Report of the State Civil Service Commission Volume 13 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1896 Excerpt: ...Y. 564-75. The first rule in interpreting and constructing a constitution is to give to it the effect and meaning by its financiers, and by the people who adopted it. And the first rule for ascertaining what that intent and meaning was, is, that is to be gathered, if possible, from the plain and ordinary meaning of the words used. "In the construction of constitutional provisions, the language used, if plain and precise, should be given its full effect, and we are not concerned with the wisdom of their insertion. As adopted by the people, the intent is to be ascertained, not from speculating upon the subject, but from the words in which the will of the people has been expressed. To hold otherwise would be darfgerous to our political institutions. The Constitution is the basis upon which rests that complicated social organization called the State. It must be presumed that its framers understood the force of the language used, and, as well, the people who adopted it. The latitude allowed in the construction of legislative acts is out of place, and would be unwise, when interpreting the fundamental law. Legislation aims at arranging the mechanism of the State for the benefit of its members, and the question of intention, necessarily, is often of great importance and must be open to judicial inquiry; but the Constitution, which underlies and sustains the social structure of the State, must be beyond being shaken or affected, by unnecessary construction, or by the refinements of legal reasoning. We may be compelled to have resort to such in the presence of contradictions or of meaningless clauses, but not otherwise." The People v. Rathbone, 145 N. Y. 434-38. Let us turn to the language of the Constitution. "Appointments and promotions in the Civil ...