Excerpt from The Mode of Altering the Constitution of Rhode Island: And a Reply to Papers by Honorable Charles S. Bradley, and Honorable Abraham Payne The Charter of 1663 was accepted by the Colony and became its fundamental law, and remained such up to the adoption and putting in operation of the existing Constitution in the spring of 1843. According to the principles of the common law it may be said that any power of government not granted by the Charter of 1663, was reserved to the Crown. The effect of the Revolution was to absolve the people from their allegiance to the Crown, and all of the limitations imposed in the Charter in favor of the Crown lapsed, and were vested in the General Assembly, or in the people, to be administered under the then exist ing government. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.