Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 11.djvu/98

 92 Opinion of Wm. D. Fenton convention. Judge Deady was chosen as president and was a colleague of Ex-Governor Chadwick from Douglas County ; Judge Prim was a delegate from Jackson County; Judge Kelly from Clackamas County;. Judge E. D. Shattuck from Washington County. Besides these men who have achieved distinction in judicial life and in other high offices in the state, there was in the convention Ex-Governor and Ex-Senator Grover, David Logan, John H. Reed, Cyrus Olney, J. R. McBride, all men of ability, lawyers by profession and pre- sumably familiar with the intent and purposes of the consti- tutional convention. Those who contend for a strict construc- tion of the constitution and who say that the designation of a stated amount for a salary or of a designated number as a class, is a constitutional restriction upon the principle that an expression of one is an exclusion of the, other, must rely, not upon express words or prohibition, but upon the rule of implied inhibition which some of the courts say is not appli- cable to the construction of an instrument which is a limitation upon the power of the people and not a grant of power. It seems to me that the designation of the stated amounts as salaries under section I, article 13, can be regarded as impliedly a prohibition upon the legislative assembly to increase or diminish that amount, with more reason than that by section 10, article 7, the constitution has inhibited an increase of the number of justices of the Supreme Court beyond that stated. The concluding part of section 1, article 13, supra, which reads: "The compensation of officers if not fixed by this constitution shall be provided by law," implies with some force that the framers of the constitution meant to fix by the designation of stated amounts such salaries of such state officers as have been specified, and meant only to permit the legislature subsequently to fix salaries of other officers not so fixed. But I yield my impression to that of the men who participated in framing these provisions and who may be presumed to know what was the intention of the constitu- tional convention.