It then passed an ordinance for the organization of an election at which the draft constitution would be put to a vote. The procedures specified appeared, in some respects, to be contrary to the convention’s enabling legislation (not to mention the existing constitution) in several ways. Two suits were brought seeking to enjoin the referendum which state officials had been prepared to hold on the convention’s terms. One of these suits was dismissed in the trial court in a remarkable opinion by Judge Edwin H. Stowe. Citing the state constitution’s Declaration of Rights that recognized the people’s “inalienable and indefeasible right to alter, reform or abolish their government in such manner as they think proper,” he affirmed that “such power exists above and before the constitution.” The right to remake the constitution exists “in all cases and at all times, whether there is a way provided in their constitution or not.” This right, once revolutionary, had now been “restrained and modified.” It could be exercised by “the introduction of constitutional and legal revolution by the consent of the constituted authorities of the state.” The convention, “quasi-revolutionary in its character, [has] absolute power, so far as necessary to carry out the purpose for which [it was] called into existence . . . [W]hen once called into operation by proper authority, it cannot be subverted nor restrained by the legislature.”71