Part 163

Mahomet II., son of Amurath II. came to the Ottoman throne, at the age of twenty-one, in 1451. "The conquest of Constantinople was the first object on which his thoughts were fixed at the opening of his reign. The resolution with which he had formed this purpose expressed itself in his stern reply to the ambassadors of the Emperor, offering him tribute if he would renounce the project of building a fort on the European shore of the Bosporus, which, at the distance of only five miles from the capital, would give him the command of the Black Sea. He ordered the envoys to retire, and threatened to flay alive any who should dare to bring him a similar message again. The fort was finished in three months and garrisoned with 400 janizaries; a tribute was exacted of all vessels that passed, and war was formally declared by the Sultan. Constantine [Constantine Palæologus, the last Greek Emperor] made the best preparations in his power for defence; but he could muster only 600 Greek soldiers." In order to secure aid from the Pope and the Italians, Constantine united himself with the Roman Church. A few hundred troops were then sent to his assistance; but, at the most, he had only succeeded in manning the many miles of the city wall with 9,000 men, when, in April, 1453, the Sultan invested it. The Turkish army was said to number 250,000 men, and 420 vessels were counted in the accompanying fleet. A summons to surrender was answered with indignant refusal by Constantine, "who had calmly resolved not to survive the fall of the city," and the final assault of the furious Turks was made on the 29th of May, 1453. The heroic Emperor was slain among the last defenders of the gate of St. Romanos, and the janizaries rode over his dead body as they charged into the streets of the fallen Roman capital. "The despairing people—senators, priests, monks, nuns, husbands, wives and children—sought safety in the church of St. Sophia. A prophecy had been circulated that here the Turks would be arrested by an angel from heaven, with a drawn sword; and hither the miserable multitude crowded, in the expectation of supernatural help. The conquerors followed, sword in hand, slaughtering those whom they encountered in the street. They broke down the doors of the church with axes, and, rushing in, committed every act of atrocity that a frantic thirst for blood and the inflamed passions of demons could suggest. All the unhappy victims were divided as slaves among the soldiers, without regard to blood or rank, and hurried off to the camp; and the mighty cathedral, so long the glory of the Christian world, soon presented only traces of the orgies of hell. The other quarters of the city were plundered by other divisions of the army. … About noon the Sultan made his triumphal entry by the gate of St. Romanos, passing by the body of the Emperor, which lay concealed among the slain. Entering the church, he ordered a moolah to ascend the bema and announce to the Mussulmans that St. Sophia was now a mosque, consecrated to the prayers of the true believers. He ordered the body of the Emperor to be sought, his head to be exposed to the people, and afterwards to be sent as a trophy, to be seen by the Greeks, in the principal cities of the Ottoman Empire. For three days the city was given up to the indescribable horrors of pillage and the license of the Mussulman soldiery. Forty thousand perished during the sack of the city and fifty thousand were reduced to slavery."

_C. C. Felton, Greece, Ancient and Modern: Fourth course, lecture 6._

ALSO IN: _G. Finlay, History of the Byzantine and Greek Empires from 716 to 1453, book 4, chapter 2._

_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 68. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25717_

CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 1453-1481. The city repopulated and rebuilt. Creation of the Turkish Stamboul.

{511}

"It was necessary for Mohammed II. to repeople Constantinople, in order to render it the capital of the Ottoman Empire. The installation of an orthodox Patriarch calmed the minds of the Greeks, and many who had emigrated before the siege gradually returned, and were allowed to claim a portion of their property. But the slow increase of population, caused by a sense of security and the hope of gain, did not satisfy the Sultan, who was determined to see his capital one of the greatest cities of the East, and who knew that it had formerly exceeded Damascus, Bagdad and Cairo, in wealth, extent and population. From most of his subsequent conquests Mohammed compelled the wealthiest of the inhabitants to emigrate to Constantinople, where he granted them plots of land to build their houses. … Turks, Greeks, Servians, Bulgarians, Albanians, and Lazes, followed one another in quick succession, and long before the end of his reign Constantinople was crowded by a numerous and active population, and presented a more flourishing aspect than it had done during the preceding century. The embellishment of his capital was also the object of the Sultan's attention. … Mosques, minarets, fountains and tombs, the great objects of architectural magnificence among the Mussulmans, were constructed in every quarter of the city. … The picturesque beauty of the Stamboul of the present day owes most of its artificial features to the Othoman conquest, and wears a Turkish aspect. The Constantinople of the Byzantine Empire disappeared with the last relics of the Greek Empire. The traveller who now desires to view the vestiges of a Byzantine capital, and examine the last relics of Byzantine architecture, must continue his travels eastward to Trebizond."

_G. Finlay, History of the Byzantine and Greek Empires, from 716 to 1453, book 4, chapter 2, section 7._

CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 1807. Threatened by a British fleet.

See TURKS: A. D. 1806-1807.

CONSTANTINOPLE: End----------

CONSTANTINOPLE, Conference of (1877).

See TURKS: A. D. 1861-1877.

CONSTANTIUS I., Roman Emperor, A. D. 305-306.

Constantius II., A. D. 337-361.

CONSTITUTION, The battles of the frigate.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812-1813, and 1814.

CONSTITUTION OF ARAGON AND CASTILE (the old monarchy).

See CORTES, THE EARLY SPANISH.

CONSTITUTION OF ARAGON AND CASTILE: End----------

CONSTITUTION OF THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC.

The subjoined text of the Constitution of the Argentine Republic is a translation "from the official edition of 1868," taken from R. Napp's work on "The Argentine Republic," prepared for the Central Argentine Commission on the Centenary Exhibition at Philadelphia, 1876. According to the "Statesman's Year-Book" of 1893, there have been no modifications since 1860:

Part I.

Article I. The Argentine Nation adopts the federal-republican, and representative form of Government, as established by the present Constitution.

Article 2. The Federal Government shall maintain the Apostolic Roman Catholic Faith.

Article 3. The authorities of the Federal Government shall reside in the city which a special law of Congress may declare the capital of the Republic, subsequently to the cession by one or more of the Provincial Legislatures, of the territory about to be federalized.

Article 4. The Federal Government shall administer the expenses of the Nation out of the revenue in the National Treasury, derived from import and export duties; from the sale and lease of the public lands; from postage; and from such other taxes as the General Congress may equitably and proportionably lay upon the people; as also, from such loans and credits as may be decreed by it in times of national necessity, or for enterprises of national utility.

Article 5. Each Province shall make a Constitution for itself, according to the republican representative system, and the principles, declarations and guarantees of this Constitution; and which shall provide for (secure) Municipal Government, primary education and the administration of justice. Under these conditions the Federal Government shall guarantee to each Province the exercise and enjoyment of its institutions.

Article 6. The Federal Government shall intervene in the Provinces to guarantee the republican form of Government, or to repel foreign invasion, and also, on application of their constituted authorities, should they have been deposed by sedition or by invasion from another Province, for the purpose of sustaining or re-establishing them.

Article 7. Full faith shall be given in each Province to the pubic acts, and judicial proceedings of every other Province; and Congress may by general laws, prescribe the manner in which such acts and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.

Article 8. The citizens of each Province shall be entitled to all the rights, privileges and immunities, inherent to the citizens of all the several Provinces. The reciprocal extradition of criminals between all the Provinces, is obligatory.

Article 9. Throughout the territory of the Nation, no other than the National Custom-Houses shall be allowed, and they shall be regulated by the tariffs sanctioned by Congress.

Article 10. The circulation of all goods produced or manufactured in the Republic, is free within its borders, as also, that of all species of merchandise which may be dispatched by the Custom-Houses of entry.

Article 11. Such articles of native or foreign production, as well as cattle of every kind, which pass from one Province to another, shall be free from all transit-duties, and also the vehicles, vessels or animals, which transport them; and no tax, let it be what it may, can be henceforward imposed upon them on account of such transit.

Article 12. Vessels bound from one Province to another, shall not be compelled to enter, anchor, or pay transit-duties; nor in any case can preferences be granted to one port over another, by any commercial laws or regulations.

Article 13. New Provinces may be admitted into the Nation; but no Province shall be erected within the territory of any other Province, or Provinces, nor any Province be formed by the junction of various Provinces, without the consent of the legislatures of the Provinces concerned, as well as of Congress.

{512}

Article 14. All the inhabitants of the Nation shall enjoy the following rights, according to the laws which regulate their exercise: viz. to labor and to practice all lawful industry; to trade and navigate; to petition the authorities; to enter, remain in, travel over and leave, Argentine territory; to publish their ideas in the public-press without previous censure; to enjoy and dispose of their property; to associate for useful purposes; to profess freely their religion; to teach and to learn.

Article 15. In the Argentine Nation there are no slaves; the few which now exist shall be free from the date of the adoption of this Constitution, and a special law shall regulate the indemnity acknowledged as due by this declaration. All contracts for the purchase and sale of persons is a crime, for which those who make them, as well as the notary or functionary which authorizes them, shall be responsible, and the slaves who in any manner whatever may be introduced, shall be free from the sole fact that they tread the territory of the Republic.

Article 16. The Argentine Nation does not admit the prerogatives of blood nor of birth; in it, there are no personal privileges or titles of nobility. All its inhabitants are equal in presence of the law, and admissible to office without other condition than that of fitness. Equality is the basis of taxation as well as of public-posts.

Article 17. Property is inviolable, and no inhabitant of the Nation can be deprived of it, save by virtue of a sentence based on law. The expropriation for public utility must be authorized by law and previously indemnified. Congress alone shall impose the contributions mentioned in Article 4. No personal service shall be exacted save by virtue of law, or of a sentence founded on law. Every author or inventor is the exclusive proprietor of his work, invention or discovery, for the term which the law accords to him. The confiscation of property is henceforward and forever, stricken from the Argentine penal-code. No armed body can make requisitions, nor exact assistance of any kind.

Article 18. No inhabitant of the Nation shall suffer punishment without a previous judgment founded on a law passed previously to the cause of judgment, nor be judged by special commissions, or withdrawn from the Judges designated by law before the opening of the cause. No one shall be obliged to testify against himself; nor be arrested, save by virtue of a written order from a competent authority. The defense at law both of the person and his rights, is inviolable. The domicil, private papers and epistolary correspondence, are inviolable; and a law shall determine in what cases, and under what imputations, a search-warrant can proceed against and occupy them. Capital punishment for political causes, as well as every species of torture and whippings, are abolished for ever. The prisons of the Nation shall be healthy and clean, for the security, and not for the punishment, of the criminals detained in them, and every measure which under pretext of precaution may mortify them more than such security requires, shall render responsible the Judge who authorizes it.

Article 19. Those private actions of men that in nowise offend public order and morality, or injure a third party, belong alone to God, and are beyond the authority of the magistrates. No inhabitant of the Nation shall be compelled to do what the law does not ordain, nor be deprived of anything which it does not prohibit.

Article 20. Within the territory of the Nation, foreigners shall enjoy all the civil rights of citizens; they can exercise their industries, commerce or professions, in accordance with the laws; own, buy and sell real-estate; navigate the rivers and coasts; freely profess their religion, and testate and marry. They shall not be obliged to become citizens, nor to pay forced contributions. Two years previous residence in the Nation shall be required for naturalization, but the authorities can shorten this term in favour of him who so desires it, under the allegation and proof of services rendered to the Republic.

Article 21. Every Argentine citizen is obliged to arm himself in defense of his country and of this Constitution, according to the laws which Congress shall ordain for the purpose, and the decrees of the National Executive. For the period of ten years from the day on which they may have obtained their citizenship, this service shall be voluntary on the part of the naturalized.

Article 22. The people shall not deliberate nor govern save by means of their Representatives and Authorities, created by this Constitution. Every armed force or meeting of persons which shall arrogate to itself the rights of the people, and petition in their name, is guilty of sedition.

Article 23. In the event of internal commotion or foreign attack which might place in jeopardy the practice of this Constitution, and the free action of the Authorities created by it, the Province or territory where such disturbance exists shall be declared in a state of siege, all constitutional guarantees being meantime suspended there. But during such suspension the President of the Republic cannot condemn nor apply any punishment per se. In respect to persons, his power shall be limited to arresting and removing them from one place to another in the Nation, should they not prefer to leave Argentine territory.

Article 24. Congress shall establish the reform of existing laws in all branches, as also the trial by Jury.

Article 25. The Federal Government shall foment European immigration; and it cannot restrict, limit, nor lay any impost upon, the entry upon Argentine territory, of such foreigners as come for the purpose of cultivating the soil, improving manufactures, and introducing and teaching the arts and sciences.

Article 26. The navigation of the interior rivers of the Nation is free to all flags, subject only to such regulations as the National Authority may dictate.

Article 27. The Federal Government is obliged to strengthen the bonds of peace and commerce with foreign powers, by means of treaties which shall be in conformity with the principles of public law laid down in this Constitution.

Article 28. The principles, rights and guarantees laid down in the foregoing articles, cannot be altered by any laws intended to regulate their practice.

Article 29. Congress cannot grant to the Executive, nor the provincial legislatures to the Governor of Provinces, any "extraordinary faculties," nor the "sum of the public power," nor "renunciations or supremacies" by which the lives, honor or fortune of the Argentines shall be at the mercy of any Government or person whatever. Acts of this nature shall be irremediably null and void, and shall subject those who frame, vote, or sign them, to the pains and penalties incurred by those who are infamous traitors to their country.

{513}

Article 30. This Constitution can be reformed in whole or in part. The necessity for the reform shall be declared by Congress by at least a two-thirds vote; but it can only be accomplished by a convention called ad hoc.

Article 31. This Constitution, and the laws of the Nation which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made or which shall be made with Foreign Powers, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the authorities of every Province shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any Province to the contrary notwithstanding, excepting in the case of Buenos-Aires, in the treaties ratified after the compact of November 11th, 1859.

Article 32. The Federal Congress shall not dictate laws restricting the liberty of the press, nor establish any federal jurisdiction over it.

Article 33. The enumeration in this Constitution of certain rights and guarantees, shall not be construed to deny or disparage other rights and guarantees, not enumerated; but which spring from the principle of popular sovereignty, and the republican form of Government.

Article 34. The Judges of the Federal courts shall not be Judges of Provincial tribunals at the same time; nor shall the federal service, civil as well as military, constitute a domicil in the Province where it may be exercised, if it be not habitually that of the employé; it being understood by this, that all Provincial public-service is optional in the Province where such employé may casually reside.

Article 35. The names which have been successively adopted for the Nation, since the year 1810 up to the present time; viz., the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata, Argentine Republic and Argentine Confederation, shall henceforward serve without distinction, officially to designate the Government and territory of the Provinces, whilst the words Argentine Nation shall be employed in the making and sanction of the laws.

Part II.—Section I.

Article 36. All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress composed of two Chambers, one of National Deputies, and the other of Senators of the Provinces and of the capital.

Chapter I.

Article 37. The Chamber of Deputies shall be composed of representatives elected directly by the people of the Provinces, for which purpose each one shall be considered as a single electoral district, and by a simple plurality of votes in the ratio of one for each 20,000 inhabitants, or for a fraction not less than 10,000.

Article 38. The deputies for the first Legislature shall be nominated in the following proportion: for the Province of Buenos-Aires, twelve; for that of Córdoba, six; for Catamarca, three; Corrientes, four; Entre-Rios, two; Jujui, two; Mendoza, three; Rioja, two; Salta, three; Santiago, four; San Juan, two; Santa-Fé, two; San Luis, two; and for that of Tucumán, three.

Article 39. For the second Legislature a general census shall be taken, and the number of Deputies be regulated by it; thereafter, this census shall be decennial.

Article 40. No person shall be a Deputy who shall not have attained the age of twenty-five years, have been four years in the exercise of citizenship, and be a native of the Province which elects him, or a resident of it for the two years immediately preceding.

Article 41. For the first election, the provincial Legislatures shall regulate the method for a direct election of the National Deputies. Congress shall pass a general law for the future.

Article 42. The Deputies shall hold their place for four years, and are re-eligible; but the House shall be renewed each biennial, by halves; for which purpose those elected to the first Legislature, as soon as the session opens, shall decide by lot who shall leave at the end of the first period.

Article 43. In case of vacancy, the Government of the Province or of the capital, shall call an election for a new member.

Article 44. The origination of the tax-laws and those for the recruiting of troops, belongs exclusively to the House of Deputies.

Article 45. It has the sole right of impeaching before the Senate, the President, Vice-President, their Ministers, and the members of the Supreme Court and other inferior Tribunals of the Nation, in suits which may be undertaken against them for the improper discharge of, or deficiency in, the exercise of their functions; or for common crimes, after having heard them, and declared by a vote of two thirds of the members present, that there is cause for proceeding against them.

Chapter II.

Article 46. The Senate shall be composed of two Senators from each Province, chosen by the Legislatures thereof by plurality of vote, and two from the capital elected in the form prescribed for the election of the President of the Nation. Each Senator shall have one vote.

Article 47. No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained the age of thirty years, been six years a citizen of the Nation, enjoy an annual rent or income of two thousand hard-dollars, and be a native of the Province which elects him, or a resident of the same for the two years immediately preceding.

Article 48. The Senators shall enjoy their trust for nine years, and are indefinitely re-eligible; but the Senate shall be renewed by thirds each three years, and shall decide by lot, as soon as they be all re-united, who shall leave at the end of the first and second triennial periods.

Article 49. The Vice-President of the Nation shall be President of the Senate; but shall have no vote, except in a case of a tie.

Article 50. The Senate shall choose a President pro-tempore who shall preside during the absence of the Vice-President, or when he shall exercise the office of President of the Nation.