The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-06-23

any State office. You must have an
 election. declaration of the result, be-
 lore you can have the contest Now
 there is not line in this section that
 can be tortured into a jurisdiction or
 power to go behind the returns. It is
 explicitly stated they shall not have
 power to object to returns for any
 cause whatever, except the three men,
 tioned. A little later on the section
 says contested eIections shall be ue-
 termtned in such manner as sha!l be | provided by law" Is it wise, is 1t. q
 sound policy of government to use | words which we know. from Supreme
 Court decisions put our state orfi-es,
 our General Assembly. our Speaker, in
 a position Where fraud not ia tEe
 returns as made out, but as allowed,
 might. nullify for the time being at
 least the will of the people of Ala bama.
 Let us suppose Speaker. under the
 operation of the substitute of the gen.
 t4eman from Sumter, and here are the
 returns. Somebody objects. Why, he | says isn't that genuine, Isn't it sent by l the Board of Supervisors. yes. Didn't 1t | come through the mai.s? Yes. But. sir.
 Speaker, 1 don't ask to prove that the | elect.on was not fair, nor to 20 5ahind | that. but 1 have proof that a clerk in | the office 1t may be. who vas lafI to | i'll In the figures. purposely put in
 2.0oo or 5000 votes more than the man | got. in order to change the result in | the State. The Speaker must answer
 am a ministerial dummy. anu | bound to count 1t. The State cleo
 ton not many years ago hinged on the l vote of one county, ~and about l.N0 votes at that. The difference as to that caused the Smith Lindsay contest. IL | your Speaker and General Assembly | are bound up in a ministerial jacket.
 the answer must be, when any of the l questions arise to which l have ad- verted we are doing what the Con- l stitution says we must. We have no | discretion. We must take that return.
 It is there and we must count 1t; and
 thus the act of a clerk may put out
 the officers elected by the people of Alabama and give their offices to Sth- l CTS, and drive the real elected officer into a contest-and all because of one
 single little fact-the entertainment Of
 which does not seek to go beyond the
 return-could not be investigated bv
 the General Assembly, because inad-
 vertently this Constitutional Conven-
 tion had put in the word ministerial"
 l hope therefore, that this convention
 will not put in the word "ministeriaf
 as regards the functions of a General I
 the Speaker in the article first.reported.
 because we wanted him to be subject to l the powers of the two houses. but we | said nothing about the power of the | two houses. Afterwards we came in l and limited that but left them
 some judicial power, and the gentleman l from Suter wishes to strike out that. and say, None of you are to have any
 power except what is purely ministe-
 rial" do not think his view S wise.
 I hope it will not be adopted. If the
 convention in its fear of Returning
 Boards. which Is not justified under the
 language of this section, think that
 nothing ought to be said about the
 powers of the joint convention, let us | strike out the substitute, but don't let
 us play on words, and put our repre- | sentatives, our officers in a position l where the fact that a man commits | fraud binds them, hand and foot and
 makes them powerless to prevent 6 l reversal of the will of the people. They
 say this prima facie declaration is a
 small matter; but the power of State
 may be changed by this fraud. and
 the very power you give man who
 Is not elected may be the means of defeating the will of the people.
 | My friend said something yesterday
 about the unfortunate condition of af- | fairs in Kentucky, because there the l Legislature was vested with judicial | power. So here the Legislature Is
 vested with judicial power to determine
 contests, and it is the only body that
 can be given that power unless we
 want to demoraliZe our courts and de-
 stroy their usefulness, by making them
 the arbiters purely of great political
 questions. You are bound to trust the | RSaN Nskr AO ka
 condition of affairs in Kentucky did
 not arise from the fact that the Gen. eral Assembly of Kentucuky had pow | CT to decide who was Governor on a
 contest; but it arose from the bad and
 vicious passions of men which resulted ! in the assassination of the Governor | of Kentucky. I say 1t reverently, if the power to decide that contest had been relegated to the Almighty, in- stead of to a human board. neverthe less his opponents would have killed
 him. His death did not arise out of the clause Tn the Constitution of Kentucky
 of giving judicial power to the General
 Assembly. l have spoken longer than
 intended, but I felt 1t a matter of duty. I have been surprised to find gentlemen on this floor who believe this Committee on Executive Depart
 ment, who are certainly men of ordt- | nary ability. ordinary good lawyeas | and of ordinary patriotic impulses,
 have been engaged here today in try
 ing to get this Convention to adopt a
 vicious doctrine; and by putting 1t in
 the Constitution do something that
 would be destructive of the liberties of
 the people of Alabam.
 MT. Sollie-If it were not that the amendment or substitute offered by the gentleman from Sumter is in lieu and stead of the section now proposed by the Committee l. perhaps, should be against the amendment offered by the gentleman from Sumter, for the reason that as read Section of the article under consideration there Is no need for change at all. There is an old adage to the effect substantially, that we are prone to endure the evil that we bear rather than fly to those we know not of; and out fathers in making theDeclaration of Independence gave us the same idea as applied to government, but in different language. Here we have a section in our pres ent Constitution which has been tried for twenty-five years. So far as l have been able to ascertain from inquiry among the older members of the Con- vention and SO far as I have learned from my own reading and observation, the evil which the change purports to remedy has never been practical ir Alabama. I learn from the more aged members that there has been no time when the officers charged with the duty of certifying returns in Alabama have so falsely handled those returns as to