New York State Assembly

“ No person shall serve as a member of the legislature unless he or she is a citizen of the United States and has been a resident of the state of New York for five years, and, except as hereinafter otherwise prescribed, of the assembly or senate district for the twelve months immediately preceding his or her election ”

“ The absence of violent democratic innovations was the Constitution's remarkable feature. Although a product of the Revolution, framed to meet the necessities growing out of that great event, its general provisions were decidedly conservative. The right of suffrage was so restricted that as late as 1790 only 1303 of the 13,330 male residents of New York City possessed sufficient property to entitle them to vote for governor. Even the Court of Chancery remained undisturbed, notwithstanding royal governors had created it in opposition to the wishes of the popular assembly. ”

“ The Assembly of New York has been mentioned as a proper standard; but if we apply this standard to the general government, our Congress will become a mere mob, exposed to every irregular impulse, and subject to every breeze of faction. Can such a system afford security? Can you have confidence in such a body? The idea of taking the ratio of representation, in a small society, for the ratio of a great one, is a fallacy which ought to be exposed. It is impossible to ascertain to what point our representation will increase ”

“ Surely it is not irrational for the State of New York to be justifiably concerned about balancing such a concentration of political power, and certainly there is nothing in our Federal Constitution which prevents a State from reasonably translating such a concern into its apportionment formula. ”

“ When the New York Legislature was reapportioned in 1953, on the basis of 1950 census figures, assemblymen representing 37.1% of the State's citizens constituted a majority in that body, and senators representing 40.9% of the citizens comprised a majority in the Senate. Under the still effective 1953 apportionment, applying 1960 census figures, assemblymen representing 34.7% of the citizens constitute a majority in the Assembly, and senators representing 41.8% of the citizens constitute a majority in that body. ”

“ In New York many of the interests which a citizen may wish to assert through the legislative process are interests which touch on his relation to the government of his county as well as to that of the State, and consequently these interests are often peculiar to the citizens of one county. ”

“ Provided always, That every person who now is a freeman of the city of Albany, or who was made a freeman of the city of New York on or before the fourteenth day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, and shall be actually and usually resident in the said cities, respectively, shall be entitled to vote for representatives in assembly within his said place of residence. ”

“ The great State of New-York should send its best-equipped citizen to speak for it in the Senate, to give full authority to its opinions and due weight to its influence. Its immense commercial interests give it a stake in Congressional legislation that can be safely guarded only by a Senator of statesmanlike stature. ”

“ The Assembly shall, once in every year, openly nominate and appoint one of the senators from each great district, which senators shall form a Council for the appointment of the said officers, of which the governor shall be president and have a casting vote, but no other vote ”

“ From the constitutional convention of 1821, he stepped into the Assembly of 1824, where, in the debates over the choice of electors by the people, his ready eloquence made him a valuable ally for Tallmadge and a formidable opponent to Flagg. His ambition to shine as a statesman, and an extraordinary power of application, equipped him with varied information, and made him an authority on many subjects. ”

“ No county shall have more members of assembly than a county having a greater number of inhabitants, excluding aliens.
The assembly districts, including the present ones, as existing immediately before the enactment of a law making an apportionment of members of assembly among the counties, shall continue to be the assembly districts of the state until the expiration of the terms of members then in office, except for the purpose of an election of mem¬bers of assembly for full terms beginning at such expirations [18] . ”

“ Under these conditions, the voters of the country districts saw no reason for defeating a governor whom they liked, for a man whose military service added nothing to his credit or to the lustre of the State. So, when the election storm subsided, it was found, to the bitter mortii. 215fication of the Federalists, that while the chief towns, New York, Hudson and Albany, were strong in opposition, Tompkins and Taylor had triumphed by the moderate majority of 3606 in a total vote of over 83,000. [176] The Senate stood three to one in favour of the Republicans. The Assembly was lost by ten votes. ”

“ He studied law in the New York law school, became in 1882 a Republican member of the Assembly, the lower house of the New York state legislature, and he was reëlected for the years 1883 and 1884. He was chairman of the committee known as the Roosevelt Investigating Committee. His efforts to better the condition of the poorer classes of New York city began in the Assembly, when he took up the cause of the tenement-house cigar makers, and in visiting their miserable dwellings he received deep and lasting impressions of the need of betterment in the conditions which surround tenement workers. ”

“ It was important in the men who composed it. John A. King called it to order; Horace Greeley reported the resolutions; Henry J. Raymond represented the district that had twice sent him to the Assembly; and Moses H. Grinnell became chairman of its executive committee. In the political struggles of two decades most of its delegates had filled prominent and influential positions. These men were now brought together by an absorbing sense of duty and a common impulse of resistance to the encroachments of slavery. People supposed a new party would be formed and a ticket nominated as in Michigan ”

“ One delegate declared that not being quite sure which convention he ought to attend, he had applied to Seward, who wrote him it didn't make any difference. "You will go in by two doors, but you will all come out through one." Then everything went by acclamation. Speaker Littlejohn of the Assembly moved that the two conventions ratify the platforms passed by each convention; Elbridge G. Spaulding moved that the presidents of the two conventions appoint a state central committee ”

“ Unless the free voters act, and act quickly, the true government of the United States in general, and of New York in particular, will not rest in the President or Congress, in Mayors and Boards of Aldermen, in the Constitution, the charter, or the courts: it will rest in a combination of Big Business interests that will control the men elected as representatives of the people. ”

“ The statutes define strictly the duties of officials; their terms are made short, and through the multitude of offices, important and petty, it is clear that one purpose runs to make each directly answerable to the voters. In every quadrennial cycle the voters of New York City engage in the election of over five hundred incumbents of offices, state and municipal. ”

“ It declares in the bill of rights that "all political power is inherent in the people and all free governments are founded on their authority and instituted for their benefit, and therefore they have at all times an inalienable and indefeasible right to alter, reform, or abolish their form of government in such manner as they may think proper." The great State of New York is at this moment governed under a constitution framed and established in direct opposition to the mode prescribed by the previous constitution. ”

“ The problem before the voters of New York, therefore, at this election is not simply to secure capable and honest administration of a governmental organization already in operation, but it is to install, over an immense territory, an entirely new City Government ”

“ Appleton's Cyclopædia, 1876, p. 598.
[768] Tilden, plurality, 32,742; Robinson, 30,460. Groo, total vote, 3,412 (Prohibitionist) ; Griffin, 1,436 (Greenback) . Congress, 17 Republicans, 16 Democrats. Assembly, 71 Republicans, 57 Democrats. Ely's majority for mayor of New York City, 53,517. Tilden's majority in New York City, 53,682.
Republican losses occurred chiefly in the Hudson River and western counties. Elbridge G. Spaulding of Buffalo, and Levi P. Morton of New York, were defeated for Congress.
[769] Manton Marble visited Florida. ”

“ He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature; a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only. ”

“ As under the next appropriation New York loses a representative in Congress, it became necessary to make a new division of the State into Congressional districts. Of the 33 members to which the State will be entitled, taking the vote for Governor at the late election as a criterion, the Whigs will elect 20, the Democrats 13. The Whig majority for Governor was but 262. In the present Congress the members are equally divided between the parties. The gain to the Whigs has been effected by classing together, in several cases, into one district, counties in which the Democratic majority is large. ”