New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1854-01-16
- I'gylEsT R.g1LRoaD T.ax CASE.

VS. Madame R. de 81. Homes FOE the matter
WAS Of such public interest as warranted our
LAYING the Judges opinion before our readers.
For the moment, we were compelled, by the
want of snace under which,we often labor, to
defer the paper, and to present q mere outline,
n III stead. Having now room for It, we pub
Ish ii at large, below. And this we do the
rather. because, upon a less cursory examina-
tion of tho Judgment and an inquiry into the
facts which were in evidence, we come, with all
personal respect for the equity of Judge Rey-
nolds' mind and his general judicial competency,
to the conclusion that his Honor's decision will
not stand in law.
IN most cases of mere legal Interpretation, we
should leave it to professional lawyers to cam
yass the validity of decisions in our inferior
Courts, The Press, free as the wind is to blow
where it lsteth, is not to be prohibited from dis
GUESSING them Or anything else but it can SCI
dom have need to do So In this matter, how
ever, it is only tho law Of Elections which is in
question and as we eurself have had much
more than usual OCCASION to familiarize ourself
with the principles md application of that Law,
we shall not hesitate to set forth, most freely,
while most respectfully the grounds on which,
we take the decision, IS rendered, to be erro-
neous
1t turns, as will be perceived, upon the non
compliance, at the taking of the popular vote on
this question, with the exact requirements of
the law under which that vote was taken. Judge
Reynolds holds that the very letter Of the law
was to DO complied with but that the evidence
in this case establishes that it was not; and
that, consequently, the vote as taken was null,
and the right Of taxation arising under it, void
To establish, by authority, the necessity Of a
rigid and technical compliance with the law
regulating this matter, the Judge cites what
ESQ cited) is but dictum Of the Supreme
Court: 4 Statutes should be SO construed, as far
as practicable, that no clause, sentence or
word in them be superfuous, void or insignii-
can't
Nov, this is but O general, not an universal
and infexible rule. Thus cited, as d sentence
detached from the context and the case in
which it was uttered, it becomes little but a
dictans. The Judge should have shown that
this rule was laid down for such case as pre-
cisely this, or for all cases. 1t is, in reality,
but the general and well known rule for inter
preting, not merely statutes, but testamentary
4 acts and instruments Of every kind But no
such rule is intended to be applied. with the
same iron rigor, to CAGES of every sort for the
law will interpret some things literally and
Internationally, land straighten OF relax its own
axioms according to the nature of the matter
Precisely thus will it do in the practice Of the
law of elections. To then, technical pre-
cision cannot be applied; because, in the first
place, they are generally hurried and confused,
so that a rigidly exacted regularity could only
be enforced in them at great Inconvenience to
all voters, at the almost constant vitiation of
all elections, and finally, to the abandonment, 1
by the people itself, Of function thus rendered
always most ineonvenient and often nugatory,
Secondly, such technical precision cannot be
exaeted in the law of Elections, because they
must be in the main conducted by persons who
are not lawyers, and who, therefore, if they at
tempted to be technically exact, would, at every
step, blunder, just in proportion as they tried
to be literal And, lastly, it is to be observed,
that, by the Constitutions Of all countries rep
resentatiyely governed. contested elections are
referred to the decision, not of Courts, but of
the bodies in which the seat is in dispute
bodies only in part composed of lawyers, and
llob Ap I'll pUuhu ny btcHHICal INV. 1eG IL is
these bodies that administer nearly all the cases
of eleetion-law that arise; few of them ever
reach the tribunals; and when they do, only |
go to them on some subsidiary point. Nor even |
then can Court afford any defnitiye relief
from what the representative body has decided
from all which we think tits to be igresstaby in
ferred that the law Of Electionsisto be interpret
ed literally, not literally. suchis, accordingly,
the practice in Congress, and in all our State
Legislatures; in none of which would an cleo
lion ever be set aside, on the grounds which
Judge Reynolds has taken. Our position then
is, that as the main and superior administration
Of this law lies not in the Courts, but in bodies
not governed by close technical rules, it lies not
in Courts to set up such, in the few and restrict
ed cases which reach them and that they must
follow the principle of Interpretation adopted
above them, in order. that there may be q har-
mony, not discord, Of decisions.
But, again, the verydietunt cited by Judge R
might be admitted, and yet conclude nothing
in this case For it must be itself interpreted
by the rule which itself lays down-that is,
every part must have, if possible, its force
Now, one Of its members-the phrase, as far
az Pt A19A100AS y ASbilJ
hensive restriction upon the rest and lets in a
thousand considerations of what is or is not
practicable=-thus reducing the matter, after
all, in the present case, to the question which
we have already made--namely, how far it is
:" practicable" to enforce rigid interpreted
ton Of election laws2 And if Gas we have
shown, they cannot be as vigorously interpreted
as his Honor desires, without bringing about
such frequent and severe Inconvenience as will
break down all popular attendance at the polls,
it follows that the literal Interpretation must,
even according to the Judges axiom, be aban-
doned for the really practicable one We
proceed to Judge Reynolds remaining authori-
ties.
Of these. il is, of course, to be remarked IN
general, that they fall to the ground as inappii
liable to this case, when once it has been shown
% lie beyond the rigid rules Of Interpretation,
pvt Of which sprang the ruling in the eases
which Judge Reynolds cites And even without
that great distinction which we have set up, it
seems to US that his Honor should himself have
been startled at his own examples--examples
which confound under the same strict principle,
political function and the right which a man
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