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A Convention to Make a New State Constitution Again

About This Item

  • Title: A Convention to Make a New State Constitution Again
  • Date: 21 April 1858
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.01301
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 21 April 1858: 2. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Kaylen Michaelis Cassandra Jannel Simms Stefan Schöberlein Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "A Convention to Make a New State Constitution Again." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 16 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.01301.xml (TEI)
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A CONVENTION TO MAKE A NEW STATE CONSTITUTION AGAIN.

There is an opinion favorable to some serious changes in the constitution of this State; of which the passage of Senator Stow’s1 bill is an evidence. This bill provides for submitting to the people whether they will have a convention deliberately called, for the purpose of going over the work again—framing a State Constitution anew.

We said the other day that, in America, all our institutions have the nature of experiments. Enough is known not only to encourage us, but, in our judgment, to put the perfect success of the democratic principles of government beyond any fear of failure. For our own part, we have no such fear; but we see that many efforts, changes, trials, &c., must yet be made. In so momentous a reform, we cannot expect perfection at once.

Notes:

1. Horatio J. Stow (1809–1859) was an independent senator from Niagara County. He had previously been a Whig and a Free Soiler. Stow was a member of the convention that drafted the 1846 state constitution of New York but voted against it, agitating for a new constitution until the final years of his life. [back]

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