New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1856-03-03


When the Constitution says, that contested cleo
tons shall be disposed of in to be directed
by law, 1t certainly will not be maintained that there
is any statutory provision Which clothes the Legisa-
! ture with Judicial power over these subjects.
But, says the address, these facts ascend above
ordinary facts and circumstances and hence these
extraordinary powers arc required to cut up lin the
language of the Governor) these evils before they
have taken root This is not only an extraordinary
proposition, but is aught with immense evil and
| danger to those constitutional limits by which the
exercise of public power is restrained Tyrants could
be manufactured to order from this enormous perver-
sion Of constitutional law and the inevitable result
of such doctrine would be unmitigated despotisnl
OF stupid and reckless majority Can the Governor
and his constitutional advisers and coaborers sup
pose that the spirit of the people of Louisiana will
slavishly submit to such high-handed usurpations
| Do they suppose that the spirit of Lexington and
Bunkers Hill has expired in the hearts of our people
Or that the genius of resistance has lost any of the
| vigor OF 10?
We gratified that at last we have been enabled
to grasp the ground of this dangerous pretension and
to gapple with it in the very infancy of its existence
The majority do not pretend then that they have any
warrant for this procedure in the 21st Article of the
Constitution in the act of 1853 in reference to
contested elections But still they say, eve are the
| Grand Inquest of the State' and our character as
well as authority result from the provisions of the
| Constitution.
Having reached this point we should have supposed
the argument to be exhausted, and the majority Of
the Legislature driven to the wall were we not again
startled by construction of the Constitution as shall
low as it is unwse illogical and dangerous Men who
! have not made constitutional law their study and
who do not clearly comprehend that our government
is emphatically Of law, are prone to run into ex
| tremes which, as to themselves, are absurd, and
which, as to the integrity of constitutional govern
ment are not untrequently perious. Some minds
abound more in materials for fancy than in the ele
ments of sound logic. They better organized for
vehement defamation concerning imaginary massa
and assasstions, than for the stern interpreta
ton of legal propositions They inclined to
in the regions of pathos and poetry than to plod
through the plain and unvanshed interpretation of
constitutionalteXt We shoudneyer have known what
articles of the Constitution the aorty of the Legis
ature relied on if We had not been advised of the fact
in reading very imprisoned, and We hope we shall
be pardoned for saying very ridiculous speech, by
very eminent member of that very powerful majority
He says:
s'But, sir, it seems the compIers of the volume
which Ihold in my hand, thought differently when
they penned the following articles: Article 93.
Laws shall be made to exclude from office and from
the rights of suffrage those who shall hereafter be
victed of bribery, perjury, forgery and other high
crimes and msdemeanors. The privilege Of free s1lt-
frage shall be supported by law regulating elections,
and prohibiting, under adequate penalties all undue
influence thereon from power bribery, tunult or other
| improper practices "
ART. 81. "All civil officers except the Governor
and Judges of the Supreme aud Inferior Courts shall
| be removable by an address of q majority Of both
Houses, except those the removal of whom has been
| otherwise provided by this Constitution.
| Here we have the exact groundwork upon which
the argument of the majority in favor of the Constitu
tonal power claimed by them is based. The as
sumption Of this position also operates as an ADAM
donment Of our reliance upon Art p, or upon our
legislative enactment. Here they have thrown up
their works, mounted their ordinance and entrenched
themselves for the conflict, which must now be fought
between them and a people proyerbiay Jealous Of
their own rights and unleentingy hostile to the usrr
patton of power.
Now let us anayze the singular mass Of material
out of which this extraordinary power is reasoned,
rather from which it is wrested without resort to
anything which can lay claim to the dignity Of reason
As to Art. 93-Frst the Legislature has obcyed
the mandate of this Article, and has made laws TO
exclude from Office all persons convicted Of bribery
perjury, forgery and other high crimes and INSIDE
meanors.
! Second, it has passed laws to support the priv
ege of free suffrage, and prohibiting, under adequate
penalties all undue influences thereon from power, tl-
multi or other improper practices
Third, the Legislature has passed laws giving to
|
It has also passed laws providing for the decision
of the legality and validity of elections. When the
right of popular suffrage has been alleged to have been
| invaded, or when elections have been influenced by
po,rcr bribery tumuh, Or other improper practices,
| it has organized Court before which all such
contests shall be tried and has declared that the de-
cison of that Court shall be final, The only power
conferred on it by the SO Art. is that Of making
laws this it has done, and in those laws has en-
blaced the entire subject matter contemplated by the
Article, and the only power which remains to it is
to change, modify repeal those laws but it can
not SO change Or modify them to assume itself
the exercise of a power which belongs to another
department of the government.
The laws which it has passed fully and properly
recognize the authority of the Judiciary over all
questions of bribery, tumut and other undue inlu-
enCeS which may be eEerted over elections, and the
declaration that this authority shall be final makes it
exclusive and necessarily debars the legislation from
exercising any grand inquisoriai powers.
The trainers of the Constitution torcsaw that
elections might be influenced by power tumult bri-
berry etc: and by article 80, they enjonedu the law
making power to make laws which, when made,
were to be enforced by the Judiciary. But the power
to make law, according to the welrecognzed theory
of our government, does not convey with it a power
to decide law. Such construction strikes danger
GUS if not fatal blow at the organic adjustment Of
public power into its three separate and independent
departments and if such is the true constitutional
doctrine to be deduced from the 93d article, what is
to prevent the Judiciary from being absorbed by the
legislative department Of the State? If it be true
that the Legislature is bound by existing laws if ii
be true that the act of 1855 gives the courts final ju
rsdcton over all contests for the office of Sheriff il
the several parishes of the State if that act was
passed in reference to the express mandate of article
3d. by what authority can the Legislature claim tt
become the grand inquest over all questions relating tt
the regularity of elections?
The claim cannot be, asserted except by an usu1oa
ton of power which converts every member of thu
majority voting for that address into usrper and
tyrant Grand inquests are unknown to our law
they have too much the cast of the star chamber
and the inqusition. Grand inQuistons are syn