Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-02-15
TIE LAW OF THs CASE SETTLED.

It is not always thai the lawyer is
successful IN making proposition of law
so clear to the lsyman as was Attorney
General Marshall in the case of the Drain
age-Act. Claims bill. His logic is simply
unanswerable. It must be taken as case
of absolute demonstration. There can be
no reply made to it. Simply and briefly
stated, it is exactly as the REcoRD-U UNION
put the case month ago. The State
passed an Act by its lawfully chosen law
making agents. Until repealed or declared
of no effect it was the Law, as complete
as any unimpeachable law. Under that
Act, to which the State gave the weight
and sanction of its full and unquestioned
authority, citizans in good faith performed
work for the State. for which they have
never been paid. There is not, and never
was, any question as TO the value Of the
services performed. After the work was
done, the Supreme Court held the Act
to be unconstitutional, not because of any
want of authority to pass it, says the
Attorney. General, but because of methods
adopted. These citizens now ask the State
not to take advantage of its own error and
repudiate its obligation, but to keep it to
the letter. Unless it does SO, it simply
robs its citizens. There is no other or
milder term by which to designate it. As
General Marshall puts it, to refuse to pay
these claims will establish precedent
which will make every cautious man hest
tate to do work under any Act of the
Legislature until the highest Court has
passed upon its complete formality and le-
gality. "From the date of the decision
that a law is unconstitutional, it be-
comes nullity, but up to
that time it claims obedience and
affords protection" Again " Citizens do
not and cannot judge-they obey, and
while they resist law az their proper peril,
they obey it under the impenetrable shield
of express authority Of law, or its equiva-
lent, legislative enactment. And again :
81 believe no civilized society could exist
under the construction that no rights are
vested and no obligations incurred when
the highest power in the State issues its
mandate to the citizen" Again says the
chief law officer of the State: "t Express
authority, as mentioned in the Constitn-
ton, means enactment by the lawfully
constituted Legislature, not validity Of the
law under any other construction people
live and act and hold their property in
fatal insecurity" If these claims were
against private individual, it is by all ad-
mitted that he could not plead in defense
the invalidity of the statute a right of
action would obtain against him. How
much more then is the State bound by the
obligations of honor and good faith to
recognize these claims when there is no
right of action against her. We hold to
these views in the interest Of simple JUS
tice and fair dealing, having no interest
beyond that of seeing large number of
worthy citizens of the interior righted.
The RECORD UNION points TO its record on
this matter with pride, it having urged the
equities of the claimants case from the
first solely on the ground of securing
action by the State in right direction. 1t
can do, SO important does it deem the
principle involved, as it believes the legis.
lators will do-lay aside for the time all
other issues in any way affecting this
Legislature, and dispassionately consider the
equities of these claimants, to give voice
to the common dictates of justice in their
behalf, that for once the legal axiom may
be exemplifed- the State can do no
wrong"