A Layman's Study of the Constitution

[John Ivory 4547]

 

 

A LAYMAN’S STUDY OF THE CONSTITUTION

OR;

A FAITHFUL DEFENSE OF THE IMPERIAL SENATE

 

Published in the Daily Gazette, Helena. Vol I, Ed. I. Spring 1757.

 

@Draeris

 

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The educated daily reader of our nation’s papers may with some regret recount what vitriol has occupied the headlines as of late, chief among these being T-- H----- O- ELE------, published by T-- YOU-- CAN------ O- OR-- FOUN------. Any good constitutionalist revolts from the libelous accusations made of our Senators, our Constitution, and our Crown made therein.

 

It is the opinion of your humble writer that these accusations come chief most from a lack of education. While to a zealous youth it should come with ease to make use of such pejoratives as HERESY, BUREAUCRAT, or “IBLEESIAN,” age is the greatest teacher. A conservative prudence may be deployed, with great care placed towards sober treatment of the Constitution. These virtues are best found in the middle aged man.

 

This paper, to be published serially, endeavors a scientific study of the Constitution of Oren. A particular interest shall be placed in the LEGISLATURE, known colloquially as the Senate.

 

As an aid to the faithful reader, citations have been provided where necessary to identify relevant documents.

 

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In the year of our Lord God 1731, the great houses of the realm elected to establish Adrian de Sarkozy as their Lord Protector. The abnormal death and later scandal surrounding Alexander I’s lineage prompted the convention; the Lord-Regent Duke Sunholdt KCHE (then John d’Balain) confirmed this election, and thus our country was placed under Interregnum. In the PROCLAMATION OF IMPERIAL INTERREGNUM, signed by all the great houses of the realm, the powers of the Lord-Regent were transferred to the Lord Protector, and thus the Crown prerogative.

 

It is the opinion of some that the Edict of Establishment apparently loses its legitimacy because it was promulgated by a LORD PROTECTOR, and not an EMPEROR. Using our knowledge of the history just recounted, we may dismiss this falsehood with ease. While Adrian de Sarkozy did not wear a crown, he held in his power the Crown prerogative granted him by his office, and thus the right to promulgate edicts of law holding mandate over the Empire.

 

We may find additional transcripts, treaties, and other Constitutional edicts promulgated by the Lord Protector. Curiously the legitimacy of these are not attacked by some in the papers.

 

Is the Senate a self-sustaining institution, existing of its own will? Secondly, can the Senate pass acts of legislation without the assent (and thus willful promulgation) of the Crown? Thirdly, can the Senate appoint Councilors of State, and Justices of the Courts?

 

If the answer to any of these questions is NO, then the accusations of some fall apart.

 

According to the Edict of Establishment, the Imperial Senate “shall sit in perpetuity, until such time as its prorogation by the Crown.” This cycle of convention and prorogation are known as SESSIONS. The basic rules of philosophy would teach us that no being which exists only by the will of a higher being has self-sustaining being of its own. Therefore, we answer no. The Senate is a body which exists for and by the Crown’s own will.

 

Secondly, some would believe that acts of legislation are passed and promulgated by the Senate alone. They identify acts which provide elves the rights of an Imperial citizen, and acts which provide rights to certain intelligent non-persons as evidence to this.

 

The Edict of Establishment would prove this accusation as plainly untrue. The Crown “as the final actor in the Imperial Diet and the executive, formally approves bills that have passed through their respective chambers in a process known as imperial assent.” It is the prerogative of the Crown to provide assent or to withhold assent from any bill which it pleases. When granted assent “a bill becomes an act of law.” We may thus conclude that any Act of the Senate is not promulgated by the Senate of its lonesome, but instead by the mandate of the Crown. To the dismay of some this includes the granting of certain rights to the Anurian species. . .

 

Thirdly, the papers have claimed that the Senate has the power to appoint Councilors of State and Justices of the Court without mandate. In our Constitution, who has the power of appointment and nomination?

 

We may look to the Edict of Establishment and to the Judiciary Act 1740 for the answer.

 

Firstly, the process for appointment of Councilors of State is detailed twice within the Edict of Establishment.

 

“The Crown appoints both the Archchancellor and the Vice Chancellor unilaterally, as part of the Imperial prerogative, and these offices serve as the chiefs of the executive Council of State. To appoint the other members of the Council of State (i.e the respective secretaries who head their departments) the Archchancellor and Vice Chancellor give their formal and written advice for candidates to the Crown, who then sends these candidates to the Senate to fulfil their advice and consent role through a Writ of Confirmation, mentioned below.”

 

Additionally, the definition of aforementioned Writ of Confirmation:

 

“Writs of Confirmation, concerning the confirmation by the Senate of the Crown’s appointments on the Council of State or the Supreme Court, in conjunction with their role as a body to provide advice and consent for these appointments.”

 

Nowhere in either of these two passages is it implied that the Imperial Senate may of its own accord appoint Councilors of State. Indeed, the prerogative of appointment lies entirely with the Crown, acting on the advice of the chiefs of the Council of State itself. The Senate’s relationship here to the Crown is one of advice and consent: as the Crown’s own deliberative legislature, it approves and denies appointments chosen by the Crown’s COUNCIL OF STATE. It is their responsibility, ordained by the Crown itself, to do so.

 

Next remains the nomination of justices. The Judiciary Act 1740 defines nomination as such: “The justices of the Circuit Courts, both Western and Eastern, act with the delegated power of the Crown and are thus selected by it with the consultation of the government of each vassal province as well as the advice and consent of the Imperial Senate.” The Crown retains the prerogative of nomination to the Judiciary. These nominees are then given advice and consent by the Senate. To deny the mandate of these justices is thus to defy the Crown itself, may God forbid!

 

As to the purposes of these justices who some would defy, we need look only to the words of Sir Veikko Harjalainen KM: “In cases of law, there will always stand two parties - those who insists upon the violation of the Emperor’s law, and the other who vehemently denies it. A sovereign would always judge as guilty those he accuses. It is therefore a necessity then that there should be a third person to decide this contest; a judge, or magistrate.” This passage is enshrined in Section I of Judiciary Act 1740, assented to and promulgated by His Imperial Majesty himself.

 

It is the opinion of the writer that these claims have been given sufficient treatment and explosion. The Constitution remains unscathed. In the next serial edition of this paper, we shall endeavor to treat loftier ideas: Providence and Government.

 

LORD HELENA

[thesmellypocket 1859]

CARTOON. Smelling out a Rat; OR the Atheistical Revolutionist disturbed in his Midnight Calculations.

 

[!]A public letter appears in the papers.

 

”My dear, noble, and learned Lord, 

 

I should like thee to permit me, as a man who has never taken part in the struggles of parties, to venture to offer some advice to my fellow countrymen. I find no fault at all in thy sound defence of our Empire’s constitution. I must, however, caution thee, in case that zeal for it might be wielded against the country thou hast loved and served so much. For the present constitution, unless closely watched, could be a vessel for that treacherous filth that has been called ‘LIBERALISM’ but which we know as “FOUL”, “DISGRACED”, “DEBASED”, “DOGGISH”, “FIENDISH”, “IBLEEIC” and “IMPIOUS”, to undermine the very edifice and balance of the state which is perhaps more fragile than thou hast realised. Thou needs must and thou must needs identify “the Uruk in the room,” as the ‘kidz’ are wont to say. 

 

This is, as I say, LIBERALISM. I give one example. Miss Vivica Rutledge is a Liberal and a democrat. She opposes Church intervention in politics, and has said as much on several occasions, publicly. She has, I understand, a faction in the Senate, and she is popular enough to be elected and re-elected. Does this cause thee no worry? Are her views not intolerable to the balance of the state? It is as a wolf in sheep’s clothing that the Liberal acts.

 

It was my belief that she and others were quite well-intentioned. However, her dismissive response to criticism reveals her to be an idiot, in the original sense of the word. To a letter of criticism she only responded that she did not knows its author. This is some appeal to voters – some irony on the Liberal part! Now, only the elite she has heard of merit a response. How rich! I am content for my part to seek after the True Riches; the True Wealth. But she is, I mean, really against the Constitution, and uses it against itself. Her opposition to the role of the Church, her religious indifferentism (A form of soft atheism) reveal her to be against the traditional balance of the state. She is, quite plainly, a Liberal, and has many supporters in that. 

 

Now, what will happen if these Liberals gain the Senate? I mean, people who want to enshrine a policy of religious indifferentism and increasing democracy. Well, of course, as thou hast said, the Senate exists on paper only at the consent of the Emperor. Yet, how would this work in reality? If the people are voting for candidates who advocate these policies, then it is clear where their sympathies will lie in a dispute between Emperor and Senate. The Emperor, raging, can say: “If I can storm the Senate, if I can get out an edict, if I can sway the people, I can end your puny assembly of troublemakers!” They need reply one word: “If.” The Liberals would make the Senate the sovereign institution if they could. And in this scenario, it is they who would have the power. To that light, I humbly recommend two courses of action:

 

I)The deplorable absurdity of female suffrage, let alone office-holding, must be turned back against. I have no doubts about the dignity of women and their equality before God. But, as to their responsibilities, they are different. Man is the head and political representative of the household, even in traditional democracies. Mark thou this: when was it that Blessed Julia demanded a seat in the government of her husband? Did Saint Catherine bring people to God through almsgiving, or voting? Did Saint Judith found a congregation of Senators, or of nuns? My learned Lord, I know, as thou shouldst, that our ancestors, including the Saints and Exalted, would regard female suffrage as an absurdity. It is clearly a subversion by the Liberals to try to undermine the state. A wretched innovation. It must be fought against. Only one ‘she’ should be permitted in the Senate, and that is Holy Mother Church.

 

II)An oath against the Modern errors regarding religion should be taken. It should be the Common Creed, with articles to this effect added: “I believe that the Church alone shares in the Prophetic office. Her aim is to advance the reign of God in any sphere. Her jurisdiction is universal and I confess all of her Sacraments, and the right of the Sacred Priesthood to administer them. I confess that only the Canonist religion contains the fullness of truth and swear to advance and uphold her, so help me God.

 

I must confess my ignorance of political matters. I have abstained from public life for some decades; I have only what a few trickling newspapers tell me. However, since no one else is, I feel obliged to caution thee and others against the advance of political Liberalism. And that is the gateway to religious Liberalism – Modernism!

 

Thy humble servant in God,

 

ANON.

 

P.S.: “My Lord, I now realise the extent of the Liberals’ depravity. They are far more open than I knew. Miss Rutledge shows no respect for the moral law or its enforcement, arguing she doesn’t give a ‘f*ck’ about unions between Elves and humans. This implies 1)a separation of the Sacrament of marriage from its form, which is either a dreadful perversion of the Sacrament or a fornication, or 2)A seperation of the state from enforcing the moral law altogether. ‘Tis as clear as the summer sun. Thou must needs – and needs must, I say again – root these subversives out! The Emperor must impose his will, as thou insists he can, on this hotbead of Modernist troublemakers.”