same, decree the revision of the Constitution, particularizing and publishing the Articles and dispositions which ought to be so revised, with the reasons of utility, necessity, or public convenience for the same. CLI. In the ordinary or extraordinary session subsequent to the one in which the decree for revision has been made, the Congress shall proceed to that revision, two-thirds, at least, of the members being required to be present. CLII. The Congress shall designate, in the decree of revision, the place and the time it may consider convenient for its reassembling. TITLE XIV.-Temporary Dispositions. CLIII. The actual President of the Republic shall remain in the exercise of his office two Constitutional periods, and his functions shall terminate on the last day of February of the year 1861. CLIV. The Vice-President shall be elected at the first Electoral Sessions, and shall exercise his functions up to the last day of February, of the year 1859. CLV. The actual members of the Legislative Body shall keep their posts till the substitutions to be made in the first elections, conformably to this Constitution; and the ordinary session, which ought to take place on the 1st of February, shall be transferred to the 1st of May next ensuing. CLVI. The Executive Power shall immediately issue a writ of summons for the meeting of the Primary Assemblies and Electoral Colleges at the earliest opportunity, for the purpose of electing the Vice-President of the Republic, the members of the Senate, and of the Chamber of Representatives, as well as all the other functionaries whom they are empowered to elect or designate, as established by the Constitution; all which elections must be definitively terminated by the 15th of April next, at the latest. CLVII. All the laws, regulations, and provisions now in vigour, inasmuch as they are not contrary to the present Constitution, shall continue in all their force and efficacy. The actual members of the Supreme Court of Justice, the chief justices of the tribunals, and the constitutional alcaldes shall remain in their offices, the duties of which they shall continue to perform until replaced. The duties of the public offices shall, nothing to the contrary, continue to be performed until the reorganization of the latter. CLVIII. The causes which are already entered in the Court of Appeal, at the time of publishing this Constitution, shall be referred to the Supreme Court of Justice without any further proceedings being requisite, and irrespectively of any plea as regards the limitation of time. CLIX. For the present the territory remains divided into two judicial districts. That of San Domingo, which shall comprehend within its jurisdiction the provinces of Azua, Seybo and Santo Domingo; and that of Santiago, which shall comprehend the province of that name and the Vega Real. The Congress may subdivide them into as many as it may consider necessary.. CLX. The Executive Power is authorized to enter into Conventions with the Holy Apostolic See, and to conclude a Concordat between the Holy Father and the Republic, obtaining, at the same time, the right of patronage, or of presenting to ecclesiastical benefices. CLXI. Until the signing of peace the Executive Power remains authorized to confer all grades in the army and navy; to mobilise the national guards and to confer all the grades in it; to nominate and dismiss at will the Political Governors, which latter, in addition to the military duties that may be conferred upon them by the Executive Power, can exercise the civil ones; and that, in the absence of the person invested with the Executive Power, the ad interim Governor of the Province shall preside over the provincial depu tation. Signed at San Cristobal on November 6, 1844, by M. M. VALENCIA, President and Deputy for Santo Domingo. Signatures of the members of the Congress of Revision assembled in the city of Santo Domingo, on February 25, 1854, and 10th of the Fatherland. F. BENIGNO DE ROJAS, President. DOMINGO D. PICHARDO, Vice-President. FELIX MORILLA, FRANCISCO SARDA Y CARBONEL, Secretaries. JOSE PERDOMO, Let the above be fulfilled, published, and executed in the territory of the Dominican Republic. National Palace of Santo Domingo, PEDRO SANTANA, President. February 27, 1854, and 10th of the Fatherland. FRANCISCO MORENO, Secretary for the Interior and Police. MIGUEL LAVASTIDA, Secretary for War and Marine. PROCLAMATION of the President of the Republic to the Nation, upon the Promulgation of the Constitution.-San Domingo, February 27, 1854. DOMINICANS! A DECADE has now elapsed since a magnanimous and generous people who for twenty-two years had been bound to the fatal car of material force threw off the yoke of disgraceful ignominy; a decade since they burst asunder the fetters with which a vile slave had chained them to the pillars whereby the ignorance, and misery of a people were supported, who had changed our innocent rejoicings into bitter tears, our enlightenment into fearful darkness, our wealth into disgraceful poverty, our morality into corruption and crimes, our holy religion into a hateful superstition, our national glories, inherited by us from that great and illustrious race whence which we derive our origin, into the loathsome abyss of nothingness. Ten years since, Dominicans, on the dawn of this very day, unarmed, and with no other resource than their love for the fatherland, exclaimed, "Separation or death"-magical words, which vibrated like an electric flame through the hearts of all the people of the Spanish portion of the island, even as if they had been but one man, and one sole and only will; and this, because they all recollected the frightful sufferings they had undergone; because they were conscious of their power and heroism. Let us cast a veil over the acts which during these ten years marked the footsteps of the invaders during their march with conflagration and ruin, death and extermination, in their train, through our populations and frontier towns. Let us also pass over in silence the acts of magnanimous self-denial, disinterestedness, valour, and heroism of those who sacrificed their all at the sacred altar of the fatherland. Trusting exclusively to the justice of our cause, let us invoke as our symbol of union on this memorable day the God of our fathers, who has hitherto vouchsafed to lead us on by the Angel of Victory. Raised in the month of November, 1844, by the unanimous and spontaneous suffrages of the whole nation to the Presidency of the State, I was present at the promulgation of the fundamental political Code decreed by the Supreme Constituent Congress, which, as a public man, I have observed and caused to be observed, and as a private one I have most religiously respected. That Congress has now also been ten years in force, and during these two lustra of its sway the country has progressed, notwithstanding a continuous state of war. The Republic which we founded on the 27th of February, 1814, was solemnly recognised and united by indissoluble ties of commerce and friendship with England, France, and Denmark; it was also recognised de facto by many other Powers, and has con stantly advanced in the path of progress and civilization. It does not become me to decide whether that Congress did or did not fulfil the wishes and supply the requirements of the nation; but the latter, through the organ of its lawful Representatives, decreed, on the 1st of June, 1853, that certain Articles which appeared to fail in fully accomplishing the general welfare, should be revised. According to the expression of the Congress by which we are represented among political Powers, and whose will dictates the law which we all obey, our imprescriptible rights of liberty, security, and property are guaranteed to us in the most absolute and irrevocable manner, while, at the same time, our imperative duties are precisely fixed and defined. The exercise of the supreme authority emanating from all Dominicans collectively, in whom the sovereignty resides, becomes concentrated and strengthened by means of the delegated powers which set it in motion, and is made to diverge from the centre by the local power, which being nearer to the source whence it springs, will provide all that can be useful, necessary, and convenient for us, without trenching upon the attributes of the other Powers. Social necessities in general and the will of the nation will be expressed by an increased number of Representatives and Senators, who, in addition to exercising their august functions, as organs of the public at large, will watch over the sacred Code of our rights; will be the incorruptible and vigilant guardians of the public liberties; will call to account all who abuse or exceed the powers entrusted to them, but will never be the passive instruments of the caprices of one individual. The material force required for causing the due observance of our rights and observations, is confided to one sole citizen, assisted in the exercise of power by subordinates responsible for the infractions or the omissions they may commit; this power, which cannot but give an impulse to the social vehicle, possesses the necessary and indispensable means and elements for accomplishing the object of all Governments, which is that of protection and repression, producing throughout the community the greatest amount of possible happiness, whether in the enjoyment of lawful pleasures or in the subjection of unlawful ones to the dominion and control of reason; it is strong and powerful beneath the aegis of the Constitution and of the law; it is weak and impotent when unprotected by them. Without stability, no society is possible; our Representatives have created another functionary in order that the State vessel may never be without a lawful commander, be driven about at the mercy of the billows of party factions, political commotions, or of other circumstances. The judicial power has also been modified and centralized. The terrible attribute of applying the laws and of rendering them as inexorable as fate itself, has been reduced to two cases only, which will be ineffective if the sword of the law be sheathed, but more than sufficient if it protects innocence, integrity, and helplessness, and chastises those who are really guilty. It remains for us to choose the Ministers of so sacred a sanctuary. Dominicans! I shall decline to speak to you of the man of the people whom you have raised to the pinnacle of power and of glory for services which in themselves had nothing great or eminent. If since the 27th of February, 1844, I offered myself as a sacrifice to the independence of my country, if united with you, who have done so much more than I, we have vanquished the enemy, if in some family dissensions I have had the satisfaction of re-establishing the empire of the law, together with public tranquillity, it is not to me that you are indebted for it, but to that Eternal Being whose vigilant and paternal eye is ever over us, and whose omnipotent arm defends us; it is also to you all who at your country's call, rose like a nation of heroes and martyrs ever ready to offer your hearts' blood as a sacrifice. The Supreme Congress of San Cristobal placed in my feeble hands the onerous duty of presiding over the State for a double period, the which, however, was not completed. The Congress of Revision has now delegated to me the double power which I shall proceed to exercise should the necessities of order and stability so require. In 1844 I offered myself as the expiatory victim in order to shake off the yoke which weighed upon us all, and with the help of the God of our fathers and with your co-operation, I have succeeded. In 1854 I again offered myself, but without pretending to perpetuate in my person the supreme magistracy, for that would but discredit and injure the noble cause we have embraced, and blot out even the remembrance of my spontaneous sacrifice. Individuals disappear, so that if they were indispensable to States, the latter could not exist. For myself I desire no other glory than to witness the consolidation of our liberty and political stability. I affect no other title than that of a mere citizen subject and obedient to the laws, of a citizen armed for the defence of the fatherland. Dominicans! on again promulgating, on a day so auspicious and memorable, the fundamental Code of the 6th of November, 1844, with the modifications decreed, I tell you, as your first magistrate, and as your fellow-citizen, that we should meditate upon the duties and guarantees therein contained; that we should learn to respect the former and defend the latter, and that we should recollect that it is not institutions alone which constitute the happiness and prosperity of nations. No; these will of themselves be of no avail, even when they are the fruit of the experience and the wisdom of ages, for without the simultaneous action of the laws and the rectitude of |