A short history of Rhode Island

by George Washington Greene

2. The several towns and cities shall faithfully devote their portions of said annual distribution to the support of free schools; and in default thereof shall forfeit their shares of the same to the increase of the fund.

3. All charitable donations for the support of free schools and other purposes of public education, shall be received by the General Assembly and invested, and applied agreeably to the terms prescribed by the donors, provided the same be not inconsistent with the constitution, or with sound public policy; in which case the donation shall not be received.

ARTICLE XIII.
AMENDMENTS.

The General Assembly may propose amendments to this constitution by the vote of a majority of all the members elected to each house. Such propositions shall be published in the newspapers of the state; and printed copies of said propositions shall be sent by the secretary of state, with the names of all the members who shall have voted thereon, with the yeas and nays, to all the town and city clerks in the state; and the said propositions shall be by said clerks inserted in the notices by them issued for warning the next annual town and ward meetings in April; and the town and ward clerks shall read said propositions to the electors when thus assembled, with the names of all the representatives and senators who shall have voted thereon, with the yeas and nays, before the election of representatives and senators shall be had. If a majority of all the members elected at said annual meetings, present in each house, shall approve any proposition thus made, the same shall be published as before provided and then sent to the electors in the mode provided in the act of approval; and if then approved by a majority of the electors who shall vote in town and ward meetings to be specially convened for that purpose, it shall become apart of the constitution of the state.

ARTICLE XIV.
OF THE ADOPTION OF THE CONSTITUTION.

1. This constitution shall be submitted to the people for their adoption or rejection, on Monday, the 27th day of December next, and on the two succeeding days; and all persons voting are requested to deposit in the ballot-boxes printed or written tickets in the following form: I am an American citizen, of the age of twenty-one years, and have my permanent residence or home in this state. I am (or not) qualified to vote under the existing laws of this state. I vote for (or against) the constitution formed by the convention of the people, assembled at Providence, and which was proposed to the people by said convention, on the 18th day of November, 1841.

2. Every voter is requested to write his name on the face of his ticket; and every person entitled to vote as aforesaid, who from sickness or other causes may be unable to attend and vote in the town or ward meetings, assembled for voting upon said constitution on the days aforesaid, is requested to write his name upon a ticket, and to obtain the signature upon the back of the same of a person who has given his vote as a witness thereto. And the moderator or clerk of any town or ward meeting convened for the purpose aforesaid, shall receive such vote on either of the three days next succeeding the three days before named for voting on said constitution.

3. The citizens of the several towns in this state, and of the several wards in the city of Providence, are requested to hold town and ward meetings on the days appointed and for the purpose aforesaid; and also to choose in each town and ward a moderator and clerk to conduct said meetings and receive the votes.

4. The moderators and clerks are required to receive and carefully to keep the votes of all persons qualified to vote as aforesaid, and to make registers of all the persons voting; which, together with the tickets given in by the voters shall be sealed up and returned by said moderators and clerks, with certificates signed and sealed by them, to the clerks of the convention of the people, to be by them safely deposited and kept, and laid before said convention to be counted and declared at their next adjourned meeting on the 12th day of January, 1842.

5. This constitution, except so much thereof as relates to the election of the officers named in the sixth section of this article, shall, if adopted, go into operation on the first Tuesday in May, in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-two.