and he nominates, and by and with the advice and consent of the senate, appoints ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the supreme court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointment is not therein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law. But congress may, by law, vest the appointment of such inferior officers as they think proper, in the president alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments. The president has power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the senate, by granting commissions which expire at the end of their next session.12 71. The vice-president is chosen by the same electors, and at the same time, that the president is elected. The person having the greatest number of votes as vice-president, shall be the vice-president, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list the senate shall choose the vicepresident; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice." 43 But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of president, shall be eligible to that of vice-president of the United States." 72. The judicial power will be considered hereafter. 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 tenth section of the first article of the constitution of the United it is provided that— 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. 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 legislature, or of the executive, (when the legislature cannot be convened,) against domestic violence."45 76. The executive power of each state is vested in a governor, elected either 42 U. S. Const. art. 2, s. 2. n. 2. 17 43 U. S. Const. amend. 12, n. 3. 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. 18 CHAPTER III. OF THE PASSAGE, PUBLICATION, AND EFFECT OF LAWS. 79. Passage of laws. 80. Publication of laws. 81. Effect and sanction of laws. 83. What advantages may be renounced, 84. Who are bound by the law. 85. Application of the law. 87. Kinds of construction. 89. Liberal construction. 91-95. Repeal of laws. 95. Effect of repeal. 96-134. Kinds of laws. 98-119. Express laws. 99. The constitution. 100. Treaties. 101. Statutes. 102. Constitutional and unconstitutional laws. 104. Public and private statutes. 106. Declaratory and remedial statutes. 108. Preceptive, prohibitive, permissive and penal statutes. 112. Temporary and perpetual statutes. 114. Affirmative and negative statutes. 116. Prospective and retrospective statutes. 118. State constitution and laws. 119. Laws of inferior legislative bodies. 120-123. Tacit laws. 121. Common law. 122. Roman law. 123. Canon law. 124-127. Objects of law. 124. Civil and criminal. 125. Law merchant. 126. Municipal law. 127. Martial law. 128. Immutable and arbitrary laws, 130. Domestic and foreign laws. 132. Over what places the laws extend. 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 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, two-thirds 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.1 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. In cases of this kind a pardon is easily obtained. The order given by the executive to cause a law to 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.3 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. When no time is fixed, a law takes effect from its date, that is the day on which it is approved by the executive. The statutes of some of the states provide that laws shall take effect at a certain fixed period after their passage.5 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. The sanction of the law, then, is the punishment or reward, the good or evil which follows 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 1 U. S. Const. art. 1, s. 7. The Ann, 1 Gall. C. C. 62; Bank of Mobile v. Murphy, 8 Ala. 119. Matthews v. Zane, 7 Wheat. 164; The Ann, 1 Gall. C. C. 62; Smets v. Weathersbee, R. M. Charlt. Ga. 537; State v. Click, 2 Ala. 26; Goodsell v. Boynton, 2 Ill. 555; Bank of Mobile v. Murphy, 8 Ala. 119. Matthews v. Zane, 7 Wheat. 164; The Ann, 1 Gall. C. C. 62. 1 N. Y. Rev. St. 157, s. 12; Mass. Gen. St. ch. 3, s. 6; Mich. Const. art. 4. s. 20. • Dig. 1. 3. 7. 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 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." 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 which commands; and every law produces a binding obligation. An obligation is a moral necessity to perform actions commanded by the law, or to abstain from actions forbidden by it, and to suffer those which are permitted. No right can exist in favor of one person, unless there is imposed a duty on another. If I have the right to go over your field, I can have it only by virtue of some law, or what comes to the same thing, by virtue of an agreement sanctioned by law. It is your duty to let me pass through your field; you are obliged to permit me to do so. Thus law, obligation, right and duty, are correlative terms. A correlative term is one which designates things which cannot exist one without the other; for example, father and son, etc. The obligation which arises from the law is not a physical or absolute constraint. The law binds by the consideration of the punishments or rewards annexed to the infractions of its prohibitions, or to the observance of its precepts. 83. Laws have for their principal object to regulate the rights of citizens with each other, to declare what one may require to be done and what another 7 See Mabin v. Coulon, 4 Dall. 298; Biddis v. James, 6 Binn. Penn. 321; Seidenbender v. Charles, 4 Serg. & R. Penn. 159. This subject is more fully investigated hereafter. |