Governor's residence

“ A carriage stopped before the Governor’s Mansion, and two women wrapped in long cloaks leaped quickly out. The Governor was at his desk in his office.
There was the rustle of a woman’s dress at his door. He looked and sprang to his feet, trembling. ”

“ The Palace gives us an idea of oriental magnificence, with marble halls and galleries, and reception-rooms hung with costly upholstery. The balcony is lighted with crystal chandeliers, and crowds of servants in the scarlet uniform of the Government are waiting about within call. The Governor-General is an exceedingly shrewd, clever man, who has raised himself from the lowest position in the Civil Service. ”

“ It is altogether in a ramshackly state, and it will be rather an advantage for the next Governor-General not to try any repairs; the floors have given way, so that the tables against the walls look like writing-desks, with perhaps a thought too much of a slope; and if it tumbles down, he can build himself a house with good doors and windows. ”

“ It was built by old man Duncan, you know, and his daughter married an Italian nobleman and lives in a castle. The State ought to buy the house for a governor's mansion. It's a disgrace that our governor should have to live in the Pelican Hotel, and especially in a room next to that of the chief counsel of the Northeastern, with only a curtain and a couple of folding doors between. ”

“ The house is spacious, elegantly and tastefully furnished, with all the comforts and luxuries that wealth can command. With a conservatory, library, pictures, statuary, beautiful (strong-minded) wife and charming daughters, the noble governor is in duty bound to remain the happy, genial, handsome man he is to-day. Though the governor, owing to his pressing executive duties, did not honor our convention with his presence, we feel assured, in reading over his last able message, that he feels a deep interest in the education and elevation of women. ”

“ Be it ordained by the authority aforesaid, That there shall be appointed from time to time by Congress, a governor, whose commission shall continue in force for the term of three years, unless sooner revoked by Congress; he shall reside in the district, and have a freehold estate therein in 1,000 acres of land, while in the exercise of his office. ”

“ The probate of wills and the granting of administrations of personal estate were committed to the jurisdiction of the town councils of each town in the colony, with an appeal to the governor and council as supreme ordinary. [21] Every town was a corporate body, entitled to choose its officers, and to admit persons as freemen. ”

“ It will doubtless seem a matter for wonderment to those who may read this chronicle, that it was no more difficult, in those days, to secure an interview with the Governor of the State of Virginia than with any other gentleman in the Commonwealth. The morning after my arrival in Williamsburg, I betook myself to the Governor's mansion, clanged the iron knocker, and was shown by the negro doorkeeper straight into the Governor's office. ”

“ No one is allowed to keep a public house without the governor’s leave; which is only to be obtained by the payment of a certain fee, according to the circumstances of the person. Some governors therefore, when the inhabitants refused to pay them a salary, have hit upon the expedient of doubling the number of inns in their province. ”

“ Their houses are but very mean, as will be easily imagined by what I have said of the governor's. They make their fire in the middle of their rooms, but have no chimneys; there is a small hole at each end of the roof to let the smoke out. ”

“ If, during a vacancy of the office of Governor, the Lieutenant-Governor shall be impeached, displaced, resign, die, or become incapable of performing the duties of his office, or be absent from the State, the President of the Senate shall act as Governor, until the vacancy be filled, or the disability shall cease. ”

“ Thomas Paine may be a spy, and every householder who receives a lodger or visitor, and every proprietor who lets a house, is obliged to register the names of those he entertains, or who are his tenants, and to become responsible for their conduct. This is done at the municipality, and all who thus venture to change their residence, of whatever age, sex, or condition, must present themselves, and submit to an examination. The power of the municipalities is indeed very great ”

“ They shall annually chuse a President, who shall preside in council in the absence of the governor, and who, in case of his office becoming vacant by death or otherwise, shall have authority to exercise all his functions, till a new appointment be made, as he shall also in any interval during which the governor shall declare himself unable to attend to the duties of his office. ”

“ The governor lives in a whitewashed house, and there is a Sycamore here eight hundred years old, which is I suppose older than the Stuyvesant Pear in New York. The houses are not perched up in the air like tenement buildings for the poor, but aristocratically keep to the ground in one-story rooms; and they are beautifully moulded of a tough clay. ”

“ In many Colonies, nay in most that I have visited, I have heard complaints that Government Houses have been too small. Seeing such hospitality as I have seen in them I could have fancied that Governors, unless with long private purses, must have found them too large. They are always full. At Melbourne, in Victoria, an evil-natured Government has lately built an enormous palace which must ruin any Governor who uses the rooms placed at his disposal. ”

“ The building is in the form of an H, nearly; the secretary's office and the general court taking up one side below stairs, the middle being a handsome portico, leading to the clerk of the Assembly's offiee and the House of Burgesses on the other side; which last, is not unlike the House of Commons. In each wing is a good stair-ease, one leading to the council-chamber, where the governor and council sit in very great state, in imitation of the king and council, or the lord chaneellor and House of Lords.... ”

“ And we do hereby ordain that the Governors house in James town, first built by Sir Thomas Gates, Knight, at the charges and by the servants of the Company, and since enlarged by others by the very same means, be and continue for ever the Governors house, any pretended undue grant made by misinformation and not in a general and quarter court to the contrary in anywise notwithstanding. ”

“ The governor is appointed by the crown, and there are a legislative council or upper house, and an assembly or lower house. State education is free. Began to be settled in 1836, and five years later became a Crown colony. ”

“ The Governor, on March 13, 1815, approved an act authorizing the County Commissioners of Philadelphia to take charge of the State House and to rent out the space as they considered advisable. All profits obtained were to be used to make repairs and improvements on the building. ”

“ Our governor is obliged to return, after a given period, to a private station. It is so in most of the states. This President will be elected time after time: he will be continued in office for life. If we wish to change him, the great powers in Europe will not allow us. ”

“ Provision was accordingly made, at the public expense, for the suitable accommodation of the two houses of Congress; and by an act of the legislature, passed on the 30th of September, 1791, a large sum of money was appropriated for the building of a mansion to serve as a residence for the president of the United States, so long as Philadelphia should continue to be the seat of the national councils. ”

“ Here too, on a vacancy among the Residentiaries, the existing Residentiary body determines which of the other Canons shall be called into residence. You will see that the rule that no man could reside without the consent of the existing Residentiaries would, as soon as there was a fixed number, naturally grow into an election of this kind. But in some places, as at York, the Dean alone called into residence whom he would. In others, as at Lincoln, the duty of residence was laid on some or all of the dignitaries, [Pg 93] who of course must reside if they are to do their duties effectually. ”

“ One governor has even been so generous as to volunteer a mode of settling disputes with which, by the way, he has no concern, there being courts to discharge that office, that is singularly presuming on his part, to say the least, and which looks a confounded sight more like aristocracy, or monarchy, than anything connected with leasehold tenure. ”

“ So soon as there shall be five thousand free male inhabitants of full age in the district, upon giving proof thereof to the governor, they shall receive authority with time and place to elect representatives from their counties or townships to represent them in the general Assembly, provided that for every five hundred free male inhabitants there shall be one representative ”

“ The Governor agreed for the moment to allow them to retain their property and to wear their own clothing, but he told them that they had committed an act of mutiny and that he would have to so charge them at the next visit of the magistrates. ”

“ Titles to Government lands can neither be perfected nor initiated in an unsurveyed township. However, the term of a person's residence on the claim before survey counts as part of the five-year period required for actual residence under the homestead law. ”

“ Mr. WILLIAMSON liked the report as it stood. He thought "resident" a good enough term. He was against requiring any period of previous residence. New residents, if elected, will be most zealous to conform to the will of their constituents, as their conduct will be watched with a more jealous eye.
Mr. BUTLER and Mr. RUTLEDGE moved "three years," instead of "one year," for previous inhabitancy.
On the question for "three years,"—
South Carolina, Georgia, ay, 2; New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, no, 9. ”

“ It is said that 29 counties having a city of consequence located within their borders have the same 'crazy quilt' of malapportionment to insure rural voters' control. It is said that 32 other counties provide for election of county board members at large but with a local residence requirement which insures rural control. It is said that six rural counties elect their governing bodies on an at-large basis with no local residence requirement. We indicate no views on the merits. ”

“ The preference due to the law of the ward's domicile, and the importance of a uniform administration of his whole estate, require that, as a general rule, the management and investment of his property should be governed by the law of the state of his domicile, especially when he actually resides there, rather than by the law of any state in which a guardian may have been appointed or may have received some property of the ward. ”

“ The official tours of a Governor may be made practically useful, for they enable him to point out, from personal knowledge and in an authoritative shape, the resources and capabilities of the districts of the Colony over which he presides, and the advantages which they afford for immigration and for the advancement of capital. ”

“ Item: whereas ther hath bin severall directions given to the former Governor for fixing the tenants uppon the lands as well belonging to the Governor place as other the officers seated by the Governor, which uppon pretences hath bin allowed and neglected and the men lett out to the heir ”

“ A Residency, so called—some of them have a population of one million souls,—is divided into three, four, or five departments or regencies, at the head of each of which is an Assistant Resident. Under these the government is carried on by controllers, overseers, and a number of other officers, who are required for the gathering of the taxes, the superintendence of agriculture, the erection of buildings, for the waterworks, the police, and the administration of justice. ”

“ The great road from near the landing-place to the Governor's house is finished, and a very noble one it is, being of great breadth, and a mile long, in a strait line. In many places it is carried over gullies of considerable depth, which have been filled up with trunks of trees, covered with earth. All the sawyers, carpenters and blacksmiths will be soon concentred under the direction of a very adequate person of the Governor's household. ”

“ But the governor has only thought about proceeding with his own purpose, leaving us surrounded on streets without any exits; for one that was near the wall—by which the parents and relatives of the nuns came, and which served for the use of the convent—has been taken by the governor for the building, [19] thereby doing us much damage. For many structures are now being built about us, and that by the most prominent people in the city. ”

“ The residence of the Chief Magistrate of the United States resembles the country-seat of an English nobleman, in its architecture and size; but it is to be regretted that the parallel ceases when we come to the grounds. By itself it is a commodious and creditable building, serving its purpose without too much state for a republican country, yet likely, as long as the country exists without primogeniture and rank, to be sufficiently superior to all other dwelling-houses to mark it as the residence of the nation’s ruler. ”