16. Nothing contained in this article, inconsistent with any of the provisions of other articles of the constitution shall continue in force for a longer period than the first political year under the same.
17. The present government shall exercise all the powers with which it is now clothed, until the said first Tuesday in May, one thousand eight hundred and forty-two, and until their successors under this constitution shall be duly elected and qualified.
18. All civil, judicial and military officers now elected, or who shall hereafter be elected by the General Assembly or other competent authority, before the said first Tuesday of May, shall hold their offices and may exercise their powers until that time.
19. All laws and statutes, public and private, now in force and not repugnant to this constitution, shall continue in force until they expire by their own limitation, or are repealed by the General Assembly. All contracts, judgments, actions, and rights of action, shall be as valid as if this constitution had not been made. All debts contracted, and engagements entered into before the adoption of this constitution, shall be as valid against the state as if this constitution had not been made.
20. The supreme court established by this constitution shall have the same jurisdiction as the supreme judicial court at present established; and shall have jurisdiction of all causes which may be appealed to or pending in the same; and shall be held in the same times and places in each county as the present supreme judicial court until the General Assembly shall otherwise prescribe.
21. The citizens of the town of New Shoreham shall be hereafter exempted from military duty and the duty of serving as jurors in the courts of this state. The citizens of the town of Jamestown shall be forever hereafter exempted from military field duty.
22. The General Assembly shall, at their first session after the adoption of this constitution, propose to the electors the question, whether the word “white,” in the first line of the first section of Article II. of the constitution shall be stricken out. The question shall be voted upon at the succeeding annual election; and if a majority of the electors voting shall vote to strike out the word aforesaid, it shall be stricken from the constitution; otherwise not. If the word aforesaid shall be stricken out, section third of Article II. shall cease to be a part of the constitution.
23. The president, vice-president and secretaries shall certify and sign this constitution, and cause the same to be published.
Done in convention at Providence, on the eighteenth day of November, in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-one, and of American Independence the sixty-sixth.
JOSEPH JOSLIN, President of the Convention.
WAGER WEEDEN,
SAMUEL H. WALES, } Vice Presidents.