house consenting thereto: Provided, That such election shall always be held in an odd-numbered year.

Sec. 4. All elections by the citizens shall be by ballot or by such other method as may be prescribed by law. Provided, That secrecy 136 in voting be preserved.

Sec. 5. Electors shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach or surety of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance 137 on elections, and going to and returning therefrom.

Sec. 6. Whenever any of the qualified electors of this Commonwealth shall be in actual military service, under a requisition from the 138 President of the United States, or by the authority of this Commonwealth, such electors may exercise the right of suffrage in all elections by the citizens, under such regulations as are, or shall be, prescribed by law, as fully as if they were present at their usual places of election. Sec. 7. All laws regulating the holding of elections by the citizens or for the registration of electors shall be uniform throughout the State, 139 but laws regulating and requiring the registration of electors may be enacted to apply to cities only: Provided, That such laws be uniform for cities of the same class.

Sec. 8. Any person who shall give, or promise or offer to give, to an elector, any money, reward or other valuable consideration for his vote at an election, or for withholding the same, or who shall give or promise 140 to give such consideration to any other person or party for such elector's vote or for the withholding thereof, and any elector who shall receive or agree to receive, for himself or for another, any money, reward or other valuable consideration for his vote at an election, or for withholding the same, shall thereby forfeit the right to vote at such election, and any elector whose right to vote shall be challenged for such cause before the election officers, shall be required to swear or affirm that the matter of the challenge is untrue before his vote shall be received. Sec. 9. Any person who shall, while a candidate for office, be guilty of bribery, fraud, or willful violation of any election law, shall be forever disqualified from holding an office of trust or profit in this Com-141 monwealth; and any person convicted of willful violation of the election laws shall, in addition to any penalties provided by law, be deprived of the right of suffrage absolutely for a term of four years.

Sec. 10. In trials of contested elections and in proceedings for the investigation of elections, no person shall be permitted to withhold his testimony upon the ground that it may criminate himself or subject 142 him to public infamy; but such testimony shall not afterwards be used against him in any judicial proceeding except for perjury in giving such testimony.

Sec. 11. Townships and wards of cities or boroughs, shall form or be divided into election districts of compact and contiguous territory, 143 in such manner as the court of quarter sessions of the city or county in which the same are located may direct; but districts in cities of over one

144

hundred thousand inhabitants shall be divided by the courts of quarter sessions having jurisdiction therein whenever at the next preceding election more than two hundred and fifty votes shall have been polled therein; and other election districts whenever the court of the proper county shall be of opinion that the convenience of the electors and the public interests will be promoted thereby.

Sec. 12. All elections by persons in a representative capacity shall be viva voce.

Sec. 13. For the purpose of voting no person shall be deemed to 145 have gained a residence by reason of his presence, or lost it by reason of his absence, while employed in the service, either civil or military, of this State or of the United States, nor while engaged in the navigation of the waters of the State or of the United States, or on the high seas, nor while a student of any institution of learning, nor while kept in any poorhouse or other asylum at public expense, nor when confined in public prison.

Sec. 14. District election boards shall consist of a judge and two 146 inspectors, who shall be chosen annually by the citizens. Each elector shall have the right to vote for the judge and one inspector, and each inspector shall appoint one clerk. The first election board for any new district shall be selected, and vacancies in election boards filled as shall be provided by law. Election officers shall be privileged from arrest upon days of election, and while engaged in making up and transmitting returns, except upon warrant of court of record, or judge thereof, for an election fraud, for felony, or wanton breach of the peace. In cities they may claim exemption from jury duty during their terms of service.

Sec. 15. No person shall be qualified to serve as an election officer 147 who shall hold, or shall within two months have held, an office, appointment, or employment in or under the government of the United States or of this State, or of any city or county, or of any municipal board, commission, or trust in any city, save only justices of the peace, and aldermen, notaries public, and persons in the militia service of the State; nor shall any election officer be eligible to any civil office to be filled at an election at which he shall serve, save only to such subordinate municipal or local offices, below the grade of city or county offices, as shall be designated by general law.

Sec. 16. The courts of common pleas of the several counties of the Commonwealth shall have power, within their respective jurisdictions, 148 to appoint overseers of election to supervise the proceedings of election officers, and to make report to the court as may be required; such appointments to be made for any district in a city or county upon petition of five citizens, lawful voters of such election districts, setting forth that such appointment is a reasonable precaution to secure the purity and fairness of elections; overseers shall be two in number for an election district, shall be residents therein, and shall be persons qualified to serve upon election boards, and in each case members of different

political parties. Whenever the members of an election board shall differ in opinion, the overseers, if they shall be agreed thereon, shall decide the question of difference; in appointing overseers of election, all the law judges of the proper court, able to act at the time, shall concur in the appointments made.

Sec. 17. The trial and determination of contested elections of Electors of President and Vice President, members of the General Assembly, 149 and of all public officers, whether State, judicial, municipal, or local, shall be by the courts of law, or by one or more of the law judges thereof; the General Assembly shall, by general law, designate the courts and judges by whom the several classes of election contests shall be tried, and regulate the manner of trial, and all matters incident thereto; but no such law assigning jurisdiction, or regulating its exercise, shall apply to any contest arising out of an election held before its passage.

ARTICLE IX

Taxation and Finance

Sec. 1. All taxes shall be uniform, upon the same class of subjects, within the territorial limits of the authority levying the tax, and shall 150 be levied and collected under general laws; but the General Assembly may, by general laws, exempt from taxation public property used for public purposes, actual places of religious worship, places of burial not used or held for private or corporate profit, and institutions of a purely public charity.

Sec. 2. All laws exempting property from taxation, other than the property above enumerated, shall be void.

151

Sec. 3. The power to tax corporations and corporate property shall not be surrendered or suspended by any contract of grant to which the 152 State shall be a party.

Sec. 4. No debt shall be created by or on behalf of the State, except to supply casual deficiencies of revenue, repel invasions, suppress in- 153 surrections, defend the State in war, or to pay existing debt; and the debt created to supply deficiencies in revenue shall never exceed, in the aggregate at any one time, one million of dollars.

Sec. 5. All laws authorizing the borrowing of money by and on behalf of the State, shall specify the purpose for which the money is to 154 be used, and the money so borrowed shall be used for the purpose specified, and no other.

Sec. 6. The credit of the Commonwealth shall not be pledged or loaned to any individual, company, corporation or association, nor 155 shall the Commonwealth become a joint owner or stockholder in any company, association or corporation.

Sec. 7. The General Assembly shall not authorize any county, city, borough, township, or incorporated district to become a stockholder in 156 any company, association or corporation, or to obtain or appropriate

money for, or to loan its credit to, any corporation, association, institution, or individual.

Sec. 8. The debt of any county, city, borough, township, school 157 district, or other municipality or incorporated district, except as herein provided, shall never exceed seven per centum upon the assessed value of the taxable property therein, nor shall any such municipality or district incur any new debt, or increase its indebtedness to an amount exceeding two per centum upon such assessed valuation of property, without the assent of the electors thereof at a public election in such manner as shall be provided by law; but any city, the debt of which now exceeds seven per centum of such assessed valuation, may be authorized by law to increase the same three per centum, in the aggregate at any one time, upon such valuation, except that any debt or debts hereinafter incurred by the city and county of Philadelphia for the construction and development of subways for transit purposes, or for the construction of wharves and docks, or the reclamation of land to be used in the construction of a system of wharves and docks, as public improvements, owned or to be owned by said city and county of Philadelphia, and which shall yield to the city and county of Philadelphia current net revenue in excess of the interest on said debt or debts and of the annual installments necessary for the cancellation of said debt or debts, may be excluded in ascertaining the power of the city and county of Philadelphia to become otherwise indebted: Provided, That a sinking fund for their cancellation shall be established and maintained.

Sec. 9. The Commonwealth shall not assume the debt, or any part 158 thereof, of any city, county, borough, or township, unless such debt shall have been contracted to enable the State to repel invasion, suppress domestic insurrection, defend itself in time of war, or to assist the State in the discharge of any portion of its present indebtedness. Sec. 10. Any county, township, school district, or other munici159 pality, incurring any indebtedness, shall, at or before the time of so doing, provide for the collection of an annual tax, sufficient to pay the interest, and also the principal thereof within thirty years.

Sec. 11. To provide for the payment of the present State debt, and 160 any additional debt contracted as aforesaid, the General Assembly shall continue and maintain the sinking fund sufficient to pay the accruing interest on such debt, and annually to reduce the principal thereof by a sum not less than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars; the said sinking fund shall consist of the proceeds of the sales of public works, or any part thereof, and of the income or proceeds of the sale of any stocks owned by the Commonwealth, together with other funds and resources that may be designated by law, and shall be increased from time to time by assigning to it any part of the taxes, or other revenues of the State, not required for the ordinary and current expenses of government; and unless in case of war, invasion or insurrec

tion, no part of the said sinking fund shall be used or applied otherwise than in the extinguishment of the public debt.

Sec. 12. The moneys of the State, over and above the necessary reserve, shall be used in the payment of the debt of the State, either di- 161 rectly or through the sinking fund, and the moneys of the sinking fund shall never be invested in or loaned upon the security of anything, except the bonds of the United States, or of this State.

Sec. 13. The moneys held as necessary reserve shall be limited by law to the amount required for current expenses, and shall be secured 162 and kept as may be provided by law. Monthly statements shall be published, showing the amount of such moneys, where the same are deposited and how secured.

Sec. 14. The making of profit out of the public moneys, or using the same for any purpose not authorized by law, by any officer of the 163 State, or member or officer of the General Assembly, shall be a misdemeanor, and shall be punished as may be provided by law, but part of such punishment shall be disqualification to hold office for a period of not less than five years.

ARTICLE X

Education

Sec. 1. The General Assembly shall provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public schools, 164 wherein all the children of this Commonwealth, above the age of six years, may be educated, and shall appropriate at least one million dollars each year for that purpose.

Sec. 2. No money raised for the support of the public schools of the Commonwealth, shall be appropriated to, or used for, the support of 165 any sectarian school.

Sec. 3. Women twenty-one years of age and upwards shall be eligible to any office of control or management under the school laws 166 of this State.

ARTICLE XI
Militia

Sec. 1. The freemen of this Commonwealth shall be armed, organized and disciplined for its defense, when, and in such manner as 167 may be directed by law. The General Assembly shall provide for maintaining the militia, by appropriations from the treasury of the Commonwealth, and may exempt from military service persons having conscientious scruples against bearing arms.

ARTICLE XII

Public Officers

Sec. 1. All officers, whose selection is not provided for in this Constitution, shall be elected or appointed, as may be directed by law; 168