has sought to impose, and annihilate the written will of the people. Parliament never carried its arrogance to such extent; it never, except in days of revolution, nullified the written will of the people it represented by the force of parliamentary exposition: it never trod under foot a written compact: it never sat in judgment in its own cause, and demanded for its decision in such case, respect paramount to Magna Charta. The utmost stretch to which legislative exposition can be carried, is, that it may be considered and respected; it may be consulted as an index to other minds; it may be regarded as the embodiment of the views of predecessors, or of one department of the government. But this respect cannot be clothed with the attribute of judicial authority. The evidence of what were the views and opinions of others, can never make those views and opinions evidence that they were right, it can never ripen a wrong opinion into a right one.

$ 295. It is no answer to the views we have taken that a power of judicial exposition, which shall be arbitrary and beyond control, must from necessity be lodged in some department; and hence, that it is as safe to entrust it to legislative exposition, as to expositions made by the judicial tribunals of the land, or that the combined wisdom and judgment of a numerous body of men, is as likely to be correct as that of a single judge, or a limited number of judges acting in a judicial capacity, for the combined wisdom of the people as embodied in the constitution itself, has otherwise settled that question, by lodging the judicial attribute in the hands of another co-ordinate department of the government. A very learned judge, as well as sage of the law, has very justly held, that "To contend that courts of judicature must obey the requisitions of an act of the legis lature, when it appears to have been passed in violation of the constitution, would be to contend that the law

was superior to the constitution, and that the judge had no right to look into it, and regard it as the paramount law. It would be to render the power of the agent greater than his principal, and be declaring that the will of only one concurrent and co-ordinate department of the subordinate authorities under the constitution, was absolute over the other department, and competent to control according to its own will and pleasure the whole fabric of the government, and the fundamental law in which it rested. The attempt to impose restraints upon legislative power would be fruitless, if the constitutional provisions were left without any power in the government to guard and enforce them." It is difficult to perceive why it is not just as much the duty of the representative, to bring every act upon which he is to pass to the test of the constitution, and weigh it in that balance, independent of prior legislative exposition, as it is that courts should do so in applying the same test to such act when passed. By a parity of reasoning it would seem to follow, that to contend that a legislative exposition should exert a controlling influence over the mind of the representative when applying such test, would be in effect to contend that such prior exposition is paramount to the constitution, as completely as it would be were judges to adopt that rule in deciding upon such act when passed. Its influence should be no greater in the one case than in the other.

§ 296. The learned commentator on American law has said: "From the mass of powers necessarily vested in the legislature, and the active and sovereign nature of these powers, from the numerous bodies of which the legislature is composed, the popular sympathy which it excites, and its immediate dependence upon the people, by means of periodical elections, it follows that the legislative department of the government will have a decided superiority of influence. It is constantly acting upon all

the great interests of society, and agitating its hopes and fears. It is liable to be constantly swayed by popular prejudice and passion, and it is difficult to keep it from pressing with injurious weight upon the constitutional rights and privileges of the other departments. While an independent judiciary, venerable by its gravity and its wisdom, and deliberating with entire serenity and moderation, is peculiarly fitted for the exalted duty of expounding the constitution." If it be true, as it undoubtedly is, that the legislature is liable to be swayed by popular prejudice and passion, its decisions certainly are liable to be more or less influenced by it; hence, the inference would seem to be, that instead of a legislative exposition being of much weight or exerting a controlling influence, it ought rather to be regarded as very questionable authority, and should be but little relied on, in expounding a constitutional limitation upon legislative power, especially when that power is to be called into exercise to meet the pressing demands of popular clamor for legislative munificence, urged and enforced as such claims are, by the strong and potent energies of numerous constituents, and which too often not only sway and influences the judgment of the representative, but enforce acquiescence in such demand, even at the expense of legislative independence, as well as a sacrifice of the constitution itself. If it be admitted that legislative exposition is to be respected and implicitly followed; if the constitution is thus to be made subordinate to the legislature; if a short and feeble chain of precedent is to be deemed adequate to control the judgment and fetter the conscience of the representative sworn to support the constitution; if that sacred instrument can be thus expounded away; it is to but little purpose, that we live under a government having a written constitution, "which is fixed and certain, expressive of the paramount will of the people, intended as the supreme law of the

land, and to be of a force adequate to fix the limits of legislative authority, and define the boundaries of legislative power, or to prescribe the orbit in which it must move." Such a doctrine subverts the principle that "the constitution is paramount to legislative power, subject to be revoked or altered only by the power that made it-that the life-giving principle, and the deathgiving stroke must proceed from the same hand." For, then, instead of "the constitution fixing the limits of legislative authority, and prescribing the circle in which it must move," the legislature become to the constitution the sun, around which it must revolve, and upon which it must be dependent for its existence. Such a doctrine strikes a death blow to the long cherished opinion "that the constitution of a state is stable and permanent, not to be worked upon by the temper of the times, not to rise and fall with the tide of events, notwithstanding the competition of opposing interests, or the violence of contending parties." Instead of its "remaining firm and immovable as a mountain amid the strife of storms, or a rock in the ocean amid the raging of waves," it becomes a frail bark, which may be rocked by the surges of political strife-be tossed and shattered by every breeze which ambition or avarice may excite-and it will become a total wreck, whenever it shall have encountered three or four successive mutilations upon the quick-sands of legislative precedent.

§ 297. In some instances it has been urged that acts granting public property or releasing a debt due to the state were conditional, and hence not within this twothird clause. This, we think, can make no difference. A moment's consideration will show the danger as well as the absurdity of permitting such a circumstance to be regarded as sufficient to elude this constitutional restriction on legislative power. Such a principle, if admitted, would render this clause of the constitution a

dead letter. It would destroy its efficacy, and violate a well settled rule of construction, that "a constitutional provision, intended to prevent or remedy an evil, should receive such a construction as to extend to all cases in which that evil may be found." A distinguished constitutional lawyer has said, that "The object of this provision in the constitution was to guard against too ready and too lavish disbursement of public money, or appropriations of public property, for the advancement of local or private interests, without a correspondent benefit to the state in its politic capacity; hence it is the duty of the representatives of the public, whether in a legislative or other capacity, to give such a construction to the constitution as will most effectually save the rights and public property of those who adopted it, whenever it can be done without compromitting other and more valuable interests." Once admit the principle that the legislature may, by a majority vote, make an effectual grant of the public property for local or private purposes, provided such grant shall be conditional, then it might donate the entire property of the public upon an individual, upon the condition that he should give his wife or child one dollar, or any other condition equally absurd. Or if you limit the condition to a right of repurchasing the subject of the grant, on terms to be prescribed by the legislature, then the majority of the legislature are made the arbiters of those terms, and are vested with a power of prescription, which may be exercised in such a manner as to render a compliance with those terms and conditions, on the part of the state, so onerous and oppressive as to require a sacrifice greater than the value of the thing which was the subject of the grant; and thus effect the object, but elude the constitution, or render it nugatory. It would admit the application of the dagger to the heart of the constitution, provided the legislative hand could be concealed by this thin disguise, while it inflicted the