Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1883-01-25

| and Indian. not taxed.
| Nv. Speaker: am so we'll convinced tha
the position which occupy upon this ques
ton is an impregnable one that | invite de
bate upon it. l do not propose to reply t,
any merely personal remarks of the gentle
man from Rockland as TO my own action here
| tofore upon this question, only to say tha
during the thirty years past, in which hav,
| occasionlly been member of this house.
| have never been one when an apportionmen
OF the House has been made
The gentleman has already admitted the
! constitutional requirement, and thank hin
for that. He has further undertaken to sug
gest way in which that requirement NAV bt
obeyed. l again renew my offer TO accept OF
| any method which this House NAV adopt tC
| carry out that express provision of the con.
'stitution. | am not at all tenacious for the
provisions of this bill in its details. offered
it as one method by which the requirement
may be carried into effect, as in my opinion
the most expeditions and the least expensive
and one for which we have precedent in the
State of Massachusetts,, where the practice
has long been to have an enumeration made
by. the assessors during the year on which an
apportionment is made.
But what is the substance of the gentleman e
reply. 1t is that compliance with the re-
Quirements of the constitution is not necessary
because of former precedents. Precedents
are dangerous lightly to follow, and are liable
to be overthrow. In some cases where there
is doubt as to the true course, and where
the reasons upon one side and the other are
nearly equally balanced, a precedent NAV
be followed, but whenever precedent can be
shown to be clearly against law. it has no
force. No lawyer, and no man of good sense
would think of citing precedent as a
justification for a known violation of law
much less as justification for violation of
the constitution. Let us examine this
precedent which the gentleman from Rock
land invites us to follow. Let us see where
with the clear light and language of the
constitution before us pointing out the true
way which we have sworn to follow, this
false light of precedent is to lead us.
The constitutional provision Is that "the
Legislature shall within every subsequent
Ito the tirst) period of at most ten wears, and
at least five, cause the number of
the inhabitants of the State to be ascertained,
exclusive of foreigners not naturalized and
Indians not taxed ;'and further, 1.-The number
of representatives shall, at the several peri
DDS of such enumeration, be fixed and
apportoned among the several counties.
&c, ana now we are asked to take as the
basis of representation census not made by
the State but by the United States in June
1880, when more than one-half of the short
est period as required by the constitution or
when nearly ODe-third of the largest period
has elapsed and that, a census of the whole
population from which can nowhere be ascer-
taiped the rumber of inhabitants excluded
from the right of representation. and even if
they could be so ascertained, it is well
known fact that hundreds of foreigners have
been naturalized since that census was taken
and prior to the last September election.
But the precedent which we are asked to
follow, is one which can be clearly shown
to be so utterly in violation of
the constitution that no member of
this House who understands it can follow
it without knowingly disregarding the
constitution, and now propose to show it by
facts and figures, taking the apportionment
made in 1871, among all those counties
having cities or towns of sufficient population
to entitle them to one or more Repre-
sentatives.
Taking as basis the whole number of
inhabitants as given by the census of 1870,
and dividing by l5l, the number of Repre-
sentatives, the ratio upon which they were to
be apportioned among the counties was
4l52, giving to the several counties as