266 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [Feb. 5.

gentleman elected, an inhabitant of the Western Shore, de-
clined to accept. The first day of April had not arrived, but
the purpose of the Act of 1867 had been effected, and the
Legislature which passed it gave it a contemporaneous expo-
sition by disregarding the day as immaterial, and electing
Hon. P. F. Thomas, then a Delegate from Talbot county,
to be Senator for six years from the 4th March, 1867. Thus
the Legislature which passed the Act, gave it the most
emphatic practical exposition.

Another year rolled around, and another Legislature as-
sembled, charged with the duty of electing another United
States Senator from Maryland. An inhabitant of the West-
ern Shore was elected. I am of opinion that that election was
not in conflict, but in strict accordance with the true intent,
meaning and purpose of the Act of 1867, as interpreted by
those who passed it, and as tried by the well known rules of
statutory construction.Qui haret in litera, haret in cor-
tice. Was it the purpose of the Act to give both Senators to
the Eastern Shore? The latter part of the second section
enacts that "one of the Senators to be thereafter elected shall
always be an inhabitant of the Eastern Shore, and the other
of the Western Shore." Is it consistent with this declared
purpose, that both Senators should at any time be taken from
the Eastern Shore? The rule of construction is that "when
statutes direct certain proceedings to be done in a certain
way, or at a certain time, and a strict compliance with those
provisions of time and form does not appear essential, the
proceedings are held valid, though the command of the
statute is disregarded or disobeyed."— edgwick on Statu-
tory and Constitutional Law, page 368. The real intent is
to govern; "and the proposition that in construing a stat-
ute, the judges have a right to decide in some cases even in
direct contravention of its language, has been repeatedly as-
serted and practiced upon by the highest authority.—Ibid, 207.
" That which is within the letter of a statute is .sometimes
not within the statute, not being within the intention of the
makers."—4 Gill and Johns, 102.

In this opinion, I have considered the Maryland law, in
the light in which it seems to have been contemplated by its
original Trainers, as not requiring an additional qualification
in a Senator to those prescribed by the Constitution of the
United States. The Maryland law which (before it was
superseded by the Act of Congress,) provided for the election
of United States Senators, declared that "the person qualified
as the Constitution of the United States directs, having a
majority, &c., shall be declared duly elected."

The qualifications prescribed by the Constitution of the
United States for Senators and Representatives in Congress,
as Judge Story remarks, "are few and simple." "They
respect only age, citizenship and inhabitancy." It was cou-