THE FIRST “PROHIBITION AMENDMENT.”
On the same day a proposition was made by Mr. Preston, of Shawnee county, to amend the Miscellaneous article by adding the following section:
“Sec. ——. The Legislature shall have power to regulate or prohibit the sale of alcoholic liquors, except for mechanical and medicinal purposes.”
A motion made to lay this amendment on the table, was defeated by a vote of 18 ayes to 31 nays. But the anxiety of the members to exclude from the Constitution any provision that might render its adoption doubtful, or prevent the admission of the State, finally prevailed, and after a full interchange of views, Mr. Preston withdrew his amendment. There is, it is said, nothing new under the sun. Those who imagine that the prohibition amendment adopted in 1880 was a new departure in Constitution-making, have never examined the records of the Wyandotte Convention.
THE LAST OF SLAVERY IN KANSAS.
On the nineteenth day occurred the last struggle over the Slavery question in Kansas. Sec. 6 of the Bill of Rights, prohibiting Slavery or involuntary servitude, came up for adoption, and it was moved to add a proviso suspending the operation of this section for the period of twelve months after the admission of the State. This proviso received eleven votes, and twenty-eight were recorded against it. A most exciting discussion occurred, on the same day, over the apportionment article, which the Democrats denounced as a “gerrymander.”
THE LAST DAYS.
The work of the Convention was practically completed on the twenty-first day. The various articles had each been considered and adopted, first in Committee of the whole, then in Convention, then referred to the Committee on Phraseology and Arrangement, and, after report of that Committee, again considered by sections and adopted. But so anxious were the members that every word used should be the right word, expressing the idea intended most clearly and directly, that when the reading of the completed Constitution was finished, on the morning of the 21st day, it was decided to refer it to a special committee, consisting of Messrs. Ingalls, Winchell, Ross and Slough, for further revision and verification. This Committee reported the same afternoon, and again the Constitution was read by sections, for final revision, with the same painstaking carefulness and attention to the minutest details. All that afternoon, and all the next day, with brief interruptions for action on other closing work, this revision went on, and it was five o’clock in the afternoon of the 29th before the last section was perfected. Then occurred one of the most dramatic scenes of the Convention. Mr. Hutchinson submitted a resolution declaring that “we do now adopt and proceed to sign the Constitution.”
A SPIRITED DEBATE.
At once Mr. Slough addressed the Chair, and after warmly eulogizing the general features of the Constitution, pronouncing it “a model instrument,” he formally announced that political objections impelled himself and his Democratic associates to decline attaching their signatures to it. These objections he stated at length. They were, briefly: The curtailment of the boundaries of the State; the large Legislative body provided for; the exclusion of Indians made citizens of the United States, from the privilege of voting; the registry of voters at the election on the Constitution; the refusal to exclude free negroes from the State; and the apportionment.