Page:The Federal and state constitutions v6.djvu/54

3234 said money or fund from the aforesaid uses, nor borrow, appropriate, or use the same, or any part there of, for any other purpose, under any pretense whatsoever.

The general assembly may propose amendments to this constitution by the votes of a majority of all the members elected to each house. Such propositions for amendment shall be published in the newspapers, and printed copies of them shall be sent by the secretary of state, with the names of all the members who shall have voted thereon, with the yeas and nays, to all the town and city clerks in the state. The said propositions shall be, by said clerks, inserted in the warrants or notices by them issued, for warning the next annual town and ward meetings in April; and the clerks shall read said propositions to the electors when thus assembled, with the names of all the representatives and senators who shall have voted thereon, with the yeas and nays, before the election of senators and representatives shall be had. If a majority of all the members elected to each house, at said annual meeting, shall approve any proposition thus made, the same shall be published and submitted to the electors in the mode provided in the act of approval; and if then approved by three fifths of the electors of the state present and voting thereon in town and ward meetings, it shall become a part of the constitution of the state.

1. This constitution, if adopted, shall go into operation on the first Tuesday of May, in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-three. The first election of governor, lieutenant-governor, secretary of state, attorney-general and general treasurer, and of senators and representatives under said constitution, shall be had on the first Wednesday of April next preceding, by the electors qualified under said constitution. And the town and ward meetings therefor shall be warned and Conducted as is now provided by law. All civil and military officers now elected, or who shall hereafter be elected, by the general assembly, or other competent authority before the said first Wednesday of April, shall hold their offices and may exercise their powers until the said first Tuesday of May, or until their successors shall be qualified to act. All statutes, public and private, not repugnant to this constitution, shall continue in force until they expire by their own limitation, or are repealed by the general assembly. All charters, contracts, judgments, actions and rights of action shall be as valid as if this constitution had not been made. The present government shall exercise all the powers with which it is now clothed, until the said first Tuesday of May, one thousand eight hundred and forty-three, and until the government under this constitution is duly organized.

. 2. All debts contracted and engagements entered into, before the adoption of this constitution, shall be as valid against the state as if this constitution had not been adopted.