Page:Hawkins v. Filkins 01.pdf/40

RhTERM, 1866.] If nothing—of no effect—a legislature, courts and officers could not exist under it; something can never depend for existence upon nothing. It would be sheer nonsense to declare the acts of courts void, when there were no courts—could in the nature of things be none; or to hold valid certain acts of officers, when there cofild be no officers.

And so too, if we give the words, "all the action of the state," an unlimited meaning, and hold all such action void, there can be no possible nse for the proviso. Unless the words, "rights of individuals," were intended to qualify the general terms, and except something that would otherwise have been embraced therein, and held void, there could be no use for any proviso; because, as we have already seen, the proviso would be mere surplusage.

Any attempt, therefore, to reconcile the several parts of the ordinance must result in leaving some of the language used unnecessary and meaningless. If we should adopt the latter construction as the true one, in doing so we must depart from flie obvious purpose for which the convention was called, and substitute in its stead, purposes and acts, which could only have resulted from very great ignorance, or an utter disregard to the laws of war, the precedents in the history of modern revolutions, the decisions of our highest courts, made by our most distinguished judges, and to every prompting of humanity. No civilized nation, even after conquest by a foreign power, ever failed to respect the private rights of property of the great mass of the people. But that a convention, called by the people of a state, to remodel their constitution so as to make it conform to the constitution of the United States, would intentionally, in a spirit of wantonness and cruelty unprecedented, with one sweep of the pen throw into chaos and confusion, all of the action of the state government for years—a government too which perhaps many of them had contributed to make, whose laws they had helped to execute, and for whose defence their arm or voice, had, at one time or other, been raised, we cannot believe. Nor can we, in view of all this,