victed of treason, unless on the evidence of two witnesses to the same overt act, or confession in open Court.

Popular SEC. 21. This enumeration of rights shall not be conrights retained by strued to impair or deny others retained by the people. the people.j

SEC. 22. The Legislature shall have no power to make an appropriation, for any purpose whatever, for a longer period than two years.

ARTICLE II.

Who are or may be electors.

Privileges

of electors.

RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE.

SECTION 1. Who are or may

be electors.

2. Privileges of electors.

3. Militia duty, when not to be performed by electors.

4. Residence of voters, gained or lost.

5. Who are not electors.

6. Election by ballot.

SECTION 1. Every white male citizen of the United States, and every white male citizen of Mexico who shall have elected to become a citizen of the United States, under the treaty of peace exchanged and ratified at Queretaro, on the thirteenth day of May, eighteen hundred and forty-eight, of the age of twenty-one years, who shall have been a resident of the State six months next preceding the election, and the county or district in which he claims his vote thirty days, shall be entitled to vote at all elections which are now or hereafter may be authorized by law; provided, that nothing herein contained shall be construed to prevent the Legislature, by a twothirds concurrent vote, from admitting to the right of suffrage Indians, or the descendants of Indians, in such special cases as such a proportion of the legislative body may deem just and proper.

NOTE.-Soldiers' veto cases.-Bourland vs. Hildreth, 26 Cal., p. 162; Day vs. Jones, 31 Cal., p. 261.

SEC. 2. Electors shall, in all cases except treason, felony, or breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest

on the days of election, during their attendance at such election, going to and returning therefrom.

SEC. 3. No elector shall be obliged to perform militia duty on the day of election, except in time of war or public danger.

SEC. 4. For the purpose of voting, no person shall be deemed to have gained or lost a residence by reason of his presence or absence while employed in the service of the United States, nor while engaged in the navigation of the waters of this State or of the United States, or of the high seas; nor while a student at any seminary of learning; nor while kept at any almshouse, or other asylum, at public expense; nor while confined in any public prison.

NOTE. The mere residence or sojourn of a soldier in a county does not make him a citizen. Such residence or sojourn neither creates nor destroys citizenship, but leaves the political status where it was before.-Orman vs. Riley, 15 Cal., p. 48.

not electors

SEC. 5. No idiot or insane person, or person convicted Who are of any infamous crime, shall be entitled to the privileges of an elector.

SEC. 6. All elections by the people shall be by ballot. Election by

ballot.

ARTICLE III.

DISTRIBUTION OF POWERS.

SECTION 1. Three separate departments.

separate

depart

ments.

SECTION 1. The powers of the Government of the State Three of California shall be divided into three separate departments: the Legislative, the Executive, and Judicial; and no person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one of these departments shall exercise any functions appertaining to either of the others, except in the cases hereinafter expressly directed or permitted.

NOTE.-The Legislature cannot exercise judicial functions. That portion of the Act prescribing that no injunction shall be issued against the Commission

ers for the sale of the State's interest within the water line of San Francisco held invalid.-Guy vs. Hermance, 5 Cal., p. 73. The Legislature has not the power to legalize pleadings substantially defective without first requiring them to be amended.-People vs. Mariposa Co., 31 Cal., p. 196. An Act of the Legislature granting a new trial or reopening a judgment in a litigated action between individuals would be an assumption of judicial powers and hence void, but an Act granting a new trial or reopening a judgment in favor of the people, is merely the consent of the people that either may be done and is valid.-People vs. Frisbie, 26 Cal., p. 137. An Act conferring upon Boards of Supervisors the power to try a contest in relation to the office of County Judge is unconstitutional.-Stone vs. Elkins, 24 Cal., p. 125. The Act of the Legislature directing the Supervisors of San Francisco to audit and allow the claim of a judgment creditor is not judicial in its character, and is not unconstitutional, for the Legislature can as well direct in such a matter as in any other of municipal regulation. O'Donnel vs. Supervisors of San Francisco, 11 Cal., p. 206. Of this Article of the Constitution, says Justice Sanderson, delivering the opinion of the Court in People vs. Provines, 34 Cal., p. 532:

"Our only remaining duty in connection with this case is to declare what we consider to be the true meaning and scope of the Third Article of the Constitution.

"We understand the Constitution to have been formed for the purpose of establishing a State Government; and we here use the term 'State Government' in contradistinction to local, or to county and municipal governments. But by this we do not intend to be understood to say that local governments are not within the general plan of the Constitution, for such governments are necessary incidents to all forms of government-using that term in its most enlarged and popular sense-in use among civilized nations. What we mean to be understood as saying, is that the Constitution does not, of itself-ex proprio vigore-create or establish any local or municipal governments; but, assuming that such governments will be required, provides that they shall be created and established by the Legislature, and there drops the subject. The Legislature shall establish a system of county and town governments, which shall be as nearly uniform as practicable throughout the State.'-Sec. 4, Art. XI. 'It shall be the duty of the Legislature to provide for

the organization of cities and incorporated villages and to restrict their power of taxation, assessment, borrowing money, contracting debts, and loaning their credit, so as to prevent abuses in assessments and in contracting debts by such municipal corporations.'-Sec. 37, Art. IV. Each county, town, city, and incorporated village shall make provision for the support of its own officers, subject to such restrictions and regulations as the Legislature may prescribe.'-Sec. 9, Art. XI. These provisions show very clearly that the creation and regulation of local and subordinate governments, such as county, city, and town governments, is not attempted in the Constitution; and that the whole subject of local and subordinate governments is, by that instrument, turned over to one branch of the Government, which it provides and defines, with certain admonitions only for its guidance. When, therefore, the Constitution is speaking of the 'powers of Government,' and engaged in the work of distributing them to different departments and securing absolute independence to each department by providing that each shall be worked and managed by a different set or class of individuals, of what Government is it talking? Certainly not of town, city, village, or county governments, which it does not undertake to organize, which are not being established, but are to be established hereafter by a body which the Constitution is at the time creating and organizing. Obviously it is talking about the government upon which it is at work, and it is the powers of that government alone which it is declaring, distributing, and guarding; that is to say, the State Government, as contradistinguished from those which are to be hereafter created by legislative will, merely, as the incidents and auxiliaries of the former. The departments, therefore, of which it speaks, and in respect to which it provides that no person employed in one shall be employed in either of the other two, are the Departments of the State Government, as expressly defined and limited in the Constitution; and its meaning is that no member of the Legislative Department, as there defined, shall at the same time be a member of the Executive or Judicial Departments, as there defined, and vice versa. That is to say, no judicial officer shall be Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, Controller, Treasurer, Attorney General, or Surveyor General, all of whom, and none others, in the sense of the Third Article of the Constitution, belong to and constitute the Executive Department of the Government; or a member of

the Senate or Assembly, which two bodies, and none other, in the sense of the Third Article of the Constitution, constitute the Legislative Department. So of each officer of the Executive Department-he cannot belong to the Judicial or Legislative Department. That is to say, he can hold no judicial office, nor the office of Senator or member of the Assembly. And so of Senators and members of the Assembly-they can hold no judicial or executive offices comprised within the Executive and Judicial Departments, as defined in Articles V and VI.

"In short, the Third Article of the Constitution means that the powers of the State Government, not the local governments thereafter to be created by the Legislature, shall be divided into three departments, and that the members of one department shall have no part or lot in the management of the affairs of either of the other departments, except in the cases hereinafter expressly directed or permitted.'

"That such is the true meaning is further apparent from the mere order and arrangement of the several parts of the Constitution. It is divided into separate Articles. Each Article treats, in the main, of a particular subject, to the exclusion of other matters, which subject is stated at the head of the Article; thus the First Article is entitled 'Declaration of Rights;' the second, Right of Suffrage;' the third, 'Distribution of Powers;' the fourth, Legislative Department;' the fifth, Executive Department;' the sixth, Judicial Department;' and so on to the end. From this arrangement alone it is apparent that the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Departments created and restricted in the Third Article are the identical departments, and none other, separately provided for in the immediately succeeding Articles numbered Four, Five, and Six. Article Third provides that there shall be three departments, giving to each its appropriate name. Articles Four, Five, and Six continue the subject by organizing them under the names already adopted, and prescribing their several functions."

In the Provines case, the distinguished jurist who delivered the opinion of the Court collates, examines, and for the Court disapproves and overrules, upon this topic, the following cases: Burgoyne vs. Supervisors of San Francisco, 5 Cal., p. 19; Exline vs. Smith, 5 Cal., p. 112; Dickey vs. Hurlburt, 5 Cal., p. 343; Thompson vs. Williams, 6 Cal., p. 88; Tuolumne Co. vs. Stanislaus Co., 6 Cal., p. 440; Phelan vs. San Francisco, 6 Cal., p. 531; Sanderson's Case, 30 Cal., p. 160. The