murder and treason-when the proof is evident or the presumption great; and the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require.

SEC. 10. Every person is entitled to a certain remedy in the laws for all injuries or wrongs which he may receive in his person, property or character; he ought to obtain justice freely and without purchase; completely and without denial; promptly and without delay; conformably to the laws.

SEC. 11. Treason against the State shall only consist in levying war against the same, or in adhering to its enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

SEC. 12. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrant shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the person or things to be seized.

SEC. 13. No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, nor any law impairing the obligation of contracts, shall ever be passed; and no conviction shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture of estate.

SEC. 14. No person shall be imprisoned for debt in this State; but this shall not prevent the General Assembly from providing for imprisonment or holding to bail persons charged with fraud in contracting said debt. A reasonable amount of property shall be exempt from seizure or sale for the payment of debts or liabilities.

SEC. 15. Private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation there for.

SEC. 16. The military shall be subordinate to the civil power. No standing army shall be kept up in this State in time of peace, and no soldier shall in time of peace be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war but in a manner prescribed by law.

SEC. 17. Suits may be brought by or against the State in such manner and in such courts as may be by law provided.

SEC. 18. The General Assembly shall not grant to any citizen or class of citizens, privileges or immunities which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens.

SEC. 19. The right of suffrage shall be protected by laws regulating elections and prohibiting, under adequate penalties, all undue influence from bribery, tumult, or other improper conduct.

SEC. 20. Foreigners who are, or may become bona-fide residents of this State, shall be secured the same rights in respect to the acquisition, possession, enjoyment and descent of property as are secured to native-born citizens.

SEC. 21. No religious test or amount of property shall ever be required as a qualification for any office of public trust under the State. No religious test or amount of property shall ever be required as a qualification of any voter at any election in this State; nor shall any person be rendered incompetent to give evidence in any court of law or equity in consequence of his opinion upon the subject of religion; and the mode of administering an oath or affirmation shall

be such as shall be most consistent with and binding upon the conscience of the person to whom such oath or affirmation may be administered.

SEC. 22. Any person who shall, after the adoption of this Constitution, fight a duel or send or accept a challenge for that purpose, or be aider or abettor in fighting a duel, either within this State or elsewhere, shall thereby be deprived of the right of holding any office of honor or profit in this State, and shall be forever disqualified from voting at any election, and shall be punished otherwise in such manner as may be prescribed by law.

SEC. 23. Religion, morality and knowledge being essential to good government, the General Assembly shall pass suitable laws to protect every religious denomination in the peaceable enjoyment of its own mode of public worship; and to encourage schools and the means of instruction.

SEC. 24. All lands in this State are declared to be allodial, and feudal tenures of every description, with all their incidents, are prohibited. Leases and grants of land for a longer period than twentyone years, hereafter made, in which shall be reserved any rent or service of any kind, shall be held a conveyance in fee to the lessee.

SEC. 25. The action of the convention of the State of Arkansas, which assembled in the city of Little Rock on the fourth day of March, A. D. one thousand eight hundred and sixty one, was, and is null and void. All the action of the State of Arkansas under the authority of said convention, of its ordinances or its Constitution, whether legislative, executive, judicial or military, was, and is hereby declared null and void; and no debt or liability of the State of Arkansas incurred by the action of said convention, or of the General Assembly, or any department of the government under the authority of either, shall ever be recognized as obligatory: Provided, That this ordinance shall not be so construed as to affect the rights of private individuals arising under contracts between the parties, or to change county boundaries or county seats, or to make invalid the acts of justices of the peace, or other officers in their authority to administer oaths or take and certify the acknowledgment of deeds of conveyance, or other instruments of writing, or in the solemnization of marriage.

ARTICLE II

BOUNDARIES

We do declare and establish, ratify and confirm, the following as the permanent boundaries of said State of Arkansas, that is to say: Beginning at the middle of the main channel of the Mississippi River, on the parallel of 36° north latitude; running from thence west, with the said parallel of latitude, to the Saint Francis River; thence up the middle of the main channel of said river to the parallel of 36° 30′ north; from thence west with the boundary-line of the State of Missouri to the southwest corner of that State; and thence to be bounded on the west to the north bank of Red River as by acts of Congress and treaties heretofore defining the western limits of the Territory of Arkansas; and to be bounded on the south side of Red River by the boundary-line of the State of Texas, to the northwest

corner of the State of Louisiana; thence east with the Louisiana State line to the middle of the main channel of the Mississippi River; thence up the middle of the main channel of said river, including an island in said river known as "Belle Point Island" to the 36% of north latitude-the place of beginning.

ARTICLE III

The seat of government shall be at Little Rock, where it is now established.

ARTICLE IV

SECTION 1. The powers of government are divided into three departments-the legislative, the executive, and the judicial.

SEC. 2. No person belonging to one department shall exercise the powers properly belonging to another, excepting in the cases expressly provided in this constitution.

ARTICLE V

SECTION 1. The legislative power in this State shall be vested in a general assembly, which shall consist of a senate and a house of representatives.

SEC. 2. The general assembly shall meet every two years, on the first Monday of January, at the seat of government, until altered by law; but the first general assembly elected after the adoption of this constitution shall meet on the second (2d) day of April, A. D. one thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight, (1868.)

SEC. 3. The house of representatives shall consist of members chosen every second year by the qualified electors of the several districts.

SEC. 4. No person shall be a member of the house of representatives who shall not have attained the age of twenty-one years, and have been one year a resident of this State, who shall not be a male citizen of the United States, who shall not, at the time of his election, have an actual residence in the district he may be chosen to represent, and who shall not be a qualified elector as provided in this constitution. SEC. 5. The senate shall consist of members chosen every fourth year by the qualified electors of the several districts.

SEC. 6. No person shall be a member of the senate who shall not have attained the age of twenty-five years, and have been one year a resident of this State, who shall not be a male citizen of the United States, who shall not, at the time of his election, have an actual residence in the district he may be chosen to represent, and who shall not be a qualified elector as provided in this constitution.

SEC. 7. The number of members composing the senate shall be twenty-six, (26,) and of the house of representatives eighty-two, (82.) SEC. 8. The general assembly shall provide by law for an enumeration of the inhabitants of this State in the year one thousand eight hundred and seventy-five, (1875,) and every tenth year thereafter; and the first general assembly elected after each enumeration so made, and also after each enumeration made by the authority of the United

States, may re-arrange the senatorial and representative districts according to the number of inhabitants as ascertained by such enumeration: Provided, That there shall be no apportionment other than that made in this constitution, until after the enumeration to be made in the vear one thousand eight hundred and seventy-five, (1875.)

SEC. 9. Senators shall be chosen at the same time and in the same manner that members of the house of representatives are required to be. Senatorial districts shall be composed of convenient contiguous territory, and no representative district shall be divided in the formation of a senatorial one. The senatorial district shall be numbered in regular series, and the term of senators chosen for the districts designated by odd numbers shall expire in two (2) years, and the term of senators chosen for the districts designated by even numbers shall expire in four (4) years; but thereafter senators shall be chosen for the term of four years, excepting when an enumeration of the inhabitants of the State is made, in which case, if a re-arrangement of the senatorial districts is made, then the regulation above stated shall govern the term of office.

SEC. 10. Removals of senators and representatives from their respective districts shall be deemed a vacation of their office.

SEC. 11. No person holding any office under the United States, or this State, or any county office, excepting postmasters, notaries public, officers of the militia, and township officers, shall be eligible to, or have a seat in either branch of the General Assembly, and all votes given for any such person shall be void.

SEC. 12. Senators and representatives shall, in all cases, (treason, felony, or breach of the peace excepted,) be privileged from arrest during the session of the general assembly; they shall not be subjected to any civil process during the session of the general assembly, or for fifteen days next before the commencement, and next after the termination of each session and they shall not be questioned in any other place for remarks made in either house.

SEC. 13. A majority of the members of each House shall constitute a quorum to transact business, but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and compel the attendance of absent members in such manner, and under such penalties, as each house may prescribe. SEC. 14. Each house shall choose its own officers, determine the rules of its proceedings, judge of the qualifications, election and return of its members; and may, with the concurrence of two-thirds of all the members elected, expel a member; but no member shall be expelled a second time for the same cause, nor for any cause known to his constituents at the time of his election. The reasons for any such expulsion shall be entered upon the journal, with the names of the members voting thereon.

SEC. 15. The General Assembly shall prescribe by law the manner in which the State printing shall be executed, and the accounts rendered therefor, and shall prohibit all charges for constructive labor. They shall not rescind or alter any contract for such printing, or release the person or persons taking the same, or his or their securities, from the performance of any of the provisions of said contract. SEC. 16. Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and publish the same, excepting such parts as may require secrecy. The yeas and nays of the members of either house, upon any question,

shall be entered on the journal at the request of five members. Any member of either house may dissent, and protest against any act, proceeding or resolution which he may deem injurious to any person or the public, and have the reason of his dissent entered on the journal. SEC. 17. In all elections by either house, or in joint convention, the votes shall be given viva voce. All votes on nominations to the senate shall be taken by yeas and nays, and published with the journal of its proceedings.

SEC. 18. The doors of each house shall be open, unless the public welfare requires secrecy. Neither house shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other place than where the general assembly may then be in session.

SEC. 19. Bill may originate in either House of the General Assembly, but all bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives, though the Senate may propose amendments as on other bills.

SEC. 20. No portion of the public funds or property shall ever be appropriated by virtue of any resolution. No appropriation shall be made except by a bill duly passed for that purpose.

SEC. 21. Every bill and joint resolution shall be read three times, on different days, in each house, before the final passage thereof, unless two-thirds of the house where the same is pending shall dispense with the rules. No bill or joint resolution shall become a law without the concurrence of a majority of all the members voting. On the final passage of all bills the vote shall be taken by yeas and nays, and entered on the journal.

SEC. 22. No act shall embrace more than one subject, which shall be embraced in its title. No public act shall take effect or be in force. until ninety days from the expiration of the session at which the same is passed, unless it is otherwise provided in the act.

SEC. 23. No law shall be revised, altered or amended, by reference to its title only, but the act revised, and the section or sections of the act as altered or amended shall be enacted and published at length. SEC. 24. No new bill shall be introduced into either house during the last three days of the session without the unanimous consent of the house in which it originated.

SEC. 25. The general assembly, at its first session, shall provide suitable laws for the registration of qualified electors, and for the prevention of frauds in elections.

SEC. 26. The general assembly shall provide for the speedy publication of all statute laws of a public nature, and of such judicial decisions as it may deem expedient. All laws and judicial decisions shall be free for publication by any person.

SEC. 27. The style of the laws of the State shall be, "Be it enacted by the general assembly of the State of Arkansas."

SEC. 28. The general assembly may enact laws providing for county, township or precinct governments.

SEC. 29. It shall be the duty of the general assembly, from time to time, as circumstances may require, to frame and adopt a penal code, founded on principles of reformation.

SEC. 30. The general assembly shall not change the venue in any criminal or penal prosecution, but shall provide for the same by general laws.