The St. Johns herald., 1889-04-18
in Able Address.

AutIIIOGIS Ol IllS IlISellGll 1>CS IoISt
 tive Assembly of Arizona, in refus
 ing to acknowledge any proceed
 ings on the part of our colleagues
 after the 21st of March as legal ol binding, submit to an intelligent constituency the following as the reasons that have controlled us in our action:
 Territories, being outlying prov inces of the United States, have no sovereign powers. In Sec. III, ar ticle ? of the Constitution of the U. s. it is expressly declared that Congress shall have power to dis pose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the ter ritory and other property of the United States" It follows, then, that territorial legislatures can only act within the scope of powers granted them by Congress, and that all laws passed by Congress respect ing the territories are supreme and cannot be annulled or set aside by any act of any territorial legisla- tive assembly, Congress creates territorial legislatures, prescribes the number of persons that shall constitute the membership of the council and assembly, the subordi- nate officers, their pay per diem, etc., how members shall be chosen, the duration of their session, and the matter upon which they shall legislate.
 Section 1S46, Revised Statutes of the United States, provides that the members of such assemblies shall be elected for two years, and shall meet but once during the time for which they are chosen, and the leg islature of each territory shall fix by law the day for the commence ment of such session. Amendment to section 1852, Revised Statutes of the United States, which took effect December 23, 1880, in supplement to United States Revised Statutes, page 586, it was enacted that: "The sessions of the legislative assem- plies of the Territories of the U. s. shall be limited to sixty days du- ration" Under power granted it by Congress, the Legislature of Arizona, in paragraph 2S80, Revised Statutes of Arizona Territory, has fixed the tune and place for the convening of the Legislature in the following language: "The legisla- tive assembly shall maet at the cap ital of the territory on the third Monday in January, 1889, and every two years thereafter"
 The fifteenth legislative assembly, l in compliance with the above stat ute, convened at Prescott on the Dist day of January last, the mem bers were sworn in, the council or ganized on that day, and two days later the house effected ? perma- nent organization. The session commenced when the members were sworn in. And every member has admitted this to be true by receipt ing, accepting and certifying for 60 days full pay, dating from the com mencement of the session, i. e., the 21st of January This question was decided by the assistant attor- ney-general of the Interior Depart ment in 1885 in reference to the thirteenth assembly.
 In reference to the claim that the ten days which elapsed from the adjournment at Prescott to the re- assembling at Phoenix should not count as part of the session, we have this to say, that if this is good law, what is to prevent legislative assembly from adourning from week to week and month to month and continue the session for two years? The assumption is prepos- terous. That the law means what it says. and that every session must |