Opinion ID: 1230380
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: History and Context of the Emoluments Clause in Virginia and West Virginia

Text: 1. The Emoluments Clause in Antebellum Virginia. The forerunner to Article VI, § 15 of the present West Virginia Constitution was enacted by the Virginia General Assembly in 1794. 1794 Va. Acts ch. 22, 1 Statutes at Large of Virginia 306 (Richmond, Samuel Shephard 1835). [4] The wording of the 1794 provision was taken almost verbatim from Article I, § 6, cl. 2, of the United States Constitution, [5] which was submitted for ratification by the states just seven years before. The emoluments prohibition was given constitutional status with the adoption of the Virginia Constitution of 1830. [6] Significant for present purposes was the insertion in the 1830 provision of an exception for offices as may be filled by elections by the people. The records of the constitutional convention shed no light, however, on the intended meaning of this language, as the provision was adopted without amendment or debate. See Proceedings and Debates of the Virginia State Convention of 1829-1830 40, 460-61, 804-5 (Richmond, S. Shepherd & Co. 1830). The Framers of the 1830 Constitution would have understood the Emoluments Clause as primarily imposing a check on legislative corruption. A contemporary interpretation offered by Justice Story [7] indicated that the purpose behind the federal provision was to take away, as far as possible, any improper bias in the vote of the representative, and to secure to the constituents some solemn pledge of this disinterestedness. Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 867, at 330-31 (Cambridge, Hilliard, Gray & Co., 1st ed. 1833). [8] In addition to protecting the public fisc from collusive and self-serving conduct by legislators, the Emoluments Clause was also recognized as playing a crucial role in maintaining separation of powers. Alexander Hamilton succinctly observed that the Emoluments Clause guards against the danger of executive influence upon the legislative body. The Federalist No. 76 at 459 (Alexander Hamilton) (Clinton Rossiter ed., 1961). Madison likewise noted that this provision was intended to limit the potential of the executive using its appointive power to corrupt the Congress: Is there a danger apprehended from the other branches of government? But where are the means to be found by the President, or the Senate, or both? .... The only means, then, which they can possess, will be in the dispensation of appointments. Is it here that suspicion rests her charge. Sometimes we are told that this fund of corruption is to be exhausted by the President in subduing the virtue of the Senate. Now, the fidelity of the other House is to be the victim..... But, fortunately, the Constitution has provided a still further safeguard. The members of the Congress are rendered ineligible to any civil offices that may be created, or of which the emoluments may be increased, during their term of election. No offices therefore can be dealt out to the existing members but such as may become vacant by ordinary casualties.... The Federalist No. 55 at 345 (James Madison). [9] Indeed, George Mason even went so far as to state that the provision provides the corner-stone on which our liberties depend. 1 The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 381 (remarks of George Mason) (Max Farrand ed., 1911). The Emoluments Clause was retained in the Virginia Constitution of 1851, although the exception language was truncated to offices filled by elections by the people. [10] While this alteration suggests an intent to clarify that popular election was the only means of abating the impediment imposed by the Emoluments Clause, the proceedings of the constitutional convention do not indicate an intent to work any substantive changes on the provision. The Committee on the Legislative Department, which was charged with drafting the article of the constitution dealing with the legislative branch of government, reported the provision to the Committee of the Whole without recommending any alterations to the language employed in the 1830 instrument. Likewise, no amendments to the section were recommended by the Committee of the Whole, nor was there any debate concerning any proposed changes. See Journal, Acts and Proceedings of the General Convention of the State of Virginia, Assembled at Richmond, on Monday, the Fourteenth Day of October, Eighteen Hundred and Fifty 330-357 (Richmond, W. Culley 1850). [11] 2. West Virginia During Reconstruction. The Emoluments Clause of preceding Virginia constitutions was not incorporated into West Virginia's first constitution, which was ratified in 1863. Rather, it was inserted in its present formwith only minor modifications to the language employed in earlier Virginia constitutionsin the Constitution of 1872. The architects of our 1872 Constitution, who restored this provision, were no doubt influenced by the Reconstruction era. [12] The contentious history of the State's creation, forged in the crucible of the Civil War, is well known; the stories of brother fighting brother, of counties and communities torn apart, are familiar to all. What must also be recalled in addressing the issue before the Court in the instant case, is the impact that the conditions prevailing at that time had on the shaping of our present Constitution. A hallmark of the Reconstruction era was the failure of democratic institutions to preserve the peace, and a concomitant weakening of the people's faith in those institutions. The decisive events in our early historythe First Wheeling Convention of May 1861, the Second Wheeling Convention of June 1861, the referendum on our separation from Virginia, and the selection of delegates to the First Constitutional Convention of West Virginiaall failed to draw a truly democratic and full accounting of the will of the people. Close examination of any of those votes reveals very undemocratic results concealed beneath a veneer of popular democracy. An elected representative to the first Constitutional Convention, a Mr. Hagar of Boone County, remarked upon the unsatisfactory way in which the delegates were selected: If ... Cabell County, which borders on the Ohio River, had to have a military force to hold an election there; if Boone had to have a military force to hold an election at two points [out of the usual eight]; if a detachment went up and ... got into a corner of Raleigh and held an election there, with what difficulty are the counties represented! James C. McGregor, The Disruption of Virginia 268-269 (1922). [13] Much the same could be said of the eventual adoption of the first Constitution of this State by the people, which was adopted by the suspiciously large majority of 20,442 to 440. Richard Orr Curry, The Virginia Background for the History of the Civil War and Reconstruction Era in West Virginia: An Analytical Commentary, 20 W. Va. History 215, 244 (1959) (noting that Greenbrier, Logan, McDowell, Mercer, Monroe, Raleigh, and Wyoming Counties never reported returns for or against the first Constitution). Ardent Unionists, firmly in control of the legislature of the new state they had created, wished to ensure that former rebels were punished for their crimes and kept far from the rudder of the ship of state. This sentiment manifested itself in the form of the test oath or loyalty oath that became mandatory for a host of occupations. [14] The oath was designed by those in power, and loyal to the Union, to prevent any ex-Confederate from participating in government. This was made clear in the remarks of one James H. Fergueson, of Cabell County, the author of the bill that required the oath: I do not want the rebels to have any share in government. If they do I shall be defeated by five hundred votes. Milton Gerofsky, Reconstruction in West Virginia, 6 W. Va. History 295, 302 (1945) [hereinafter Reconstruction I ] (quoting Charles H. Ambler, Disfranchisement in West Virginia, 14 Yale Rev. 38 (1905)) (internal quotation marks omitted). This Court examined the test oath in the context of an election for circuit clerk. William Stratton, a former Confederate, was elected Circuit Clerk of Logan County. When he refused to take the oath, the circuit judge would not qualify him for office. He requested that this Court issue a writ of mandamus on the basis that the oath was unconstitutional. This Court denied the writ, explaining: Our legislature possessing all the legislative power of the State, it follows that it was competent for it to pass the act prescribing the test oath in question.... .... The provision in my judgment, is not retrospective nor ex post facto. No one having a natural or inalienable right to an office, it follows that all who seek it must accept the office with all the restrictions and conditions imposed by law. Ex parte William Stratton, 1 W.Va. 305, 306-7 (1866). [15] The Legislature demanded, and this Court upheld, oaths for jurors, Lively v. Ballard, 2 W.Va. 496 (1868); lawyers, Ex parte Hunter, 2 W.Va. 122 (1867); Ex parte Quarrier, 4 W.Va. 210 (1870); Ex parte Charles James Faulkner, 1 W.Va. 269 (1866); litigants or potential litigants, Higginbotham v. Haselden, 3 W.Va. 17 (1868); and even voters in public elections, Randolph v. Good, 3 W.Va. 551 (1869). Another way in which the oath was used to inflict punishment on ex-Confederates, was by denying them justice in the courts. Many ex-confederates were sued, had their land taken, or suffered other loses of money or property, and were more often than not, denied redress. Because the plaintiffs, lawyers, every member of the jury, and the judge all had to take the test oath before the trial, and were all presumably loyal as a result, unfavorable outcomes for disloyal defendants were the order of the day. See, e.g., Cunningham v. Pitzer, 2 W.Va. 264 (1867) (jury found against ex-Confederate defendant for aiding the Confederate army in the confiscation of the plaintiff's wheat); Caperton v. Martin, 4 W.Va. 138 (1870) (pro-Union plaintiff sued ex-Confederate defendant for false imprisonment for his capture and captivity during the war and won $600 in damages); French v. White, 4 W.Va. 170 (1870) (another false imprisonment case, similar to Caperton ). It is apparent from these cases that the Legislature used the test oath to disenfranchise a substantial portion of the electorate. [16] This situation prevailed until the elections of 1869 and 1870, where the Democrats (including many ex-confederates) gained substantial power in the Legislature. Then, in August of 1871, West Virginians voted 30,220 to 27,658 in favor of a constitutional convention. The convention assembled at Charleston, which had become the capital by 1870, with only twelve Republican delegates (dubbed the twelve apostles), and with United States Senator Waitman T. Wiley, of Morgantown, as the only holdover from the First Constitutional Convention. See Milton Gerofsky, Reconstruction in West Virginia, 7 W. Va. History 5, 13-15 (1945) [hereinafter Reconstruction II ]. The upshot of this discussion is that the men who drafted the 1872 Constitution, and who reinserted the Emoluments Clause as contained in previous Virginia constitutions, came from this background and lived in these times; the events of those days were fresh in their memories when they forged our present Constitution. Preventing the abuses and self-dealing of the carpetbaggers of the Reconstruction period must have been foremost in their minds. [17] And so we, today, bear in mind this history as we consider the question before us. B.