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XXVIII

This assertion then, we consider as entirely gratuitous and without foundation.

But if every thing asserted or insinuated in the preamble, be assumed to be true, we protest against the Act for the following reasons. 1st. The reason alleged for this extraordinary and anomalous piece of Legislation, is, not that the Acts and doings of the Legislature, or of the Governor and Council of the last year, were not promotive of the public good, or were not calculated to advance the best interests of the State, for if this were the case, this Legislature might apply the ordinary corrective of repealing obnoxious Acts and Resolves, and counteracting the doings of the Executive Department, but that the Legislature was not invested with power to do what they did, - or rather that we had no Legislature last year, clothed with power to do any Acts, - nor any Governor and Council, constitutionally competant [competent] to do any Acts, in consequence of the unconstitutional manner in which the Legislature was organized. We believe this is the first instance, in the History of Legislation, in our Country, where a Legislature has undertaken, for any purpose, to claim and excercise [exercise] the right of examining into and adjudicating on the manner in which any preceeding Legislature has been organized. And if it be competent for this Legislature thus to do, in relation to the last Legislature, it is equally competent for them, to enquire into the manner in which any other Legislature since the adoption of our Constitution has been Organized, And if found to be exceptionable, to proceed as in this instance to denounce their Acts and doings as unconstitutional. But the excercise [exercise] of this power necessarily involves the right of examining the returns of votes for Senators, the elections of Members of the House