The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1888-02-14


founded on the common business of
human life, adapted to common
wants, designed for common use,
and fitted for common understand
ings. The people make them, the
people adopt them, the people must
be supposed to read them with the
help of common sense and cannot be
presumed to admit in them any
reconcile meaning. (Story's Com
mentaries, 2IO.) Also to COoley's Con-
stitutional Limitations % Ed y {:
q Narrow and technical reasoning is
misplaced when it is brought to bear
upon an instrument framed by the
people themselves for themselves
and designed as chart upon which
every man learned and unlearned
may be able to trace the leading
principles of government.
The proviso of Article IS is In
less otherwise expressed" In the
case of the exceptions above referred
to, it is provided that the act shall
be done by the King by Srtue of
some other authority, as for instance,
it Is provided in Article IS, that
" Ia any great emergency he (the
King may, with the advice of the
Privy Council, convene the LegiSla-
ture in extraordinary session." In
Art. As the provision in regard to the
act of veto is as follows &c If ne APP
prove he shall sign it and it shall
thereby become a law, but if not, he
shall return it, with his objections,
to the Legislature" | fail TO see
any language here which excerpts
the veto act from the rule of Article
IS, or which appears TO do so. Such
exception must be unequivocally
expressed in words. 1t is not Suf-
ficient that a skillful logician might
base a respectable argument upon
the above quoted words in favor of
the theory OF the respondent. If the
words taken in their common,
plain, every day meaning, do not
express an exception on their face,
then none can be inferred. There is
no more difficulty in the proposition
that the King approves or disap-
proves by and with the advice of
the Cabinet than in the other prOpo-
sition that he signs or refuses to
sign by and with the consent of the
Cabinet. We may go further than
this and be strictly within the prin-
ciples of Interpretation if the
words are fairly susceptible of both
interpretations, which | do not adj
NIT, that one must be adhered to
which is in sympathy with the
spirit and purpose of the ConStitu-
ton; the object of the Constitution
is the securing of civil rights and
enlightened constitutional govern
ment. 1t seems to me that the grant
of the power of veto to the King in
dependent of all advice or respon-
sible authority would be an obstacle
10 the securing of civil rights, a
cause of division and conflict be-
tween the Crown and the Cabinet
and a menace to public tranquility
and therefore inconsistent with the
spirit and objects of the Constitu-
ton, and unlikely to have been in
tended by its trainers or forced from
them by subtle reasoning. Is the
power of veto as royal prerogative
and which can only be oyer-ridden
by a two-thirds vote of all
the elective members of the
Legislature, consistent with en-
lightened constitutional Govern
ment This is matter of opinion,
but the status of the two greatest
constitutional Governments on earth,
those of England and the United
States of America, gives an I'M
qualified negative to this question.
The development of the principle of
government by the House of Com
mons has rendered obsolete the veto
power of the English Sovereign.
(Cooley's Constitutional Limitations.
#154, Note ~ In America the
President, holding office for brief
term and liable to impeachment,
may at his own discretion veto bill
from Congress, but it may be passed
over his veto by two-thirds of a
quorum of each house of Congress.
The contention of the defendant,
if correct, makes the veto act royal
prerogative; but the Constitution,
in Article 80, has defined the royal
as follows: alt is the
Kings prerogative to receive and
acknowledge public Ministers to
inform the Legislature, by royal |
message from time to time, of the
state of the Kingdom, and to recon-
mend to its consideration such
measures rs he shall judge neces- |
sary and expedient" This being |
an affirmative grant of prerogatives |