The following Rules of Procedure were adopted by the convention : 1. The President shall take the chair at precisely the hour to which the Convention shall have adjourned, shall immediately call the members to order, and at the commencement of each day's session shall cause the journal of the preceding day to be read. He shall preserve decorum and order, and may speak on points of order in preference to other members, and may substitute any member to perform the duties of the chair, such substitution not to extend beyond an adjournment. 2. All committees shall be appointed by the President, unless otherwise directed by the Convention; and the first named member of any committee appointed by the President shall be chairman. 3. In case of any disturbance or disorderly conduct in the galleries, the President, or chairman of the committee of the whole Convention, shall have the power to order the same to be cleared. 4. No person but the members and officers of the Convention shall be admitted within the chamber, unless by invitation of the President or of some member of the Convention. 5. When a member is about to speak in debate or deliver any matter to the Convention, he shall rise and address himself to the President. 6. No member shall speak more than twice to the same question without leave of the Convention. 7. When any question is under debate no motion shall be received but, 1st, to adjourn; 2d, to lie on the table; 3d, to postpone to a day certain; 4th, to commit; 5th, to amend; which several motions shall take precedence in which they are arranged. Motions to adjourn and lie on the table shall be decided without debate. 8. Any member may call for a division of the question, when the sense will admit of it; but a motion to strike out and insert shall not be divided. 9. A motion for commitment, until it is decided, shall precede all amendments to the main question; and all motions and reports may be committed at the pleasure of the Convention. Io. No vote shall be reconsidered unless the motion for reconsideration be made by a member who voted with the majority. 11. Every question shall be decided by yeas and nays whenever a demand for the same shall be made and sustained by at least ten members. 12. The Convention may resolve itself into a committee of the whole Convention, at any time, on the motion of a member, and in forming a committee of the whole the President shall leave the chair and appoint a chairman to preside in committee; and the rules of proceeding in Convention, and the rule relating to calls for the yeas and nays, shall be observed in committee of the whole, except the rule limiting the times of speaking. 13. After the journal has been read and corrected, the order of business shall be as follows, viz. : Ist. The presentation of petitions; 2nd. The report of committees ; 3rd. The unfinished business of the preceding day. On November 8th the president announced the standing committees, naming their chairmen as follows: On the Bill of Rights, Ichabod Bartlett, Portsmouth. The Executive Department, Samuel Swasey, Haverhill. The Legislative Department, Charles G. Atherton, Nashville. The Judicial Department, Levi Woodbury, Portsmouth. The Militia, John Wadleigh, Meredith. The Religious and Property Test, Amendments to the Constitution, George W. Nesmith, Franklin. Miscellaneous and subjects not otherwise provided for, Bening W. Jenness, Strafford. Revising Business, James Bell, Gilford. On Education, Levi W. Leonarde, Dublin. Some of the other leading members of this convention were William Plumer, Jr., of Epping; Gilman Marston and J. G. Hoit, of Exeter; Thomas E. Sawyer, of Dover; Charles Lane, of Gilford; Joel Eastman, of Conway; N. G. Upham and George Minot, of Concord; William C. Clarke, of Manchester; Edmund Parker and George Y. Sawyer, of Nashua; Daniel Abbott, of Nashville; John H. Steele, of Peterborough ; Edwin D. Sanborn, of Hanover; Samuel Swasey, of Haverhill. This convention revised the constitution by considering it under the separate and consecutive heads in Committee of the Whole. The various proposed amendments and resolutions were then sent to special and appropriate committees as instructions from the convention. The convention was in session from November 6 to November 22, 1850, and from December 3 to January 3, 1851. Besides the changes affecting the ratio and basis of representation those of the most importance approved by the convention were provisions for a Lieutenant-Governor, for biennial sessions, to abolish the council, to provide for a Commissioner of Agriculture, a state Superintendent of Public Instruction, and a Railroad Commissioner, and to divide the state into fifteen senatorial districts for the election of thirty senators. It was voted to submit the amendments to the people for their approval at the annual town meetings to be held on the second Tuesday of March, 1851, in the form of fifteen (15) questions. These questions and the amendments, with the popular vote thereon, are given on a following page. On January 3 the convention adjourned to April 16, 1851. AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION, PROPOSED 1851. FIRST SEries. [The numbers of articles first herein below cited are those of the constitution of 1783, as amended in 1792, and printed in Poor's "Constitutions and Charters" (second edition) 1878. (Part II, pp. 1294-1308.) The numbers of articles in quotation marks correspond to those in the constitution authorized by the convention of 1850-51, embodying its proposed amendments. The following amendments, with few exceptions, do not appear in the Journal of the convention of 1850-51, except in their appropriate places in the draft of the constitution authorized by that convention. They have been extracted by comparison of the text of the constitution as amended in 1792 with the draft previously named of 1850-51; and the extracts have been arranged under what by reference to the fifteen questions submitted to the people appear to be their appropriate numerals.] I. BILL OF RIGHTS. ARTICLE 6. Strike out this article, and in lieu thereof insert " Art. 6. As morality and piety, rightly grounded on the principles of the Bible, will give the best and greatest security to government, and will lay in the hearts of men the strongest obligations to due subjection, and as the knowledge of these is most likely to be propagated through society by the institution of the public worship of the Deity, and of public instruction in morality and religion, therefore to promote those important purposes, the People of this State have the right to empower, and do hereby fully empower, the several religious societies which may at any time exist within this State, to make adequate provision, at their own expense, for the support and maintenance of public teachers of piety, religion and morality: provided, that such religious societies shall at all times have the exclusive right of electing their own public teachers and of contracting with them for their support and maintenance; and no person of any one particular religious sect or denomination, shall ever be compelled to pay towards the support of a teacher, or teachers, of another persuasion, sect or denomination; and every religious denomination, demeaning themselves quietly, and as good subjects of the State, shall be equally under the protection of the law; and no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by the law. ART. 12. Strike out the words to which they or their representative body, have given their consent," and insert in lieu thereof, "enacted in conformity to this Constitution and that of the United States." ART. 20. Strike out this article and insert in lieu thereof the following: "Art. 20. In all controversies concerning property, and in |