayes to 16 nays. Two days later the vote was reconsidered, and President Winchell proposed the wording finally adopted: “A homestead of 160 acres of farming land, or of one acre within the limits of an incorporated town or city, occupied as a residence by the family of the owner, together with all the improvements on the same, shall be exempted from forced sale under any process of law, and shall not be alienated without the joint consent of husband and wife, where the relation exists.” Thus perfected, it was adopted by a vote of 33 to 7.
I thought at the time, however, and a review of the proceedings and debates has confirmed my impression, that favorable action on this provision was due to the earnest and eloquent advocacy of Judge Kingman, who was its most zealous, logical and courageous supporter. The homestead clause of the Kansas Constitution has been severely criticised, but I believe the people of the State generally regard it as a most beneficent provision of their organic law. For nearly a quarter of a century it has been maintained, and it still stands, as Judge Kingman said it would, guarding “the home, the hearthstone, the fireside around which a man may gather his family with the certainty of assurance that neither the hand of the law, nor any nor all of the uncertainties of life, can eject them from the possession of it.”
The Finance and Taxation and the Executive articles were adopted on the fourteenth day, and the Miscellaneous article considered. This originally provided for the election of a Public Printer, but that section was stricken out, after a vigorous protest by Messrs. Ross and Ingalls. Nine years later their idea was indorsed by the adoption of an amendment creating the office of State Printer.
On the seventeenth day the temporary Capital was located at Topeka, the second ballot resulting: For Topeka, 29; for Lawrence, 14; for Atchison, 6.