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3. CHAPTER III.

IT being understood that a constitution by ten, or
even twenty men, would be a thing of bad fame, the decemviri
among the Romans having got a bad name, it
was agreed that the small remnant there convened should
proceed no farther than to call a convention of delegates,
the time, places, and manner of chusing, which, was
pointed out.

It was necessary that information of this should be
communicated. But as a journal, or gazette might not
reach all; or if it did reach them, they might not be able
to read; runners were dispatched, Tom, Dick, and Harry,
to carry the intelligence. The Captain's posse comitatis
Harum Scarum, O'Fin the Irishman, &c. having
hand-bills struck off, were ordered on their travels
though bush, brake, and wood-land, to circulate advertisements.

Due notice having been now given, and on the day,
a chosen few having been selected from the primary
meetings, which by the bye, were not always very numerous;
for in some places, the father chose the son,
and in other places, the son the father; these, I say, being
met, proceeded to debate on the principles of the great
magna charta of a constitution. And as at Runnymede,
it was literally under an oak, or rather a grove of oaks,
that they were convened, a matter of debate was whether
every thing that wore a head should have a vote in
chusing legislators. It was restrained to the male kind;
of course females were excluded. But should boys
come in? That was the question. Not unless full
grown boys. But at what age does the body come to
its growth? Not until the age of 28, says Doctor Jameson,
a physician of Cheltenham, in his treatise on the
body, does it come to its full growth. It spreads until
that time. But impatience to have the rights of men
prevailed with some delegates, and they were of opinion
to dock off seven years, and to fix the age of virility at
21; for that was the age of the common law, in most of
the other states.

But should the suffrage be universal, or with a qualification
of property? not real property; that was out of
the question: for every check ought to be put upon the
engrossing the soil, as the population of the country depended
upon restricting to a small share. Camillus had
but four acres, said the Latin schoolmaster, and well
cultivated, that might suffice any one. At all events it
was not good policy to hold out any encouragement to
engross land.

But it was agreed that every man should have a vote
in proportion to his stock. For this was originally the
meaning of the word chattels. We shall hear more of
this anon; for it led to an opinion in the sequel, that
beasts themselves should vote.

Said the Latin scoolmaster.

But except as to the qualifications of electors, it
was determined there should be no constitution; but
that, bound by no girdle when the representatives convened,
they should legislate at free scope without restraint,
from preconceived rules, and set forms shackling the understanding;
but that it should be a pure democracy; a
real republic. All hands aloft was now the word, to man
the state ship.

Said the Latin schoolmaster.

The Captain was re-elected Governor;

The blind Lawyer appointed Chief Justice;

O'Fin the Irishman Sheriff;

Teague O'Regan Secretary of State; and

Tom the Tinker Cryer of the Courts.

All things were going on smoothly, and there bade fair
to be much harmony in the commonwealth.