THE BREVIER LEGISLATIVE REPORTS.
TWELFTH VOLUME.
INDIANA LEGISLATURE.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
TUESDAY, February 28, 1871.The SPEAKER--at 9 o'clock A. M.--commanding order with the gavel, said: Gentlemen of the House: When we met on yesterday the Senate had nat adjourned, and it was the judgment of the Chair that we ought to continue our meetings and adjournments until that body took definite action on bringing the Legislature to a close. When the Senate met in the afternoon it found a number of bills on file that had passed the House. A proposition was made to take them up, when it was announced by the Lieutenant Governor that he would sign no bills if the Senate passed them, for the reason that this House had not a quorum.
The majority of this House are a unit in, the opinion that sixty-seven members are necessary to transact legislative business, and will be gratified to find that the Lieutenant Governor, who is an able lawyer and parliamentarian, now endorses the doctrine which declares that the infamous Fifteenth Amendment and the specific appropriation bill, passed after more than one-third of the members of each House had resigned, was a fraud upon the people, and null and void. This announcement ot the Lieutenant Governor was evidence that nothing good could be accomplished by the Senate remaining in session; therefore, a resolution must pass adjourning sine die.
We are this morning left in an anomalous position--a part of a legislative branch powerless to act.
Before the adjournment of the Senate, it was supposed by the Lieutenant Governor that we had signed all the bills that had passed both Houses, but since that body has adjourned I have learned that the Indianapolis School bill, in which the city took some interest, had not been signed by either of us, therefore, at present, I am inclined to the opinion that the bill cannot become a law. The reason why this bill was not signed was because the members from the county of Marion, who had the bill in charge, resigned as soon as it was passed the House and Senate, and it was left with no one to look after it, and in the confusion that followed the suspension of business in the House it was overlooked and not enrolled until after the Senate had adjourned sine die The people of Indianapolis, who may regret the loss of this bill, will have to settle the account with their own Representatives who, with others, were so frightened lest another bill might be passed a week hence that they stampeded at midnight, and resigned their seats at an hour when honest men should have been asleep.
I have no reproaches here to cast upon the members who, in the midst of the session, without excuse, broke a quotum, and thereby prevented the enactment of laws demanded by the people. They may be able to satisfy their credulous constituents that the fact that the apportionment bill might have come up for final action in a week was sufficient cause for them to resign in hot haste at midnight; and that the monied anti-bank tax lobby members who attended the resignation caucus, and the lobby to prevent the railroad assessment being increased from thirty to forty millions, together with a lively desire among old officials who attended the caucus, to prevent the lowering of "house rent," the investigations into superintendents' reports and an examination into the official affairs of former Treasurers of State, had no influence with them.
I have heard no charge, and would be slow to believe it if made, that the monied rings and lobbyists used any money upon members who resigned to influence their action; still it is known that the lobbyists and others having a pecuniary interest in defeating bills were active in urging members to resign. They made the apportionment bill the "bug-bear" to scare the voters--to scare them into their wicked and unpardonable act, thereby playing into the hands of a monied lobby and monied interests.
For those whose partiality placed me in the high official position I have occupied in the House, it affords me heartfelt pleasure here to say that every one has shown himself to be worthy of his trust--a more faithful, industrious, honorable class of men never assembled in this hall.
For the gentlemen of the opposition I entertain only feelings of respect and friendship. I am proud of having made their acquaintance, and hope to retain it as long as I live.
Our power and usefulness as a body have ended, and having no authority to hear a motion to adjourn, and by common consent of the members present, I declare the House adjourned without day.
So close the proceedings of the Forty-seventh General Assembly of the State of Indiana.
