The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1873-04-02
WEDNESDAY EvE'G APRIL 2, 1873.
Editorial correspondence. or Hitting
The Dispatch OH the Wing.


eY IT we knew one to do. The moral Is Be
sure you are right before you go ahead too fast.
DiSpdtch.
We clip from The Dispatch of Saturday,
which reached us in our travels to-day, the
above self-complacent and exceedingly
satisfactory paragraph. The " case
made by The JOURNAL is that in refer
ence to the election by the present General
Assembly OF the county court judges-our
position being that their appointment,
at this time, was unconstitutional.
In proof Of this position we cited not
only the clauseso the constitution bearing
upon the question, but the arguments of the
leading Conservatives in the General As
sembly -" first class lawyers, 'as they were
said to be by The Dispatch alleging that
to make the appointment of these judges
constitutional it was necessary to postpone
the meeting of the next General Assembly
until the first day Of January, 1874, so
that the duty Of electing them would nee
cssarly devolve upon the Legislature of
ls7l-3, and not upon that of 1875. The
dodge in this case so far affected the con-
stitution as to change the biennial election
of the members of the House of Delegates,
and make that which must be elected on
the first of November next the House for
1915, instead of the House for 1880.
This the Dispatch agreed with us could not
be done, saying that there could be ''no
such thing as postponement Of the meet
ing of the next General Assembly until
January, 1874"
This candid admission by The Dispatch,
in the outset of the argument, together
with the point urged by its /" first
class lawyers" both in caucus and in the
House, that The Dispatches impossible
postponement" was necessary. to make
valid the appointment of these judges by
the present General Assembly, led us very
naturally to infer that we had got our con-
temporary 8 on the hip" and that it would
have to back square out of its first posi-
ton, or be forced to admit that the action
Of the General Assembly was usurpation
IN the opinion of its own Grst-class law
yers." Either The Dispatch was wrong or
the splendid legal talent for which it
vouched in tie General Assembly was at
fault. There was no other or more super
latiye horn to that dilemma.
But our contem oorary chops logic with
a meat-axe; so, while it neither aban-
dons its own position, nor calls in question
that of its legal friends in the Legislature
always ''first-class lawyers" 10 be sure
it leaps the chasm for new syllogism,
and goes off into misapplications of our
facts and perversions of our meaning to
raise new issues on collateral questions.
What The Dispatch said could not be done,
the Legislature had already done; and,
from its own standpoint. that body was
either bound to recede or stand convicted
of unconstitutional action in the es TINA
ton of our contemporary. In other
words, The Dispatch categorically asserts
that the General Assembly cannot do a
certain act; it does do it, and thereupon this
new Stagyrite in logic flies off in tangent,
aud asserts that the General Assembly
may do something else, and the power to
do that something else implies the power to
do just what it categorically asserted was
impossible in the premises.
We might have rested the whole argu-
ment here with our contemporary, and
squared our action to its 'moral," in the
opinion of nine out of ten of its own