In re Constitutional Convention

• Decision Date: 30 March 1883
• Parties: IN RE THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

14 R.I. 649

IN RE THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

March 30, 1883

The state constitution can be amended or changed only in the mode therein prescribed.

The Constitution of the State of Rhode Island can be lawfully amended or changed only in the mode which itself prescribes.

ARTICLE 13 of the Constitution of the State of Rhode Island is as follows:

" The General Assembly may propose amendments to this Constitution by the votes of a majority of all the members elected to each house. Such propositions for amendment shall be published in the newspapers, and printed copies of them shall be sent by the secretary of state, with the names of all the members who shall have voted thereon, with the yeas and nays, to all the town and city clerks in the state. The said propositions shall be, by said clerks, inserted in the warrants or notices by them issued for warning the next annual town and ward meetings in April; and the clerks shall read said propositions to the electors when thus assembled with the names of all the representatives and senators who shall have voted thereon, with the yeas and nays, before the election of senators and representatives shall be had. If a majority of all the members elected to each house, at said annual meeting, shall approve any proposition thus made, the same shall be published and submitted to the electors in the mode provided in the act of approval; and if then approved by three fifths of the electors of the State present and voting thereon in town and ward meetings, it shall become a part of the Constitution of the State."

Article 10, section 3, provides, that " the judges of the Supreme Court shall … give their written opinion upon any question of law whenever requested … by either house of the General Assembly."

March 20, 1883, the Senate of the State adopted the following resolution:

" Whereas, a difference of opinion has arisen among members of the General Assembly,

I. As to the legal competency thereof under the Constitution of the State to call upon the electors to elect members to constitute a convention to frame a new Constitution of the State, and to provide that the new Constitution should be submitted for adoption, either to the qualified electors of the State, or to the persons who would be entitled to vote under said new Constitution, for adoption, and if a majority of such electors or persons voting should vote in favor thereof, whether the new Constitution would then become the legally adopted Constitution of the State and be binding as such upon all of the people thereof.

II. As to whether it is legally competent for the General Assembly to submit to the qualified electors the question whether said electors will call a convention to frame a new Constitution and to provide by law if a majority of the electors voting upon said question shall vote in favor of calling such convention, that the same be held, and the new Constitution framed by said Convention be submitted to the electors for their adoption, either to the electors qualified by law, or to the persons who may be qualified to vote under such new Constitution, and whether if a majority of the electors, or persons voting thereon, vote for the adoption of such Constitution, whether the Constitution so to be framed and adopted would be the legal Constitution of the State, and as such be binding upon all the people thereof.

And whereas, the existing Constitution provides that either house of the General Assembly may require the opinion of the judges of the Supreme Court upon any question of law, it is therefore hereby

Resolved that the said judges of the said Supreme Court be, and they hereby are requested without unnecessary delay to give their opinion to the Senate upon the two questions stated in the preamble hereto, upon which differences of opinion have arisen between the members of this General Assembly.

Resolved, that His Excellency the Governor be, and he hereby is requested to forward copies of the preceding preamble and resolution to each of the judges of the said Supreme Court.

OPINION OF THE COURT.

To the Honorable the Senate of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations:

We received from your Honors on the 24th inst. a resolution requesting our opinion in regard to the legal competency of the General Assembly to call a convention for the revision of the Constitution. In reply we have to say that we are of opinion that the mode provided in the Constitution for the amendment thereof is the only mode in which it can be constitutionally amended. The ordinary rule is that where power is given to do a thing in a particular way, there the affirmative words, marking out the particular way, prohibit all other ways by implication, so that the particular way is the only way in which the power can be legally executed. The rule was recently recognized by the Supreme Court of the United States in Smith v. Stevens, 10 Wall. 321. There by act of Congress lands were ceded to Indians with power to sell them, or parts of them, in a particular manner and the court held that a sale in any other manner was void. The rule was likewise recently recognized by the English Court of Exchequer in a case in which it was thus expressed: " If authority is given expressly, though by affirmative words, upon a defined condition, the expression of that condition excludes the doing of the act authorized under other circumstances than those so defined: ‘ Expressio uniusest exclusio alterius.’ " North Stafford Steel & c. Co. v. Ward, L. R. 3 Exch. 172, 177. Cases to the same point might be indefinitely multiplied. 1 Kent Comment. *467, note d; 1 Sugden on Powers, 258 et sq.; City of New Haven v. Whitney, 36 Conn. 373; District Township of the City of Dubuque v. The City of Dubuque, 7 Iowa 262. It has been claimed, indeed, that the rule, though applicable in the interpretation of statutes, deeds, wills, and other ordinary instruments, is inapplicable in the interpretation of a state constitution. Those who assert this difference, however, do not appear to have any reason to give for it...