No. 73. Preliminary Book, part 4. No. 75. PART IV.-OF THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 73. The several states of the Union have power to legislate on all matters within their territorial jurisdiction, except where the power has been delegated to congress, or they are forbidden by the constitution of the United States, or of their own state. 74. By the 10th section of the Constitution of the United States it is provided: 1. No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal ; coin money; emit bills of credit; make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts; or grant any title of nobility. 2. No state shall, without the consent of the congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws; and the net produce of all duties and imposts laid by any state on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the congress. No state shall, without the consent of congress, lay any duty on tonnage, keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another state or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay. 75. The governments of the several states are formed very much upon the model of the general government. They are all of a republican form. The constitution of the United States provides that "the United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion, and on application of the legis No. 76. Preliminary Book, part 5, tit. 1. No. 79. lature, or of the executive, (when the legislature cannot be convened,) against domestic violence. (a) 76. The executive power of each state is vested in a governor, elected either by the people or the legislature, who is entrusted with more or less power, and the duration of whose office varies generally from one to three years. 77. The legislative power is vested in a general assembly, composed of two branches, generally known by the names of senate and house of representatives. 78. The judicial power is in general vested in justices of the peace, courts of common pleas, courts of equity, criminal courts, and a supreme court. These have jurisdiction within the limits of their respective states, and over subject matters made cognizable by the state laws. PART V. OF THE PASSAGE, PUBLICATION, AND EFFECT OF LAWS. TITLE I.-OF THE PASSAGE OF LAWS. 79. The ordinary mode of passing laws is briefly this: one day's notice of a motion for leave to bring in a bill, in cases of a general nature, is required; every bill must have three readings before it is passed, and these readings must be on different days; and no bill can be committed and amended until it has been twice read. In the house of representatives, bills, after being twice read, are committed to a committee of the whole house, when a chairman is appointed by the speaker to preside over the committee; the speaker leaves the chair, and takes a part in the debate as an ordinary member. When a bill has passed one house, it is transmitted to the other, and goes through a similar form, though No. 80. Preliminary Book, part 5, tit. 2. No. 80. in the senate there is less formality, and bills are often committed to a select committee, chosen by ballot. If a bill be altered or amended in the house to which it is transmitted, it is then returned to the house in which it originated, and if the two houses cannot agree, they appoint a committee to confer on the subject. When a bill is engrossed, and has received the sanction of both houses, it is sent to the president for his approbation. If he approves of the bill, he signs it. If he does not, it is returned, with his objections, to the house in which it originated, and that house enters the objections at large on their journal, and proceeds to re-consider it. If, after such re-consideration, twothirds of the house agree to pass the bill, it is sent, together with the objections, to the other house, by which it is likewise re-considered, and if approved by two-thirds of that house, it becomes a law. But in all such cases, the votes of both houses are determined by yeas and nays; and the names of the persons voting for and against the bill, are to be entered on the journal of each house respectively. If any bill shall not be returned by the president within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law, in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the congress, by their adjournment, prevent its return; in which case it shall not be a law. TITLE II.-OF THE PROMULGATION AND PUBLICATION OF THE LAWS. 80. In order to make a law binding it must be made known; to punish a man for the violation of a law he could not know, would be tyrannical, and yet in some cases this has happened. (a) In cases of this kind a pardon is easily obtained. The order given by the executive to cause a law to (a) The Ann, 1 Gallis. 62; Branch Bank of Mobile v. Murphy, 8 Ala. 119. No. 81. Preliminary Book, part 5, tit. 3. No. 81. be executed and to make it public, is called its promulgation. In the United States this, in general, is not required. The publication of a law is the act of making it public. The passage of a law is a sufficient publication of it to make it obligatory, and unless another time is fixed in the statute, it commences its binding operation from the time of its date.(a) In order to make known the laws of congress, that body by an act has provided that the laws should be published in the newspapers in every part of the Union. TITLE III.-OF THE EFFECT AND SANCTION OF THE LAW. 81. Having shown what is the law, how it is made, how it is published and how it becomes binding, it will be proper now to point out its effects, who are bound by it, and who are charged with its execution. The law commands, forbids, permits and punishes: leges virtus hæc est imperare, vetare, permittere, punire. (b) The sanction of the law, then, is the punishment or reward, the good or evil which follow its observance, or the violation of its precepts, or the doing what it forbids. In another sense, the sanction of the law is that part which imposes a punishment, or bestows a recompense or reward, for a certain action. The sanction of natural law is to be found, first, in religion, which teaches the immortality of the soul, and a future state of rewards and punishments; secondly, in the public esteem, which a good man enjoys; thirdly, in the delicious sentiment of a pure conscience; in the happiness which is enjoyed internally by the man who has nothing to reproach himself with, and (a) Matthews v. Zane, 7 Wheat. 164; The Ann, 1 Gallis, 62; Smets v. Weathersbee, R. M. Charl. 537; The State v. Click, 2 Ala. 26; Goodsell v. Boynton, 1 Scam. 555; Branch Bank of Mobile v. Murphy, 8 Ala. 119. (b) Dig. 1, 3, 7. No. 82. Preliminary Book, part 5, tit. 3. No. 82. who has observed the dictates of the law; in the remorse which is felt by him who has violated all laws, and whose bosom is lacerated with vain regrets, and with pain from which he cannot fly; in the infamy and shame with which he is covered even in his own eyes, although he may have succeeded in concealing his turpitude from the public view. Human laws give a stronger sanction to the precepts of natural law, as well as to the positive precepts which they have added to them. For this purpose they authorize the employment of the public force to compel every citizen to obey them. And they have carried their foresight further, by imposing punishments against their violators, and these are proportioned to the importance of each crime or misdemeanor. The reparation in damages caused by an action forbidden in law, is also a kind of sanction. Not unfrequently a special sanction is provided for in the law, which declares acts null which are contrary to its precepts or prohibitions. But all acts are not null which are forbidden by law. No system of legislation can, perhaps, be found in which all such acts are void. This would, in many cases, produce injustice, and the distinction has been made between those statutes which provide that contracts violating them shall be void, and those which do not so direct.(a) For example, a clergyman is forbidden to marry minors; he marries them, and by that act subjects himself to a penalty; but unless the marriage be declared void by the statute, it is valid. 82. The law, as before observed, commands and forbids. The principal and direct effect of a command or prohibition is to bind those to whom the law applies. Every obligation to obey, therefore, presumes a law (a) See Mabin v. Coulon, 4 Dall. 298: Biddis v. James, 6 Binn. 321; Seidenbender v. Charles, 4 S. & R. 159. This subject is more fully investigated hereafter. |