| Volume 107, Page 1817 View pdf image (33K) |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
» of Act 1, expressly declare that the persons committing the offences thereby forbidden, shall upon commission be declared incapable of holding office—and this without any direction to the General Assembly to pass a law for that purpose. If the constitution had intended to disqualify at once the per- sons who should do the acts forbidden in section 4, without the necessity of any previous action by the Legislature; why did it not use language like that used in section 3, 6 and 8, and why did it give the unnecessary direction to the Legis- lature in section 4 1 and Act 3? If we pass from the constitution to the examination of the Registration Act, chapter 174, of 1865, we find reiterated proofs that the Legislature did not intend that the finding of the Registers should be conclusive upon any subject except that of the right to vote, against the voter himself. The title is an Act relating to the "Registration of the voters of the State," and it says nothing of the disqualification a/office- holders. Act 3, section 28, declares that, "every law enact- ed by the (General Assembly shall embrace but one subject, and that shall be described in the title." And the court of Appeals in seventh Maryland Reports, page 160, State vs. Davis, have decided, in reference to the same words in the constitution of 1850, that although the introduction of a single foreign or irrelevant subject into a law when such subject was not included by the title would not render void the whole of a law otherwise constitutional, yet, "in such a case the matter would be rejected as void, while the principal subject of the law would be supported, if properly, described in the title." If therefore this Act did attempt to disqualify per- sons from holding office who thus were found to be disloyal, such attempted disqualification would be void, as irrelevant and inconsistent with the title of the Act; but the law makes no such attempt. Without consuming time in examining every portion of the Act, we affirm that each section plainly shows that the men who passed the law never intended to do more by it than to exclude the unregistered from voting, Every member of the House knows that no such purpose was entertained by him when the law was passed at the last ses- sion, and that the Legislature supposed they had sufficiently provided against the introduction of disloyal persons into of- fice by the rigid provisions with which they had surrounded the right to vote. The argument of the contestant would lead to most re- markable results. If the entry of "'disloyal" in the seventh column of the Registry of voters is conclusive evidence that the person is disloyal for purposes besides voting, as for hold- ing office—then the other entries in that column must also be |
| |||
|
| ||||
|
| ||||
Please view image to verify text. To report an error, please contact us.
Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1866
| Volume 107, Page 1817 View pdf image (33K) |
|
Tell Us What You Think About the Maryland State Archives Website!
|
An Archives of Maryland electronic publication.
For information contact
mdlegal@mdarchives.state.md.us.
Maryland State Archives