CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS.
The first section of the sixteenth article of the State Constitution is in the following language: "Any amendment or amendments to this Constitution may be proposed in either branch of the General Assembly; and if the same shall be agreed to by a majority of the members elected to each of the two Houses, such proposed amendments shall, with the yeas and nays thereon, be entered on their journals and referred to the General Assembly to be chosen at the next general election; and if, in the General Assembly so next chosen, such proposed amendment or amendment shall be agreed to by a majority of all the members elected to each House, then it shall be the duty of the General Assembly to submit such amendment or amendments to the electors of the State; and if a majority of the said electors shall ratify the same, such amendment or amendments shall become a part of this Constitution."
At the special session of the General Assembly in 1881, several joint resolutions were introduced, which were passed by a vote of a majority of the members elected to each of the two Houses, proposing certain amendments to the Constitution. The titles of the several resolutions, and their numbers, were entered on the journals of the two Houses, together with the yeas and nays on the passage. An enrolled copy of each resolution containing the amendment set out at full length, was signed by the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, transmitted to the Governor, and filed by him, in conformity to law, in the office of the Secretary of State. In the canvass for the election of Senators and Representatives to the present General Assembly, the point, it is believed, was not raised that proper steps had not been taken in the last General Assembly to enable the present one to consider the amendments. Since the election, however, the point has been raised through the public press that the proposed amendments are not in a condition to be considered by the present General Assembly, because it is said they were not entered at length in the journals of the two Houses of the last General Assembly. Neither of the points raised has been settled in this State by any judicial decision. An executive construction was given, however, to one of them in a message of Governor Baker, in the case of what is known as the Wabash and Erie Canal amendment. That amendment was not entered at length upon the journal of either of the two Houses. The resolution by which the amendment was proposed was referred to in the journal of each House by its title merely, and the enrolled copy thereof was signed by the presiding officer of each House, and was duly filed in the office of the Secretary of State. Governor page: 25[View Page 25] Baker maintained that this was a sufficient compliance with the terms of the Constitution.
The Constitution requires, in case of bills, that upon the passage thereof the vote shall be taken by yeas and nays and entered upon the journals of the two Houses. In a case where the point was urged that an act was not in force because no entry of the yeas and nays on its passage appeared in the journals, the Supreme Court held that the signatures of the presiding officers were conclusive evidence of its passage.
The Constitution is silent respecting the manner in which a proposed amendment shall be referred from the first to the second General Assembly. The main object, no doubt, is to get it before the Second Assembly. If the genuine resolution passed comes before the Second Assembly, and is acted upon, the object of a reference would seem to have been attained, and the purpose of the framers of that instrument to have been carried out. There was, I believe, no formal reference of the amendments adopted in 1881 by the First to the Second General Assembly.
In the canvass last autumn it is said that some of the Senators and Representatives who were chosen at the November election publicly pledged themselves that, if they were chosen, they would vote at the present session to submit the amendments to the el rotors at a special election. Without saying anything respecting the merits of the several amendments, I can frankly express a belief that pledges upon which electors were induced to vote for gentlemen holding seats in either of the two Houses of the Assembly, will not be disregarded except for overwhelming reasons.
