Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1853).djvu/252

236 Any two of the three branches of government concurring in opinion, each by the voices of two-thirds of their whole existing number, that a convention is necessary for altering this Constitution, or correcting breaches of it, they shall be authorized to issue writs to every county for the election of so many delegates as they are authorized to send to the General Assembly, which election shall be held, and writs returned, as the laws shall have provided in the case of elections of delegates to Assembly, mutatis mutandis, and the said delegates shall meet at the usual place of holding Assemblies, three months after the date of such writs, and shall be acknowledged to have equal powers with this present convention. The said writs shall be signed by all the members approving the same.

To introduce this government, the following special and temporary provision is made:

This convention being authorized only to amend those laws which constituted the form of government, no general dissolution of the whole system of laws can be supposed to have taken place: but all laws in force at the meeting of this convention, and not inconsistent with this Constitution, remain in full force, subject to alterations by the ordinary Legislature.

The present General Assembly shall continue till the 42d day after the last Monday of November in this present year. On the said last Monday of November in this present year, the several counties shall, by their electors, qualified as provided by this Constitution, elect delegates, which for the present shall be, in number, one for every ——— militia of the said county, according to the latest returns in possession of the Governor, and shall also choose senatorial electors in proportion thereto, which senatorial electors shall meet on the 14th day after the day of their election, at the Court House of that county of their present district which would stand first in an alphabetical arrangement of their counties, and shall choose Senators in the proportion fixed by this constitution. The elections and returns shall be conducted, in all circumstances not hereby particularly prescribed, by the same persons and under the same forms, as prescribed by the present laws in elections of senators and delegates of Assembly. The said senators and delegates shall constitute the first General Assembly of the new government, and shall specially