Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1879-02-07
The legislature.

The editor of the National Democrat
publishes in the columns of that paper his
defence for leading his party friends the
legislature to violate the contract with us
in regard to State printing. In this he
lays down several propositions which he
saws he holds 'to be both sound logic and
good law" The first five propositions
are as follows:
/. One Legislature cannot bind another in
matters over which each alternately has com
plete jurisdiction.
g One Legislature cannot make a contract
connected with its ordinary Legislative duties,
that can tie up the hands of anothe' Lcgisla-
ture for single moment
3. One Legislature cannot make a contract
connected with its ordinary duties that will
Out-live itself. and if it attempts 10 make such
a contract. its subsistence beyond the dura-
ton of its constitutional existence only up
held by courtesy. or by general acquiescence
on the part of its successor.
4. That subsequent Legislature is only
bound by the acts and resolves passed by pre-
vious Legislatures having the force of law.
3. That a contract or agreement made and
entered by the two Houses on the one part,
lature for the then current year, does not ex-
tend by its own force so as 10 embrace the
printing Of another Legislature.
The other propositions add nothing to
the above. Saying nothing about minor
points there is fallacy running through
all these propositions which is fatal to
them. 1t is the idea or assumption that
every session Of the legislature constitutes
a separate and distinct legislature; that
the State has new legislature every year !;
that there have been as many legislatures
in the State as there have been annual
sessions.
Now the Legislature is continuous body
1t has existed from the first organization
to the present time. We have had only
one legislature since the State was formed,
but many sessions. New members are
elected annually but they do not constitute
new legislature, they only continue that
which has been from the beginning, and
which will endure until abolished by
changes in the constitution or revolution.
To assert. therefore, that one legislature
cannot bind another-if by that is meant
that we have or have ever had
more than one legislature in the
State-is rhetorical absurditv, has
no foundation in law. and no sound
logician would undertake to build an argu-
ment upon so weak premise.
The legislature may enact laws at one
session and repeal them at the same session,
or any subsequent session, and whether the
repeal takes place at the same session during
which the law was enacted or at some SUBJ
sequent session, it is still the same legisla-
ture which makes and unmakes the law.
Our contract to do the State printing was
made with the Legislature, the same which
has existed ever since the State was or.
gained. We agreed to execute the print
ing "for the current political year." land
until oherWise Ordered bg THE LEGIsLA.
TURE"-not by the legislature of 1873 OF
1879, so called-but by the legislature as
established by the constitution of the State
which is continuous body, and not a body
which expires every year and gives place
to another body calling itself a Legislature
But even if fhe idea of the editor of tn,
Democrat were correct, that every session
of the legislature is an entirely new legis
lature, the contract is still good until tn,
new legislature makes another, as it
terms indicate and the precedents of man,
years have established.