PRESERVATION OF PROPOSED AMENDMENTS.
"It is immaterial, however, whether the Constitution provides the best method for the preservation and authenticity of proposed amendments or not, for the Constitutional mode must prevail, even if it be conceded some other would have been better.
"It may be suggested that to enter or entering on the journal does not necessarily mean spreading the same at length thereon. This will be conceded, but that it may so mean must, we think, be conceded. [See Webster's Dictionary.] Various instances where the words "to enter or entered" occur in the statutes or the Constitution may no doubt be cited where they do not mean spread at length. But this is of much insignificance, for the object to be attained must be considered in determining the meaning of the word entered as used in the Constitution. The evident intention of the Constitution is that the proposed amendment shall be entered at length on the journal, or at least be so entered as to leave no reasonable doubt as to its provisions. This must be so, or the entering of the yeas and says can be as readily dispersed with as entering the resolution, and yet this is the Constitutional mode of ascertaining whether a majority of members elected to each House agreed to the amendment. [Cooley's Constitutional Limitations, 2 ed., 141.1
"When the object intended to be accomplished is considered, we think there is no doubt that it is the design and intent of the Constitution that a proposed amendment there should be so entered on the journals that it can be known by an examination of the journals precisely what it is that has been agreed on by each House of the General Assembly which first acts thereon to the end that the succeeding General Assembly may certainly know what its predecessor did. It seems to us that a simple entering on the journal of the title or object of a proposed amendment does not accomplish the intent of the Constitution, and the thought that this must be so is much strengthened when regard is had to all the provisions of the Constitution. That instrument provides that upon the final passage of the bill the yeas and nays must be taken and the same entered upon the journal. This necessitates the entering on the journal of the title page or substance of the bill to be voted n. This being so it no more than this was intended in relation to a Constitutional amendment, the provision as to entering on the journal is unnecessary and meaningless. There is no provision requiring a bill to be entered on the journal, but the Constitution does require that a proposed amendment thereto 'shall be entered' on the journals 'with the yeas and nays.' This must mean that the amendment shall be spread at length thereon, and the yeas and nays set out in the journal in full or at length. No distinction between the two can possibly be drawn. Amendments were proposed to the Constitution in the Eleventh General Assembly, some of which were agreed to, but all were spread at length on the journals. The amendment afterward ratified by the electors striking out the word 'white' where it occurred in the Constitution was among the amendments proposed at that session. These amendments were spread at length upon the journals of both Houses. Here we have a legislative construction of the Constitution which should not and can not be ignored.
"It will be observed that the Constitution does not provide in what manner the amendment shall be proposed. Whether it shall be done by a bill or joint resolution seems to have been left to the discretion of the General Assembly to determine; but, in whatever way proposed, when agreed to this provided it shall be entered on the journal "
It does seem to me that this decision is decisive of the case, and that
