Talk:Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776

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President[edit]

Did the President have an equal vote in the council? What does the phrase 'the president with the council shall..." --> equal negative of President and council, or that they decide togeter, each with one vote? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.144.148.42 (talk) 13:25, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

?[edit]

"A unicameral legislature, with members elected to a one terms." This seems like it could be clearer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DrNietzsche (talk • contribs) 22:37, 16 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I just came here to ask about that very sentence. Is there an elective office in the world where members aren't elected for one term at a time? Surely that's the definition of "term"—the period for which you hold office after winning the election. I'm guessing either that the original author was trying to say that officeholders were barred from seeking reelection, or that the legislature was not a continuous body (like the US Senate, or the Pennsylvania Supreme Executive Council), but I don't know which. Including the length of a term would be useful, too. Binabik80 (talk) 20:47, 24 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"Narrowly defeated" addition to the statement of rights.[edit]

The section entitled "Declaration of Rights" contains the text of the Declaration of Rights. At the end of this section was the following paragraph:

"A narrowly defeated populist article proposed during the convention stated: "An enormous proportion of property vested in a few individuals is dangerous to the rights, and destructive of the common happiness, of mankind; and therefore every free state hath a right by its laws to discourage the possession of such property."[3]"

First of all, this is not separated from the rest of the section. That is to say, it is included as if it is the text of the declaration, which it is not. It should not be listed under the text of the declaration, it should, if anything, be given its own section. However, as I will show, it should not get that either.

Second of all, the citation provided leads here: http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinntyr4.html, which is A People's History of the United States by Big Daddy Wey The actual text from Zinn states, "During elections for the 1776 convention to frame a constitution for Pennsylvania, a Privates Committee urged voters to oppose "great and overgrown rich men .. . they will be too apt to be framing distinctions in society." The Privates Committee drew up a bill of rights for the convention, including the statement that "an enormous proportion of property vested in a few individuals is dangerous to the rights, and destructive of the common happiness, of mankind; and therefore every free state hath a right by its laws to discourage the possession of such property.""

First of all, nowhere in the cited text does it say "narrowly defeated". Maybe the proposal was narrowly defeated. Maybe it wasn't. We don't know, and the citation doesn't actually say, so that part needs to be removed.

Finally, unless we are going to publish an exhaustive list of every proposal that was defeated, whether or not it was defeated narrowly (because we don't know that this proposal was defeated narrowly, it could've been defeated unanimously for all we know) this particular quote should be removed. The point of this article is not to list all of the 'narrowly defeated' proposals that one or another editor might find noteworthy, the point of the article is to give the background for and text of the pennsylvania constitution of 1776. 24.220.190.225 (talk) 02:27, 17 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]