352 



GEOEGIA. 



bill the governor vetoed, chiefly on the ground 

 that the Constitution of the United States ex- 

 pressly ordains that "no State shall pass any 

 law impairing the obligation of contracts." The 

 judges of the Supreme Court differed in opin- 

 ion on the constitutionality of the law. One 

 of them (Linton Stephens) thus stated the point 

 of difference: "The whole confusion on this 

 subject comes from the original false assump- 

 tion which has sometimes been made in the 

 obiter dicta of judges, but which has never been 

 decided by any court, and is inconsistent with 

 the unbroken current of decisions the assump- 

 tion that the obligation of a contract is the ex- 

 isting remedy for its enforcement. The obli- 

 gation ot a contract, it is very true, is not to.be 

 found always in the terms used by the parties: 

 it is to be found in the liability which the exist- 

 ing laws attach to those terms. Indeed, the 

 obligation of a contract is the liability which 

 the existing law attaches to its terms. For il- 

 lustration, a contract in this State to pay twenty 

 per cent, interest, has no obligation beyond 

 seven per cent., the rate fixed by law ; and a con- 

 tract to pay money for the killing of a human 

 being has no obligation whatever. Parties may 

 make what engagements they please, these do 

 not constitute their obligations ; the law exist- 

 ing at the time comes in and attaches its own 

 liability to the terms used, defines and fixes the 

 obligations arising out of those terms. These 

 obligations are to be enforced by such remedies 

 as the political power may provide from time to 

 time ; and the courts can never interfere with 

 changes or modifications which the political 

 power may make in the remedies, either quick- 

 ening or slackening them, so long as the right 

 is not abrogated by the indefinite withdrawal 

 or suspension of all remedy." 



A resolution was also adopted appointing a 

 committee of sixteen to digest and report to the 

 next Legislature a system of common schools. 

 An act approved on March 17th regulated the 

 rights and duties of masters and apprentices, 

 which placed all on the same footing without 

 regard to color. Administrators, executors, and 

 guardians, and trustees, were relieved from all 

 penalties of mismanagement, misappropriation, 

 or misapplication of funds of estates, who, in 

 pursuance of any decree of a court or any laws 

 of the State, invested the funds represented, in 

 certificates of the State of Georgia, or of the 

 Confederate States. 



After a short session, confined to local affairs, 

 the Legislature adjourned to November 1st. 

 The most important topic of the governor's 

 message to this body, when it again convened, 

 related to the amendment of the Federal Con- 

 stitution proposed by Congress. After briefly 

 analyzing its features, he said : 



I ask you to consider, however, why it is that you 

 are called upon to vote upon its adoption, wh'ilst 

 your State had no voice in its preparation? The 

 Constitution secures to the States the one right as 

 distinctly and as positively as the other. Had your 

 Representatives, and those of other States similarly 

 situated, been present, aiding in giving substance 



and form to it, possibly it might have come before 

 you a less odious thing. The policy seems to have 

 been, first to push it, without their participation, be- 

 yond the stage of amendment, and then say to them, 

 accept our bantling or take the consequences. The 

 omission of any material part of the process of amend- 

 ment makes the amendment its,elf unconstitutional, 

 null and void. 



Should the States especially to be affected by this 

 amendment refuse their assent to it, it cannot be 

 adopted without excluding them from the count and 

 placing its ratification upon the votes of three-fourths 

 of the now dominant States. 



It is said, however, that unless this concession be 

 made, the now excluded States will, be kept out of 

 the halls of Congress indefinitely. Were the amend- 

 ment presented with such a menace distinctly ex- 

 pressed, a higher motive (if possible) than any 

 hitherto suggested would prompt its rejection. 



At the termination of hostilities, it was right and 

 proper that the previously resisting States should, in 

 the most unequivocal and formal manner, abandon 

 such resistance ; should rescind all they had done iu 

 antagonism to, and do whatever was necessary and 

 proper to place themselves in constitutional relation 

 with that Government. All this, we believe, Georgia 

 has done. Beyond this, in acting upon any proposed 

 change in the fundamental law, even in this critical 

 juncture, my advice is, that her legislators act with 

 the same intelligent judgment and the same unflinch- 

 ing firmness, that they would have exercised in the 

 past, or would exercise in the future, when in full 

 connection and unambiguous position. Any other 

 rule of action may involve sacrifices of interest and 

 of principle which magnanimity would not exact and 

 self-respect could not make. 



The subject was referred in each House to 

 the Committee on the State of the Eepnblic. 

 These committees acted as a joint committee, 

 and made a report on November 9th. They state 

 that they had serious doubts of the propriety 

 of discussing the proposed amendment, and they 

 will depart from this course only so far as to 

 give the reasons which seem to forbid discus- 

 sion upon the merits. They say : 



The argument resolves itself into a few simple 

 propositions. 



1. If Georgia is not a State composing a part of the 

 Federal Government known as the Government of 

 the United States, amendments to the Constitution 

 of the United States are not properly before this body. 



2. If Georgia is a State composing part of the Fed- 

 eral Government known as the Government of the 

 United States, then these amendments are not pro- 

 posed according to the requirements of the Federal 

 Constitution, and are proposed in such a manner as 

 forbids this House from discussing the merits of the 

 amendments, without an implied surrender of the 

 rights of the State. 



In discussing these propositions, we shall endeavor 

 to establish : 



1. That Georgia is a State of the United Statss, 

 coequal with all the other States of the Federal Union, 



. and therefore entitled to all the rights and privileges 

 of any and every other State under the Federal Con- 

 stitution. 



2. That the amendments have not been proposed 

 in either of the methods required by the fifth article 

 of the Constitution. 



In the discussion of the assertion "that 

 Georgia is a State of the United States," etc., 

 they urge the following considerations : 



Georgia was clearly d State when the Union was 

 formed, for she was one of the original thirteen States 

 by whom the Government was created. Georgia, 

 then,, being one of the original States, never ceased 



