326 Journal of the State Council, 1784-1789.

she was fined by the Court of Oyer and Terminer for the said County
at their last term in the amount of six hundred weight of Tobacco
and thirty shillings Current Money for selling liquors without licence.
The Petitioner professes to have been ignorant of the Law in this
respect and alledges that she was led into the offence by the same
Person who afterwards presented her. She further represents that
she is a Widow in very distressed Circumstances and entirely un-
able to pay the fines imposed on her. And four of the Judges of the
aforesaid Court having certified that she must languish in Goal unless
the prayer of her Petition is granted, The Board in consideration
of here extreme poverty do order that the aforesaid fines be and they

arc hereby remitted.

J. E. Howard
John Davidson
Jo. Carvel Hall
John Kilty

The Council adjourned 'till tomorrow morning.

[p 31] Friday 6th. February 1789

The Council met.

Present as on Yesterday.

Agreeably to the notice given by John Kilty Esquire on the 26th.
of January, he delivers his dissent to the determination of that Day as
follows.

Dissent.

1st. Because by Article 1st. Sect. 5th. of the Constitution of the
United States, it is declared that "each House shall be the Judge of
the elections, returns, and qualifications of its Members," from which
it is plainly to be inferred that each House should be in possession
of every material document that regards the elections and although
such documents might be occasionally obtained, yet as it is probable
that complaints of undue elections will rarely be preferred from re-
mote States on account of the great inconvenience and expence
attending them it is the more necessary that the Legislative body
should be furnished with whatever may lead to a correct and just
determination in the first instance. To adapt measures to circum-
stances is an approved Rule in Politics. The Government of the
United States has like all others, certain consequent Circumstances
nearly as fixed as it's written articles. If these qualities are mischei-
vous and derogatory from the general intention and principle of the
Government, the evil they induce should be counterbalanced by such
expedients as the Constitution permits. The aquescience of the people
in undue elections is one undesirable consequence attached to this ex-
tensive Government; and should therefore be remedied by a more