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                Constitutions - State and Federal

It is settled by numerous decisions that the intent of the lawmaker
is the law. Runyon v. Smith, 308 Ky. 73, 212 S. W. 2d 521;
Rasmussen v. Barker, 7 Wyo. 117, 50 P 819; U. S. v. Freeman, 3 How.
556; U. S. v. Babbit, 1 Black 61; Stewart v. Kahn, 2 Wall. 493.

     INTENT.  One's mental attitude, including purpose, will
determination, etc., at the time of doing an act.  Webster's New
World Dictionary, 2nd College Ed., 1970.  (Emphasis added.)

     ORGANIC LAW. The fundamental law, or constitution of a system
of laws or principles which defines and establishes the
organization of its government. St. Louis v. Dorr, 145 Mo. 466, 46
S. W. 976, 42 L. R. A. 686, 68 Am. St. Rep. 575.  Black's Law
Dictionary, 4th edition (1968), West Publishing Co., p. 1251.

     "The authority of the organic law is universally acknowledged;
it speaks the sovereign will of the people; its injunction
regarding the process of legislation is as authoritative as are
those touching the substance of it."  Suth. Stat. Const., p. 44,
note 1.

     "The constitution of a state is the fundamental law of the
State."  Ware v. Hylton, 3 Dall. 199.

     "What is a constitution? It is the form of government,
delineated by the mighty hand of the people, in which certain first
principles of fundamental laws are established."  Van Horne v.
Dorrance, 2 Dall. 304. (Italics added.)

     "Constitutional provisions and amendments to the Constitution
relate to the fundamental law and certain fixed principles upon
which governments are founded.  Constitutions are commonly called
the organic law of a State."  State ex rel. Halliburton v. Roach,
230 Mo. 408, 130 S. W. 689.

     "A constitution is designated as a supreme enactment, a
fundamental act of legislation by the people of the state. A
constitution is legislation direct from the people acting in their
sovereign capacity, while a statute is legislation from their
representatives, subject to limitations prescribed by the superior
authority."  Ellingham v. Dye, 231 U. S. 250. (Italics added.)

     "The basic purpose of a written constitution has a two-fold
aspect, first securing [not granting] to the people of certain
unchangeable rights and remedies, and second, the curtailment of
unrestricted governmental activity within certain defined spheres."
Du Pont v. Du Pont, 85 A 724. (Emphasis and Insertion added.)

     "The constitution of a state is stable and permanent, not to
be worked upon the temper of the times, not to rise and fall with
the tide of events. Notwithstanding the competition of opposing
interests, and the violence of contending parties, it remains firm
and immoveable, as a mountain amidst the strife and storms, or a
rock in the ocean amidst the raging of the waves."  Vanhorne v.
Dorrance, supra.

Construction of Constitutions

     "In ascertaining the meaning of the terms of the Constitution,
recurrence may be had to the principles of the common law."  United
States v. Brody, 3 Cr. Law Mag. 69.

     "The terms of a constitutional amendment are not controlling
in giving construction to the provisions of the Constitution as
they originally stood."  Norton v. Bradham (1884), 21 S. C. 375.

     "We are bound to interpret the Constitution in the light of
the law as it existed at the time it was adopted."  Mattox v.
United States, 156 U. S. 237, 243.

     "In this, as in other respects, it (a constitutional
provision) must be interpreted in the light of the common law, the
principles of history of which were familiarly known to the framers
of the Constitution. Minor v. Happersett, 12 Wall. 162. . . .The
language of the Constitution, as had been well said, could not be
understood without reference to the common law. 1 Kent Comm. 336.
. . .   "  Kepner v. United States, 195 U. S. 100, 126.

     "(I)n the construction of these instruments the following
rules are actually observed:
               1. The practical construction must be uniform. A
               constitution does not mean one thing at one time
               and another at some subsequent time.
               2. The object of construction is to give effect to
               the intent of the people in establishing the
               Constitution; it is the intent of the law giver
               that is to be enforced. But the intent is to be
               found in the instrument itself. . . .
Cooley, The General Principles of Constitutional Law, 3rd. ed.
(1898), pp. 386-387. (Little & Brown Co.).

     "The term 'citizen' was used in the Constitution as a word,
the meaning of which was already established and well understood.
And the Constitution itself contains a direct recognition of the
subsisting common-law principle, in the section which defines the
qualifications of the President:  `No person except a natural born
Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States at the time of the
adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of
the President,' etc . . . .  The only standard which existed of a
natural born Citizen was the rule of the common law, and no
different standard has been adopted since."  Lynch v. Clarke
(1844), 1 Sandf. Ch. (N.Y.) 656.

     ESTABLISH. 1. To set and fix firmly or unalterably; to settle
permanently. "I will establish my covenant with him for an
everlasting covenant." Gen. xvii. 2. To found permanently; to erect
and fix or settle; as to establish a colony or empire. 3. To enact
or decree by authority and for permanence. . .  4. To settle or
fix; to confirm. . .  5. To make firm; to confirm; to ratify what
has been previously set or made. "Do we then make void the law
through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law." Rom. iii.
American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), Noah Webster.
(Reprinted by the Foundation for American Christian Education,
1967)

     ESTABLISH. This word occurs frequently in the Constitution of
the United States, and it is there used in different meanings: (1)
to settle firmly, to fix unalterably; as to establish Justice,
which is the avowed object of the Constitution. . . .To settle or
fix firmly; place on a permanent footing; found; create; put beyond
doubt or dispute; prove; convince. . . .  Black's Law Dictionary,
supra, p. 642.

     ESTABLISH. 1. to make stable; make firm; settle [to establish
a habit] 2. to order, ordain, or enact (a law, statute, etc. . . )
3. to set up (a government, nation, business, etc. . . ). Webster's
New World Dictionary of the American Language, 2nd College Edition,
World Publishing Co., 1970.

     "The term 'Citizen of the United States' must be understood to
mean those who were citizens of the State as such after the Union
had commenced and the several States had assumed their sovereignty.
Before that period there were no citizens of the United States."
Inhabitants of Manchester v. Inhabitants of Boston, 16 Mass. 230,
235.

     "The perpetuity and indissolubility of the Union by no means
implies the loss of distinct and individual existence, of of the
right of self-government by the States.  Under the Articles of
Confederation each State retained its sovereignty, freedom, and
independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right not
expressly delegated to the United States.  Under the Constitution,
though the powers of the States were much restricted, still, all
powers not delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to the
States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people
. . . .  Not only, therefore, can their be no loss of separate and
independent autonomy to the States, through their union under the
Constitution, but it may be not unreasonably said that the
preservation of the States, and the maintenance of their
governments, are as much within the design and care of the
Constitution as the preservation of the Union and the maintenance
of the national government. The Constitution, in all its
provisions, looks to an indestructible Union, composed of
indestructible States."  Texas v. White (1868), 7 Wall. (U.S.) 700.

14th Amendment citizenship Distinguished from State Citizenship

     "The United States and the State of California are two
separate sovereignties, each dominant in its own sphere."  Redding
v. Los Angeles (1947), 81 C.A.2d 888, 185 P.2d 430.

     ". . . there is a clear distinction between national and State
citizenship.  U. S. citizenship does not entitle citizen [small
  "c"] of the Privileges and Immunities of the Citizen of the State
[capital "C"]."  K. Tashiro v. Jordan (1927), 256 P. 545, 201 Cal.
239, 53 A.L.R. 1279, affirmed 49 S. Ct. 47, 278 U. S. 123, 73 L.Ed.
214, 14 C. J. S.  2, p. 1131, note 75.

     "A person may be a citizen of the United States, and not a
citizen of any particular state.  This is the condition of citizens
residing in the District of Columbia and in the territories of the
United States or who have taken up a residence abroad."  Prentiss
v. Brennan (1845?), Fed.Cas.No. 11,385, 2 Blatchf. 162.  Areas
identified by ZIP codes are territories of the U.S.

     "The government of the United States is a foreign corporation
with respect to a state."  In re Merriam, 36 N. E. 505, 141 N. Y.
479, affirmed 16 S. Ct. 1073, 163 U. S. 625, 41 L.Ed. 287.

     "Under constitutional amendment 14, United States citizenship
is paramount and dominant, and not subordinate and derivative from
State Citizenship."  Aroer v. United States, 245 U. S. 366, 38 S.
Ct. 159, 62 L.Ed. 349.

     "A citizen of the United States is ipso facto and at the same
time a citizen of the state in which he resides. While the 14th
Amendment does not create a national citizenship, it has the effect
of making that citizenship 'paramount and dominant' instead of
'derivative and dependent' upon state citizenship."  Colgate v.
Harvey, 296 U. S. 404, 427.

     "Aliens are commonly understood as persons who owe allegiance
to a foreign government."  De Cano v. State, 110 P.2d 627, 631 and
the 1943 Government Code 242 (from Political Code 57).

     "Citizens of the District of Columbia are not Citizens of a
state."  Behlert v. James Foundation of N. Y., 60 F.Supp. 706, 708.

     "A corporation aggregate is not considered as a [de jure
State] citizen or entitled to the privileges of [de jure State]
citizenship, except for the purpose of giving jurisdiction, for
which a corporation may be considered a citizen of the State by
which it is incorporated."  Bank of United States v. Deveaux
(1809), 5 Cranch (9 U. S.) 61; Ducat v. City of Chicago (1870), 10
Wall. 410, 19 L.Ed. 972. (Insertion added.)

     "Corporations are not [de jure State] Citizens under Article
IV section 2 of the Constitution of the United States."  Paul v.
Virginia (1868), 8 Wall. 168, 19 L.Ed. 357.

     "Upon that ground, appeals to this court to extend the clause
beyond the limitation have been uniformly rejected, and even those
basic privileges and immunities secured against federal
infringement by the first eight amendments have been uniformly been
held not to be protected from state actions by the privileges and
immunities clause. . . .The reason for this narrow construction of
clause and the consistently exhibited reluctance of this court to
enlarge its scope has been well understood since the decision of
the Slaughter House Cases. If its restraint upon state action were
to be extended more than is needful to protect relationships
between the citizen and the national government, and if it were to
be deemed to extend to those fundamental rights of person and
property attached to citizenship by the common law and enactments
of the states when the amendment was adopted, such as were
described in Corfield v. Coryell, supra, it would enlarge
Congressional and judicial control of state action and multiply
restrictions upon it whose nature, thought difficult to anticipate
with precision, would be of sufficient gravity to cause serious
apprehension for the rightful independence of local government.
That was the issue fought out in the Slaughter House Cases, with
the decision against enlargement. Ibid., pp. 520-521, note 1.
"The observation of the court in United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.
S. 542, 551, that the right of assembly was not secured against
state action by the Constitution, must be attributed to the
decision in the Slaughter House Cases that only privileges and
immunities peculiar to United States citizenship were secured by
the privileges and immunities clause, and to the further fact that
at that time it had not been decided that the right was one
protected by the due process clause. Ibid., p. 526.
     "But the court added that with respect to the 14th Amendment
"there are certain privileges and immunities which belong to a
citizen of the United States as such; otherwise it would be
nonsense for the 14th Amendment to prohibit a state from abridging
them. . . .We agree. . . that there are privileges and immunities
belonging to citizens of the United States, and that it is these
and these alone which a state is forbidden to abridge." The
governments of the United States and of the each of the several
states are distinct from one another. The rights of a citizen under
one may be quite different from those which he has under the
other."  Colgate v. Harvey, 296 U. S. 404, 429.

     "The privileges and immunities of citizens of the United
States, which are protected by the 14th Amendment, against
abridgement by the states, are those which arise out of the
essential nature and characteristics of the national government,
the federal Constitution, treaties, or acts of Congress, as
distinguished from those belonging to the Citizens of a state;. .
. . "  Gardner v. Ray, 157 S. W. 1147, 1150; Hammer v. State, 89 N.
E. 850, 851, 173 Ind. 199, 24 L. R. A., N. S., 795, 140 Am. St.
Rep. 248, 21 Ann. Cas. 1034. (Emphasis added.)

     "This part of the opinion, then, concludes with the holding
that the rights relied upon in the case are those which belong to
the citizens of the states as such and are under the sole care and
protection of the state governments. The conclusion is preceded by
the important declaration that the civil rights theretofore
appertaining to citizenship of the states, were not given the
security of national protection by this class of the 14th
Amendment. "  Twining v. New Jersey, supra, p. 94.

     "States may enforce constitutional right, but not impair it."
In Re Perkins (1852), 2 Cal. 424.

     "The provisions of the Constitution are intended effectually
and completely to protect substantial rights, and can not be
frittered away by indirect legislation."  Lux v. Haggin, (1886) 69
Cal. 256, 4 Pac. 919, 10 Pac. 674