SENATE CHAMBER,

January 21, 1873.

The undersigned, Representatives from the districts indicated by the figures opposite their respective names, do respectfully dissent from, and hereby protest against the act and resolution of this House, whereby it appears that the votes of eighty-two of the members thereof were cast for Richard J. Oglesby for the office of Senator in the Congress of the United States from the State of Illinois, and he declared to be the choice of a majority of the members of this body for the office aforesaid.

The undersigned assume, upon the ground of the notoriety of the fact, that Richard J. Oglesby, for whom the votes aforesaid were cast, and who has been declared to be the choice of a majority of the members of this body for the office of Senator in the Congress of the United States, as aforesaid, is the same person who is now the Governor of the State of Illinois, and who was duly chosen by the people at the election at the different voting places in the State, on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, A. D. 1872, to fill the office of Governor for the period of four years from the second Monday in January, 1873, and who, on the said second Monday of January, 1873, took the oath prescribed by section twenty-five of the fifth article of the constitution of the State, and entered upon the discharge of the duties of said office.

The undersigned are constrained to regard the act and resolution of this body aforesaid, which, to the extent of its authority in that behalf, has elected the Governor of the State during the period for which he was elected to that office, to another office, to be contrary to the plain language and subversive of the spirit of the constitution of this State, and not justified by any of the well-defined principles of our form of constitutional government.

To support the opinion which they have expressed, that the election. of the Governor of the State by the General Assembly to another office within the period for which he was elected, is contrary to the plain language of the constitution, the undersigned do not consider it to be necessary to do more than to quote the exact and comprehensive language of that instrument. By the last clause of section five of article five of the constitution, it is declared that

"Neither the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, Auditor of Public Accounts, Secretary of State, Superintendent of Public Instruction nor Attorney-General, shall be eligible to any other office during the period for which he shall have been elected."

That the position of Senator in the Congress of the United States is an office, none will deny; and it would be superfluous to say that it is another and different offfee from that of Governor of the State of Illinois.

The undersigned are not permitted to forget that those who deny their obligation to support and obey the constitution as it is written, assert that the office of Senator in the Congress of the United States was not created by the constitution and the laws of the State of Illinois, but by the constitution of the United States, and that, therefore, the framers of the constitution of the State could not have intended by the language of the 5th section of the 5th article of the constitution to render the Governor of the State ineligible thereto.

The undersigned consider it to be a matter of profound regret that it should be found necessary at any time, or for any reason, to depart from

the language employed in the constitution to find its meaning, or that limitations to the scope of its provisions should be supplied by conjecture.

But even those who insist upon disregarding the letter of the constitution, in obedience to an interpretation they give to it, upon the ground that its framers failed to employ the language proper to express their real meaning, are bound to concede to those who prefer to be governed by the constitution as it is written, that the office of Senator in the Congress of the United States from the State of Illinois, actually existed when the clause under consideration was adopted, and that its existence was known to the framers of the constitution, and that the language employed is broad enough to include that office; and the members of the constitutional convention, the most eminent, as well as the most experienced citizens of the State, may well be presumed to have known that a seat in the Senate might hereafter be considered by ambitious men to be a prize of such magnitude that the Governor, in its pursuit, would forget the interests of the people of the State, disregard the duties of his office, or shrink from their fearless performance, or use the appointing power bestowed upon his office for the public good, as a means of securing supporters, or in rewarding their services; or that in pursuit of place, he might fail to remember that he was the chief executive magistrate of a free State, and become the blind and servile follower, who would regard fidelity to a mere party as the highest duty of the place to which he might aspire.

These considerations, in the judgment of the undersigned, afford the most convincing reasons for believing that the framers of the constitution used the broad language found in that clause quoted, with a full knowledge of its actual comprehension and meaning, and to effect an object which they considered to be in the highest sense important to the well-being of the people of the State.

Nor are the undersigned unaware that it is urged that the people of the State of Illinois have no power by the constitution to declare any citizen ineligible to the office of Senator in the Congress of the United States; or, as the proposition is sometimes stated, the States have no power to prescribe the qualifications of a Senator, and the undersigned are ready to admit the proposition, when stated in either mode, to be true.

The office of Senator is created by the constitution of the United States, and the qualifications of a Senator are prescribed by that instrument, and no State can by its constitution, or otherwise, dispense with the qualifications required by the constitution of the United States, or insist upon qualifications in addition to those prescribed by that instrument; but the people of the State may, beyond all question, provide by their constitution that any citizen elected to the office of Governor shall, by his acceptance of that office, incapacitate himself from the acceptance of any other office during the period for which he was elected; and they may, by declaring him ineligible to any other office during his term, make it their own duty, and that of their representatives in the General Assembly, to withhold their votes for another office from a person thus declared ineligible or incapable. We have already adverted to some of the considerations that might be sufficient to satisfy the people of the State that sound political policy demanded that certain officers should not be permitted to hold any other office during the period for which they were elected, and they might, as they have done in the

fifth section of the fifth article of the constitution, declare that to be their will, and such a provision does not, in any manner that we can perceive, conflict with the rule of the constitution of the United States already adverted to.

The undersigned will not discuss the force of the argument urged by those who insist that, on some former occasion in the history of the State, the General Assembly of the State disregarded its constitution. and elected a citizen to a seat in the Senate of the United States in opposition to one of its provisions, nor will they undertake to determine the value of the reasoning by which it is sought to distinguish the case referred to from that of the election of the Governor of the State to another office within the first month after he and the members of the General Assembly here had taken an oath to support the constitution.

The undersigned, for themselves, deny the authority of all pretended precedents that are without the support of sound principles. They deny that the people of the State are to be forever bound by the erroneous acts of past legislatures, but insist that it is the duty of the present General Assembly to perceive and obey the prevailing impulse of the public mind to correct abuses, denounce bad precedents, and again to recur to the principles of policy and constitutional construction so obviously demanded by the intelligent and earnest freemen of the State.

Resolved, That the committee on printing be directed to inquire and report to this House, as early as practicable, why the annual reports of our State officers, and of others who are required to make annual reports to be laid before the Legislature, have not been printed and laid upon the tables of mem

bers.

Mr. Wicker submitted the following:

Resolved, That the committee on education be and they are hereby instructed to prepare and present to this House, for its consideration, a bill making the education of children compulsory.

On motion of Mr. Bradwell,

Mr. Wicker's resolution was laid on the table, subject to the further action of the House.

Mr. Scanlan submitted the following:

WHEREAS, the number of immigrants daily landing on our shores has been and is growing more and more; and whereas, the wealth and prosperity of our country is thereby being enriched and developed: Resolved, That the House of Representatives, the Senate concurring, do recommend to our members of Congress the necessity of their creating and supporting some general law, which will tend to better protect and encourage immigration, and which shall particularly look to the protection of immigrants while on their passage across the Atlantic and over the railroads, on their way to the western and southern portion of this Republic.

On motion of Mr. Collins,

The resolution was referred to the committee on federal relations. Mr. Moore of Marshall submitted the following:

Resolved, That the Secretary of State be and is hereby authorized and required to furnish, upon the written order of the chairmen of such committees of this House as are not already provided for, such furniture and materials as they may need, for the use of their respective committees, together with such stationery as may be necessary for the transaction of the business of said committees said order to be approved by the chairman of the committee on contingent expenses.

Which was referred to the committee on contingent expenses.

Leave of absence was granted Mr. Newton, until Friday next.

On motion of Mr. Anderson,

At 11:50 P. M., the House adjourned to 2:30 o'clock P. M.

HALF-PAST TWO O'CLOCK P. M.

On motion of Mr. Shaw,

At 2:33 o'clock P. M., the House adjourned.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 1873.

The House met, pursuant to adjournment.

Prayer by Rev. Mr. Webster.

The journal of yesterday was read.

On motion of Mr. Swan,

The following members were permitted to record their votes for United States Senator:

Mr. Cullerton, for Richard J. Oglesby; Mr. Smith, for Lyman Trumbull; Mr. Lewis, for Lyman Trumbull.

Mr. Armstrong of Grundy presented a petition of the common council of the city of Peru, praying for the discontinuance of the recorders court of said city; which was referred to the cemmittee on judiciary.

Mr. Graham presented petitions from citizens of the town of Viola, concerning the sale and importation of liquors; which was referred to the committee on miscellaneous subjects.

Mr. Swan, from the committee on fees and salaries, to whom was referred House bill, No. 45, for "An act in relation to docket fees," reported the bill back to the House, with the recommendation that it do

Mr. Swan, from the committee on fees and salaries, to whom was referred House bill, No. 56, for "An act to amend section forty-five (45) of an act entitled 'an act to fix the salaries of State officers, of the judges of the circuit court and superior court of Cook county, of the State's attorneys, of the judges and prosecuting attorneys of inferior courts in cities and towns, of the county officers of Cook county; to regulate the fees of the Secretary of State and of the clerks of the supreme court; to classify the counties according to population, and fix the scale of fees for county officers in each class; to establish the fees of masters in chancery, notaries public, commissioners, arbitrators, jurors, witnesses, justices of the peace, constables and all town officers, to provide the mode of rendering their accounts, and to fix a penalty for exacting illegal fees,' approved March 29, Á. D. 1872," reported it back to the House, with the recommendation that it pass, and that the committee be discharged from the further consideration thereof.

The report of the committee was concurred in, and the bill was read a first time and ordered to a second reading.

A message from the Senate, by Mr. Paddock :

Mr. Speaker: I am directed to inform the House of Representatives that the Senate has concurred with them in the passage of a bill of the following title, to-wit:

House bill, No. 72, for "An act extending the time for the collection of the taxes on the assessments for the year A. D. 1872, and delinquent and omitted taxes on the assessments of said year."

Mr. Swan, from the committee on fees and salaries, submitted the following report:

The committee on fees and salaries, to whom was referred House bill, No. 76, for "An act to amend an act entitled 'fees and salaries,' approved April 9, 1872," instruct me to report that they have had said bill under