POWERS AND DUTIES OF 6. Legislature, how often to meet. Sessions, how long.. Adjournment. Quorum. How attendance enforced............. 7. Speaker of House, and President pro tempore of Senate. Officers; rules; writs of election. Houses to judge of elections, &c. Members punished and expelled... 8. Pay of members. Ineligible to certain offices, 9. Bills and resolutions, where to originate and how disposed of......... 10. Journal; yeas and nays, how entered. Bills to be read...... 11. Privileges of members from arrest, &c.......... 12. Representation in Congress, how apportioned, 13. Congressional districts, how formed........ 14. Writ of HABEAS CORPUS not to be suspended. Legislative power restrained in certain cases. Freedom of speech or of the press. Reli gious liberty........ 15. No law to embrace more than one object. How law revived or amended...... 16. Impeachment for crimes and misdemeanors. Trial of impeachment; judgment; party convicted subject to indictment. Senate may 34 sit during recess........ 34-35 17. Charters of incorporation to churches prohibited; 28-31 31 18. 19. 81 title to church property secured...... Lotteries prohibited....... New counties, how formed. Voters in election districts, where to vote, 20. Power over divorces, names, and sales of property of infants, &c. 21. Registration of births, marriages and deaths... 22. Provision concerning elections and vacancies in office......... ARTICLE VI. JUDICIARY DEPARTMENT. 1. Of what courts composed. Jurisdiction......... COURT OF APPEALS. 2. Supreme court of appeals, how constituted. Jurisdiction. When assent of majority of judges required.......... Special courts of ap 33 3. peals, how formed; jurisdiction....... 4. Reasons for decisions of supreme court of appeals to be stated in writing and preserved, 5. Judges of, how chosen; term of office; qualifications...... 6. Officers of, how appointed. Duties, compensation, and term of office, 7. Sessions of the court, where held...... 8. Attorney-General, when 17. City Sergeant to be 41 41 41 18. Election of city or town cle. GENERAL PROVISIONS. 42 .... ditional judges to hold courts of probate and 15. Clerk of corporation or 16. Election of Common- 40 40 41 ties until successors 26. Writs, how to run and be ARTICLE VII. COUNTY ORGANIZATIONS. 1. County officers, when and 43 43 PREAMBLE, BILL OF RIGHTS AND DIVISION OF POWERS. PREAMBLE. WHEREAS, the delegates and representatives of the good people of Virginia in Convention assembled, on the 29th day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-six, reciting and declaring, that whereas George the Third, King of Great Britain and Ireland and Elector of Hanover, before that time entrusted with the exercise of the kingly office in the Government of Virginia, had endeavored to pervert the same into a detestable and insupportable tyranny, by putting his negative on laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good; by denying his governors permission to pass laws, of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation for his assent, and when so suspended, neglecting to attend to them for many years; by refusing to pass certain other laws, unless the persons to be benefitted by them would relinquish the inestimable right of representation in the Legislature; by dissolving legislative assemblies repeatedly and continually, for opposing with manly firmness, his invasions of the rights of the people; when dissolved, by refusing to call others for a long space of time, thereby leaving the political system without any legislative head; by endeavoring to prevent the population of our country, and for that pur (13) |