The result as to the people's constitution was announced, in January 1842, to be ratification by a large majority, and that the constitution therefore ought to be and was the paramount law and constitution of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

In March 1842, the people were called on to vote on the freemen's constitution. Sixteen thousand seven hundred and two votes were cast - 8,013 for and 8,689 against it, and it was defeated. So stood the contest when the General Assembly, in April 1842, enacted a law " In Relation to Offenses against the State," but really against the people's constitution. After a preamble declaring that certain designing persons had framed and were attempting to put in operation a plan to subvert the government of the state, it was enacted that all meetings for the election of state officers other than those provided for by law were illegal and void; that moderators, wardens and clerks of such meetings would be deemed guilty of misdemeanors and fined and imprisoned, and that persons taking a state office because of such election would be guilty of treason and imprisoned for life. The suffragists dubbed this the Algerine Law, and went on with their elections under their constitution. Thomas W. Dorr was chosen governor, Amasa Eddy, Jr., lieutenant-governor, and other party leaders were made secretary of state, general treasurer, and attorney-general. A general assembly was also chosen.

Two days later the Charter election took place, when Samuel W. King was elected gov

ernor.

Under the Algerine Law one hundred and eighty persons by their acts had made themselves liable to arrest and punishment. Five had been

elected to general offices of state, eighty-nine were members of the house, and twelve of the senate, and the rest were sheriffs or had acted as moderators or clerks of the elections. The question then was, will the charter government arrest these men or quietly suffer the people's government to go into operation? The question was still unanswered when May 3d came, and in the presence of a great crowd of citizens the People's General Assembly took possession of an unfinished foundry in Providence, organized, listened to the inaugural address of Governor Dorr, and after a session of two days adjourned to meet again in July.

May 4th the Charter Assembly gathered at Newport and resolved that, "Whereas, a portion of the people had formed a pretended constitution and had met in lawless assemblages and elected state officers, and had organized executive and legislative departments of government; therefore, there existed in the State of Rhode Island an insurrection against the constituted authority, and that a requisition should be made by the legislature on the President of the United States forthwith to interpose the authority and power

of the United States to protect the state from domestic violence."

Acting under the instructions, Governor King at once sent off the requisition to President Tyler, and on the same day a similar cry for help was despatched to the president by Governor Dorr, who promptly followed his messengers to Washington. Scarcely was he out of the state when arrests for treason began, and in course of three days seven of the People's party were under bonds to stand trial. Alarmed at this show of energy other members of the Dorr government began, one by one, to resign, and the report was circulated that Dorr had fled the state.

This rumor was false, and on May 15th, Dorr, on his way back from Washington, reached Stonington, Connecticut, and was escorted thence to Providence by some two hundred of his party, spoke from a carriage to an audience of several thousand, and made his headquarters in the house of one of his followers. Some cannon belonging to the state were now seized, and about midnight on May 17th, an armed band of Dorrites having come in from Woonsocket, orders were issued to attack the arsenal. Before dawn, accordingly, the little army with Dorr in command wound its way through the city streets, drew up before the arsenal, made a demand for its surrender, and when this was refused twice attempted to fire on the building with cannon. Each time there was a flash in the pan, and after these dismal failures

the little army began to dissolve, and Dorr, with a few followers dragged the useless guns back to headquarters. There he was informed that all members of his government living in Providence had resigned, and he fled to Woonsocket, and then to New York.

More resignations now followed, and the People's Government seemed in a state of collapse. The governor had fled, the legislature could not have mustered a quorum, and no state officer was attempting to attend to the duties of his office.

But the end was not yet. Encouraged by friends in New York, Dorr returned, gathered a few followers at the little town of Chepatchet, near the Connecticut border, and began to fortify a camp on a spot called Acote's Hill. Against

this the state forces now move with great deliberation, to find when they reached the spot that Dorr had fled and his army melted away. Then the state authorities grew bold. Hundreds of arrests were made, martial law was declared, Dorr was proclaimed a traitor, one thousand and then five thousand dollars' reward was offered for his arrest, and requisitions for his return were made on the governors of neighboring states. During more than a year Dorr remained a fugitive, but at last in 1843, he returned to Providence, was arrested, tried, found guilty of treason and sentenced to imprisonment for life. This, in the opinion of the people, was wholly unnecessary severity. A movement for his liberation was

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started and carried to the polls, and on this issue a liberation" governor was elected, and in June 1845, Dorr was set free. In 1851, the legislature restored to him civil and political rights, and in 1854, reviewed and annulled the judgment of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island and ordered the clerk to write across the record of the judgment the words Reversed and annulled by order of the General Assembly." Long ere this time his efforts bore fruit, and in 1843, Rhode Island framed a written constitution which forbade slavery and liberalized the franchise.

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And here we may safely leave the subject. The story of the yet greater struggle for the rights of man during the last half of the century is too long and too complicated to be even summarized. It is enough to know that the rights of the black man, the rights of children, the rights of women, the rights of workingmen have received in the last fifty years a recognition never before given them. The free common school, the wise system of factory legislation, the reduction of the working day from sixteen hours to ten and even eight, the abolition of slavery, the gradual opening to the women of the professions of law and medicine, and of innumerable fields of labor from which, fifty years ago they were absolutely shut out, have produced an amount of human happiness which it is not possible to rightly estimate.

It is enough to know that the principles laid down by our forefathers have not been repudiated;