Mr. Editor:—After an abrupt leave, I am in again, and having been for many years what is called a constitutional man, and feeling a deep interest in the common welfare of all, so far as the rights of ‘Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’ are concerned, you will pardon me as a legal advocate of vested rights, (not your religious tenets, or any other’s, for I consider them as a matter connected with the soul) for once more offering you a little ‘Bee Bread.’

I am much pleased with the liberal powers of the charter of the goodly city of . The Vested Rights, in that public document, are sufficient for all necessary purposes of a people whose greatest object appears to be to benefit mankind in this world, and happify them in the next. It is evident on the face of the instrument in question, that the Legislature of , or more properly the people of , through their representatives, have vested in the corporate body of , over a certain district of territory which may be increased in size at pleasure, all the rights, privileges and powers which the said possessed in her constitutional capacity, or could claim under the broad folds of the Constitution of the .

When I first read the charter, I supposed it was circumscribed by the Statu[t]es of the , but upon a second reading, I saw the beauty of that ‘Magna Charta.’ I saw that the Legislature of had ceded to the city council of the city o[f] , the power to legislate for the comm[o]n weal of . For a part of the 11th [s]ection of that Act, reads as follows:

Now, if words mean any thing here certainly are vested rights, as sacre[d] as substantial, and, according to the te[r]ms of the charter (perpetual succession,) a[s] durable as those of the or , for the ‘benefit and convenience’ of the citizens of , and her posterity, ad infinitum. It is a wise, liberal and suhstantial foundation for those who may be so fortunate as to share the salutary effects of its ordinances, and to partake of its growing blessings. If has power to enact laws for the benefit and convenience of her inhabitants, so has , for her citizens. If the constitution of the protects in her vested rights, has the same claim, and the same power to control it. And if the city council of shou[l]d pass an unconstitutional act or ordinance, literally repugnant to the constitution of the or of this , all that could be done would be to declare it void by some court having competent jurisdiction, and there the matter ends, without any recourse upon the charter any more than there is recourse upon the constitution of the for unconstitutional acts that so frequently disgrace the statutes of the several states.

When I heard that the legislature, last winter, was laboring to repeal or modify the said charter, it put me in mind of a father and a son, who owned a horse which they were too lazy to prove, and bring out his good qualities; but a gentlemen observing him, purchased, and in a few days passed by with the noble animal in full mounted harness attached to an elegant carriage, attracted the attention of all that saw him. The son immediately sought the father to sue and get the horse back, but the old man drily re [p. [2]]