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231 cannot rationally admit of any other, and as none other has ever been given them by any preceding legislature of our State.

So great a departure from sound and settled constitutional principles, and so great an assumption of unconstitutional power, as that against which the undersigned protest, cannot be contemplated in all its possible consequences without alarm and dismay. When once the Constitution, that sacred charter of our rights, is overthrown and disregarded, anarchy will ensue, and with it all the deplorable effects which necessarily follow the prostration of all legal and constitutional restraints. No emergency can justify a resort to so dangerous an expedient. Headlong party zeal in times of great excitement, may seek by such means, to accomplish party purposes, but patriotism and public virtue will at all times cling to the constitution as the palladium or our rights and the ark of our political salvation.

Joseph Johnson Benjamin White Nathaniel Clark Ephraim Stinchfield D. Alden Junr. N. Rideout Junr. Melzar Thomas Daniel Waterman Junr. John Burnham Nathan Lord Junr. Cotton Chase George Bishop Joseph Fogg Eliab Latham Jabez Bradbury John Ruggles John C. Glidden David Swett

Daniel Emery Dominicus Jordan William R. Lowney Jonas Farnsworth Jacob Trafton Joseph Bonney A. Richardson Thomas Goodwin 3d Albert Smith Curtis P. Howe John Watts Samuel Small Joseph Howard Stephen Morrell Sargent Shaw John Wentworth Thomas Snow Nathaniel Wheeler