That the Senators and Representatives and all Executive and Judicial Officers of the United Siates, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, not to infringe or violate the Constitutions or rights of the respective States.

That the Legislatures of the respective States, may make provision by law, that the electors of the election districts to be by them appointed, shall choose a citizen of the United States, who shall have been an inhabitant of such district for the term of one year immediately preceding the time of his election, for one of the Representatives of such State.

Done in Convention at Poughkeepsie, in the county of Dutchess, in the State of New-York, the twenty-sixth day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight.

Attested,

By order of the Convention,

JOHN MCKESSON,

GEO. CLINTON, President.

ABM, B. BANCEER, Secretaries,

IN ASSEMBLY,

January 8, 1833.

REPORT

Of the Attorney-General in relation to Lotteries.

Albany, January 7, 1833.

TO THE SPEaker of the Assembly.

SIR,

In pursuance of a resolution of the Assembly, I transmit herewith a report in relation to lotteries.

I am, very respectfully,

Your obedient servant,

[Assem. No. 13.]

1

GREENE C. BRONSON.

REPORT, &c.

"STATE OF NEW-YORK, "In Assembly, April 26, 1832. "Resolved, That the committee on the judiciary, to whom was referred the report of the Attorney-General, and the petition of Palmer Canfield, on the subject of lotteries, be discharged from the consideration thereof; and that the same be referred to the Attorney-General, to report his opinion to the next Legislature of the constitutionality of the act, entitled "Act to enable the mayor, aldermen and commonalty of the city of Albany to dispose of tickets in a lottery heretofore granted, and to limit the continuance of the same," passed April 13, 1826.

"By order,

FR. SEGER."

The Attorney-General, in obedience to the foregoing resolution of the Assembly, respectfully submits the following

REPORT:

The report made by the Attorney-General on the subject of lotteries, at the last session of the Legislature, (Assembly Documents, 1832, No. 292,) will supersede the necessity of again reciting the laws bearing on the question, or spreading out the facts of the case on this report. A brief statement of each, in connection with this reference, it is presumed will be satisfactory. With a single exception, which will hereafter be noticed, the opinion now to be expressed will be based upon the assumption, that the facts are correctly detailed, and the several laws justly interpreted in the former report.

At the time the constitution was adopted, all the money lotteries were under the direction of managers appointed by the State; and the continuance of the system had no other limit, than the time which might be employed in paying the several sums of money which had been granted to be raised in that manner. The laws which have subsequently been passed, have transferred the management of

the lotteries to the institutions having an interest in their success; and have limited the continuance of the system to a period which will expire on the 21st April, 1834. The literature and Albany land lotteries will cease at that time, by express limitation; and the fever hospital and historical society lotteries will terminate at the same period, for the reason that those grants will have been fully satisfied.

The provision of the constitution affecting this question, is in the following words—“No lottery shall hereafter be authorised in this State; and the Legislature shall pass laws to prevent the sale of all lottery tickets within this State, except in lotteries already provided for by law." Const. Art. VII. Sec. XI. This section took effect March 1, 1822. Const. Art. IX. Sec. I.

The following general remarks are believed to be well founded.

First. The convention which framed, and the people who adopted the constitution, regarded lotteries as a public evil; which they intended should cease, as soon as the then existing lottery grants had been satisfied.

· Second. In relation to lotteries which had previously been authorised, the prohibitory part of this section is silent. It neither annulled those grants, nor did it inhibit legislation concerning them. The manner in which those lotteries should be conducted, and the time within which they should be drawn and closed, were left as fully in the power of the Legislature as though the section in question had not been adopted.

Third. Although the power of the Legislature over existing lotteries remained untouched, it does not follow that all laws professing to regulate those lotteries would be valid. A law which, under the form of providing for an old grant, should in fact amount' to a new one, would be wholly indefensible. If, for example, a lottery had been granted for the term of five years, a valid act could' not be passed to authorise its continuance for ten years. Or, if the continuance of a lottery had been limited by the amount of money which might be raised, or the nominal amount of tickets which might be sold; an unqualified repeal of those limitations would be unauthorised. Such laws, although they would not be so in form, would, within the spirit and intent of the Constitution, be acts authorising new lotteries, and consequently void.