Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1868-12-02
THE UsURPATIONs OF THE Gov


THE UsURPATIONs OF THE GOV
ERNOR AND THE LEGISLATURE.
correspondent Of the Press and
Times says ''there rests now an impera-
tive duty upon the Legislature to pass
the bill bringing on the election of Judges
and Attorneys General" The CORES
pendent then proceeds to show that
under our constitutional law, the quail
fed voters have the right to select their
Judges and Councillors; and it is made
the duty of the Legislature not only to
support the constitution in one respect,
but in all, and TO provide that the cleo
tons Of Judges and Attorney Generals
shall be held, 50 as to give the people
(the qualified voters) their right to choose
whomsoever they may please to be their
Judges; and this privilege cannot be
lawfully withheld from them and to
do so in any department of our
State government is violation of
the supreme law OF the land, usurpa-
ton of power, and a plain violation Of
duty in such department" This is the
tone in which a correspondent of the Radi
cal organ at the capital is compelled to
refer to the usurpatiOns of Gov. Brown
ow. The Legislature is urged to pass
LA bill bringing on the election of
Judges and Attorneys General, when
the constitution and laws already in force
make it the imperative duty of the Gov
ernor to order elections wherever vacan-
cies may exist. The Radicals have given
us an improbable Governor, man who
usurpS power to such an extent that
members of his own party call upon the
Legislature to check him in his mad Ca
reer, not directly it is true, but by enact
ing law requiring him to do what he is
already required to do by a law now on
the statute book. Is this the way to
deal With a usurper 1t is an anomaly
in the history of a State, especially Of
Tennessee, that the Legislature is COM
PEELED to remind the Governor ofthe duty
he has sworn to perform. Would this
conduct be tolerated if the Governor hap
pened to be a Democrat Look at the
pretexts that were set up by the Radicals
in Congress as a justification Of their eff
forts to depose President johnson. If he
had been guilty of 1.-THE Of the usurpa-
tons which have marked the admins
tration Of Gov. Brownlow, is there
man in all this broad land
who does not feel and know that he
would have been deposed and disgraced?
\ ct the Legislature, because the Gov
ernor is a Radical, proposes to only
mildly rebukc him for acts which even
his partisans are compelled to denounce
as usurpations. This is not the way to
deal with men in high Offices who set
law at defiance. If Gov BrownlOw has
been guilty, as the proposed law implies,
Of usurpation, in making judicial appoint
ments not authorised by law, and of will
ful Idisobedience Of the constitution and
the law, in not ordering elections to fill
vacancies in the judicial department o.
the government, why should he not
be dealt with as other offenders 1t is
admitted by the correspondent OF the
Radical organ az the capital, and tacitly
by the members of the Legislature who
favor the passage Of the bill now before
that body to bring on the election OF
Judges and Attorneys General, that the
Governor has been acting without the
authority Of law in the appointments he
has made. The men he has thus appointed
Judges have gone on and held Courts in
the several Circuits and passed sentence
upon parties convicted Of criminal Of
enses, and yet it appears they had no
| legal authority to do so. Not OILY has
confusion been thus brought into the
Courts of the State, and the action takeO
therein liable to be set aside by compe-
tent tribunal, but the men who have as
sumed TO act as Judges under an appoint
ment and commission from Gov. Browns
low, have placed themselves in position
in which they might be subjected to a
criminal prosecution. The Code of Ten
nessee provides as follows
1919. 1t shall be misdemeanor--
Il. For any person falsely to assume
TO be Judge, Justice Of the Peace, Sher-
III, or other Judicial or ministerial officer,
and take upon himself TO act as such, or
TO require any one TO aid or assist him in
any matter pertaining to the duty Of any
such officer
80 To take upon himself to exercise
and ofiiciate in any Office or place Of
authority in this State without being
legally authorized"
II is a clear case that the men who
have been appointed by Gov. Brownlow
as Judges were not legally authorized"
TO act as such, because he has no author
ity to make judicial appointments except
in temporary cases. What their acts
would amount to before properly con-
stituted court, court composed Of men