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XXXI exercise the office of Governor until another Governor shall be duly qualified, and by the Constitution his duties as President, while so exercising the office of Governor shall be suspended and whereas, the Hon. Joshua Hall was on the fourteenth day of January last duly elected President of the Senate and accepted the office & still continues to hold the same, and no other person having been duly qualified to act as Governors, we the undersigned Senators of the State of Maine, hereby Protest against the right of the said Joshua Hall to preside and act and vote at the Senate board, believing such a course to be incompatible with provision of the Constitution; and whereas it has been ascertained by the Senate that sixteen Senators have been elected and there are four vacancies, to wit, three in the District of York, and that John Bodwell, Abijah Usher Junior, Nathan D Appleton, Moses Sweat, Benjamin Pike & James Goodwin are the constitutional candidates to fill said vacancies, and one vacancy in the District of Washington and that Obadiah Hill and Charles Peavey are the constitutional candidates to fill said vacancy: and the members of the House of Representatives, having communicated to the Senators a message, proposing a meeting of the Senators elected and the members of the House of Representatives in the Hall of the House of Representatives, at eleven oclock this forenoon for the purpose of electing by joint ballot the number of Senators required by the constitution to fill said vacancies, We hereby concur with the members of the House, and consent to meet them at the time & place and for the purposes aforesaid. And we claim to have this statement and determination entered upon the Journal of the Convention (Signed) James Drummond Syms Gardner Halsey Healey Ebenezer Hilton Asher Hinds Sandford Kingsbury Elijah Morse Ebenezer S Phelps.