26. That the legislature shall not grant any title of nobility, or hereditary distinction, nor create any office, the appointment to which shall be for a longer term than during good behavior. 27. That emigration from this State shall not be prohibited. 28. To guard against transgressions of the high powers which we have delegated, we declare, that every thing in this article is excepted out of the general powers of government, and shall for ever remain inviolate; and that all laws contrary thereto, or contrary to this Constitution, shall be void. SCHEDULE. That no inconvenience may arise from the alterations and amendments made in the Constitution of this commonwealth, and in order to carry the same into complete operation, it is hereby declared and ordained: SEC. 1. That all laws of this commonwealth, in force at the time of making the said alterations and amendments, and not inconsistent therewith, and all rights, actions, prosecutions, claims, and contracts, as well of individuals as of bodies corporate, shall continue as if the said alterations and amendments had not been made. 2. That all officers now filling any office or appointment, shall continue in the exercise of the duties of their respective offices or appointments for the terms therein expressed, unless by this Constitution it is otherwise directed. 3. The oaths of office herein directed to be taken, may be administered by any justice of the peace, until the legislature shall otherwise direct. 4. The general Assembly, to be held in November next, shall apportion the representatives and senators, and lay off the State into senatorial districts conformable to the regulations prescribed by this Constitution. In fixing those apportionments, and in establishing those districts, they shall take for their guide the enumeration directed by law to be made in the present year, by the commissioners of the tax, and the apportionments thus made shall remain unaltered until the end of the stated annual session of the general Assembly in the year eighteen hundred and three. 5. In order that no inconvenience may arise from the change made by this Constitution in the time of holding the general election, it is hereby ordained that the first election for Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, and members of the general Assembly, shall commence on the first Monday in May, in the year eighteen hundred. The persons then elected shall continue in office during the several terms of service prescribed by this Constitution, and until the next general election which shall be held after the said terms shall have respectively expired. The returns for the said first election of Governor and Lieutenant-Governor shall be made to the secretary, within fifteen days from the day of election, who shall, as soon as may be, examine and count the same, in the presence of at least two judges of the court of appeals, or district courts, and shall declare who are the persons thereby duly elected, and give them official notice of their election; and if any person shall be equal and highest on the poll, the said judges and secretary shall determine the election by lot. 6. This Constitution, except so much thereof as is therein directed, shall not be in force until the first day of June, in the year eighteen hundred; on which day the whole thereof shall take full and complete effect. Done in Convention, at Frankfort, the seventeenth day of August, one thousand seven hundred and ninetynine, and of the independence of the United States of America the twenty-fourth. ALEXANDER S. BULLIT, P. C. |