The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1893-05-04

yesterdays session of the legislature
SENATE.
The senate met yesterday morning
at II O'Clock with President pro tenn
Kearby in the chair.
The chair announced that the chap
lain was not present.
Senator Bowser said that the chap
lain was attending the funeral OF the
late John D. TempIeton and ne
thong ht be had made arrangement
with another minister. The senate
therefore, was not opened with
prayer.
Senator Dean introduced a resolu.
ton TO amend the rules in the
McGaughey impeachment trial so as
to require two-thirds of those present
to override the demurrers.
Senator Crawford said If this were
adopted it would put it in the power
of third to sustain the demurrers.
Senator Atlee made the point OF
order that the resolution was not
proper to be discussed in open senate.
The chair ruled the point not we'll
taken.
On motion of Senator Steele the res
olution was postponed until Thurs
day.
The senate refused to excuse Sena.
tor McComb for the rest of the week
on account of important business.
AT 11:30 O'Clock the senate resolved
itself into a court of impeachment.
J. j. Faulk of counsel for respondent
Immediately began an argument to
sustain the demurrers. He said the
state of Texas has no laws by which
an officer may be punished by i'm
parchment and if any court could
make law by which removal could
be effected by impeachment proceed
ings it was certainly a new PROPOSE
Eion in this country. 1.-THE land COM
missioner could be punished for viola.
ton of the civil law he would be pun
ished for doing what the law had
given him discretion to do. He tn en-
read extracts from the land laws
school lands, which must be classified
to the commissioners satisfaction. He
read this to show that if the commits
sioner had violated the law he did it
in the exercise of discretion and if he
can be punished it must be shown
that he did it with wilful and corrupt
motives. Tbe allegations do not show
that anybody has been injured by
the sales of the land.
After the Legislature had given the
commissioner the right to exercise a
discretion, you say you have reserved
the right to say whether he has OBJ
served that discretion. The univer'
sity and asylum lands are not, strictly
speaking, public lands. The last Sec
tion which the commissioner is
charged with having violated pro-
vides that all sections of land which
are detached is isolated from other
public lands may be sold to any per-
sons except corporations. This law
leaves it to the discretion of the com
missioner to construe the statute. Ii
the commissioner had consulted the
attorney. general, and he had given
the statute a wrong construction, then
you could call him before you and i'm
peach, if the position of the states
counsel is correct. The question is.
are we living in state of laws or not?
Have we got to draw upon the com
mon law? The student of law has
been led to believe that we have a
complete system of laws.
We are told that this court has the
inherent power to say what acts shall
constitute an offeDse All the power
which the legislature has is given in
the constitution. This is a court of
limited jurisdiction and has no power
except what is given it by the consti-
tuition. This court has no case to try
1t is a court out of job. There is no
law that defines acts that this court
may try. The states counsel say you
have right to refer to the presidents
Of English parliament and cases in
the United 5 ates congress The
state constitution has in it no crimes
that warrant impeachment as are set
out in the United States constitution.
It was left for the legislature to pre-
scribe the crimes but it has never
done this. In the punishment of all
crimes and offenses in this state there
must be prescribed law. There can
be no appeal to higher law.
1t is something unheald OF to at
tempt to punish man for crimes that
the law does not define. There is q
precedent in this state in the Russell
case. which went off in demurrer. He
criticised such presidents as the
the Johnson and Humphrey impeach-
ment cases, which occurred when
when there was the greatest political
prejudice, which formed the basis Of
the prosecutions. The next question
is, is this criminal prosecution? The
bill of rights and the constitution both
contemplate impeachment as a Grim
inal proceeding. The constitution
says the governor has the right to
pardon for every crime except in cases
of impeachment. The section of the
constitution providing that notwith-
standing a man may b. impeached.
vet he may be indicted and tried for
the same violations of law, the
speaker thought an exception to the
general rule that no man shall twice
be tried for the same offense.
The court can't pass law today to
punjsh a crime committed yesterday.
The constitution simply creates a