Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1853-1862, 1857-09-05
THE HENRYMANDER.

As TO the power of the next General Assembly
to alter or amend the apportOnment act Of 1852,
upon which differ SO widely with the Banner the
following is the provision of the Constitution upon
the subject Art. 2 Sec 4, says:
An enumeration of the qualified voters, and an
apportionment Of the Representatives in the Gener
al Assembly shall be made in the year le4l and with
in every subsequent term of ten years"
What, we would ask our neighbOr of the Banner,
IL there in this that would make modification or
amendment of the law at any time, illegal aTiols
ton of the Constitution The Constitution makes
It obligatory on the Legislature to apportion the Rep
resentaton once in every ten years, but certsinly
does not prohibit the exercise of this power oftener
Weare at loss to conjecture by what process Of
logical deduction our neighbor draws his conclusion
By parity of reasoning if there were legal pro-
vision-as believe there is,requiring the officers
of the Bank of Tennessee to keep the bank open
from a. m. to 3 p. N, and they to choose for
the greater convenience of the public to open an
hour earlier in the morning, and close hour later
in the afternoon, our neigbbor might with equal
prOpriety call this case of "hagrant" illegality
If we believed there was any doubt upon the sub
feet, we should not consent to any modification. We
do favor the exercise Of doubtful constitutional
powers And if we ever allowed ourselves to be
biased by party considerations there is not in this
case, as our neighbor viii acknowledge, the least
necessity upon party grounds for any change
in the present apportionment. The necessity arises
from the injustice and unfarness of the Henryman-
der, by which some districts get more and others
less than their proper representation and the ar
rIBgement Of counties into the district which
are situated remotely and inconvsniently with res
poet to each other.
We viii state what we consider the obvious mean
ing and intention of the constitutional provision
this subject Some counties are constantly increas-
ing in population while others are falling of. To
what extent this is going on can be accurately de-
termined only by enumeration Of the inhabitants.
1t being the design of the trainers of the constitution
to eguazs the representation, provision was made to
ascertain the number of qualified voters, so thstthe
representation might be appOrtiOned thereby, only
providing that each county which had as many as
tWohirds Of the required ratio, should be entitled
to a representative. The clause Of the constitution
to which we REFER says this enumeration shall take
place within every ten years. Whyf In order that
every county may then have the full andjust repre-
seatation to which it is entitled. Itwould be strange
now if the very provision Of the constitution which
was designed to fairness and equality should
operate to hinder the correction Of unfair and
equal appOrtiOnment Injustice is known to have
been done by the Henrymander. Under the prOvis
Ions of the constitution it is provided that this shall
be corrected in 1861. But there is no prohibition
az ains its earlier correction. Like the election of
a Senator to supply Mr. Bells place, it is solely
question of expediency, to be decided as the Legis-
la ure IN its wisdom may deem best. We repeat, we
believe the Legislature has the right to re-district
the State; to the policy of doing SO we are not
so clear. The precedent set might be improper,
an l we therefore favor only such changes as are
demanded by fairness and the public convenience.