But it has been asserted that "the schedule to the constitution can be considered in no other light than an act of legislation; it provided for the adoption of the constitution itself." True, it did; and the language of the schedule is, "and if the same shall be ratified by the said electors, the same shall become the constitution of the state of Michigan." Shall become; the known, common definition of these words indisputably leads us to the conclusion, that it did not become a constitution until it was so ratified. Another principle of interpretation may be applied here, the correctness of which, probably, will not be disputed. "If any expositor of a constitution be resorted to in order to understand its import and meaning, it should be the condition of the people at the time of its adoption." What was the condition of the county of Allegan, at the time of the adoption of the constitution, in view of which, not this county alone, but the whole state, deposited their votes? The fact is on record, beyond the reach of cavil; it was an organized county. The convention may have indeed "provided for the adoption of the constitution;" but if their legislation was of such an exclusive character as is claimed for it, so far from effecting a change "with harmony from one form of government to another," it effected nothing certain but the destruction of the territorial government, and erecting no government in its place; suspended the destinies of the embryo state upon the happening of a contingency, the failure of which would have produced "confusion and disorder," beyond the reach of language to describe. But the force of the schedule as an act of legislation, is supposed to be derived from the right to form a constitution, "guarantied to the people of Michigan by the ordinance of 1787, to be exercised on the accession of a certain population;" and from the facts, that to the exercise of this right, the governor and council of the territory of Michigan acceded and even participated; that the concurrent right of legislation cannot exist, and that "in no part of the constitution or the schedule annexed, is there even an allusion to the further or future exercise of the legislative power by the governor and council." It is further sought to be established, that the territorial government was wholly superseded; and it is asked, "does not the right to form a constitution embrace also the right to legislate?" Without denying this, we, in the first place, ask, is the right to legislate, actual legislation? And until the people actually did take upon them the duties of legislation, the right of the council could not have been superseded. However clear this right of the people may have been, it was certainly limited by the ordinance which confirmed it; nor could the mere right of the people to legislate, suspend the functions of the [H. R.] Vol. II. 31 territorial government until the right was asserted, and the exercise of the duties it enjoined, undertaken, in accordance with such legal forms of proceeding as the common sense and usage of mankind have rendered necessary. To suppose that the right contemplated could exist and be asserted, independent of these forms, is to commit to the wildness of conjecture, the period of the termination of the territorial govern ment. If Allegan county is not organized, because the right of the people to legislate, (latent though it were,) had rendered the act of the council which organized it, void, it may be well to ask, how many other counties there are in the state whose organization is also rendered void from the operation of the same principle? If the right to legislate is necessarily embraced in the right to form a constitution, and that right accrued on the arrival or birth of the last of the sixty thousand of population, as it unquestionably did, how many other acts of territorial legislation, we ask, are to be rendered void from and after that uncertain period? It may be contended that though the function of the legislative council continued unimpaired, and ceased only when the duly organized state government assumed the jurisdiction of the people of Michigan, yet the schedule was valid as an act of legislation, pertaining to the objects for which the convention was elected, and that in the schedule, Allegan was designated as an unorganized county, and associated with two other counties in a representative district. And yet we say that that designation, with all the force of law, which, for the sake of argument, we suppose it to have, ceases to operate after the first enumeration of the people under the constitution, and consequently can be no objection now to the claim we assert. But the argument may be, that the application of the word unorganized to the county of Allegan, is to be assumed as conclusively descriptive of the condition of the county at the organization of the state government. We think most certainly not, if it be contradicted by the fact. Suppose the county of Chippewa had been designated as an unorganized county, would such a designation, by whatever cause produced, be admitted to contradict the fact, that it was actually organized? And would not the ascertaining of the fact, be followed by an immediate admission to its rights? We think so. And on this principle was the right of Allegan county acknowledged by the first legislature, and confirmed by the next two in succes sion. If it be true, that the legislative council had no right to organize this county, the conclusion must be, that we are to this day unorganized; and the tremendous consequences of such a decision are to be let loose upon us. Our courts are an idle form, our records are a mockery, our officers trespassers. In this view, the question becomes one of prodigious importance to the people of this county. The foundations of property are all to be uprooted. Embraced within the territory of the state of Michigan, we are cast out of its protection, and denied the privileges of citizenship, to take rank, we suppose, with "Indians not tamed," for no other reason, that we can discover, than that a pretext may be disemboweled from a chaos of conflicting principles, to deprive us of a constitutional right. We would not so far forget what is due to ourselves, as to impute any sinister motive to those from whom it is our misfortune to differ; nor would we be disrespectful to those who, high in authority, have taken ground against us; but, may not the prospect before us, well alarm us, and demand a most strenuous and resolute determination, to ask nothing but what is clearly right, and submit to nothing that is wrong. There are those, however, who assert and believe that, admitting all we claim for ourselves as an organized county, that the legislature have, nevertheless, the right to attach to us other counties, whose population, with ours, may reach the ratio required for a single representative; that the word "county," in the constitution, is to receive one interpretation as pertaining to its representative rights, and another as to its general powers; or, in other words, that a civil county, and a geographical county, are separate and distinct things; that, for illustration, Allegan may be a geographical county, duly organized, and entitled to all general privileges as such, and, nevertheless, that the associating with it, two other counties in one representative district, constitutes a civil county, which inflicts no injury upon its constitutional rights. Can this be true? Is it supposable that the constitution, in securing to "each organized county, at least one representative," explained as it is, by the same section, to mean a separate representative, intended to confer upon the legislature the right to erect Mackinac and Chippewa, for instance, into one civil county, with the right to send one representative? And we suppose that, unless the legislature have this strange power of setting up distinctions among the different counties of the state, to the total obliteration of all county lines, as they exist for general purposes, that they can no more make Mackinac and Chippewa one civil county, than they can Allegan, Barry and Eaton. We humbly conceive that there exists no such distinction between geographical and civil counties, as is by some supposed; that, besides the principle of population to fix the representation, the constitution does recognize a distinction between counties organized before and subsequent to its adoption; to the former is guarantied forever the right to a separate representative, which no process of reasoning can destroy; and that the right of attaching territory is, in effect, an indirect destruction of privileges, which the legislature confessedly have, directly, no power to disturb. In the formation of representative districts, which became necessary among the sparsely settled counties in the state, where the population of one is not sufficient to entitle it to a separate representative, the powers of the legislature must be limited to those whose late organization does not entitle them to the enjoyment of the right guarantied in the constitution, to "such organized county;" and that this right should be withheld, because a more convenient grouping of counties in a district, may be effected by disregarding it, is an expediency doctrine of the most alarming tendency. The mature deliberation recommended to us, we have exercised, and, convinced of the justice of our claim, we again present ourselves to your honorable bodies, and ask that it be recognized; and your memorialists, as in duty bound, will ever pray, &c. HENRY H. BOотH, Secretary. ELISHA ELY, Chairman. [No. 64.] Report of the superintendent of public instruction, in relation to authority for employing a clerk. OFFICE SUPERINTENDENT PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, To the Speaker of the House of Representatives; SIR-Pursuant to a resolution passed your honorable body, February 26, 1841, I have the honor to report: That by the fifteenth section of an act, approved March 21, 1837, it is enacted that the "superintendent is also hereby authorized to employ such asisstants as may be necessary to carry into effect the provisions of this act: Provided, That no such assistants be employed but such as shall be approved by the governor, and such assistants shall receive for their services, a sum not exceeding three dollars per diem." This pro vision not having been repealed by any subsequent act, I have supposed to be still in force. When the revised statutes took effect, it became necessary to examine the question of right to employ help. I found that section fourteen, chapter one, title twelve, part one, of said statutes, recognized, in connection with the superintendent, “his agent." I found, also, that the title of the act, from which the foregoing provision is cited, was not among the number of those acts fully and absolutely repealed, and that the general repealing clause was limited in its operation; limited, indeed, by its obvious grammatical construction, to such provisions of "all acts and parts of acts" revised and reenacted, as were repugnant to the enactments of the revised statutes. Hence, the conclusion to which I came was, that whatever in those act was not repugnant to these enactments, was still in force. But furthermore, I found it to be expressly provided, by section eight, of the last repealing act, that "all persons, who at the time when the said repeal shall take effect, shall hold any office under any of the acts hereby repealed, shall continue to hold the same according to the tenure thereof, except those offices which may have been abolished, and those as to which a different provision shall have been made by the revised statutes." After this examination was had, an assistant was still employed, under the approval of the governor, and the other part of the proviso has been complied with, as will soon appear. Had any doubt remained, it was entirely removed by the subsequent course of the legislature. The fact of having employed and paid an agent, assistant, or clerk, as termed in the report, was stated; and the accounts, as presented, were examined by committees of both branches. The same is believed to be true of the two succeeding years. The committee of the senate, last winter, were instructed to examine the accounts in reference to this particular, and empowered to send for persons and papers. But no committee of either branch, or any member of either branch, to my knowledge, ever intimated that my proceeding, in this respect, was unauthorized, improper or illegal. The time I have employed such help, has been from the commencement of the first sale in 1837. During a part of that year, (the sale proving so much greater than was expected,) I was obliged to employ two, and some of the time, three, as stated in my report of that year. The amount paid for 1837, was do do do do 1838, $984 00 950 00 850 00 500 00 This has been paid out of the university and school fund, in proportion to the amount of each fund. The necessity of employing such clerk, agent, or assistant, results from the amount of business required to be done. As now constituted, I regard it as an utter impossibility for any one man, to discharge properly, the duties of the office alone. Only one other office in the state, equals it in the amount of its business, and one only in the pecuniary responsibility which |