journals the cause, or the facts constituting the occasion or urgency, for dispensing with the rule requiring three readings on different days when it has power to dispense with it.1 § 48. If the constitution, however, requires a certain proceeding in the process of legislation to be entered in the journals, the entry is a condition on which the validity of the act will depend. The vital fact that on the final passage of a bill the required number of votes are given in its favor is extensively directed by constitutions to be entered on the journals. Under the operation of these provisions, there is no presumption that the required vote was given if the journal is silent. It must affirmatively appear by the journals that this constitutional requirement has been complied with.2 Harrison v. Gordy, 57 id. 49; Mc- 1 Hull v. Miller, 4 Neb. 503. 2 State v. Buckley, 54 Ala. 599; State v. Francis, 26 Kan. 724; In re Vanderberg, 28 id. 243; Weyand v. Stover, 35 id. 545; South Ottawa v. Perkins, 94 U. S. 260; People v. Mahaney, 13 Mich. 481; Spangler v. Jacoby, 14 Ill. 297; People v. Starne, 35 id. 121; Ryan v. Lynch, 68 id. 160; Post v. Supervisors, 105 U. S. 667; Osburn v. Staley, 5 W. Va. 85; Bouldin v. Lockhart, 1 Lea, 195. Where it appeared upon the journals of the house of representatives that the bill did not receive the requisite vote on its third reading in that body, but did upon its final passage by the house after its return from the senate with amendments, it was held a substantial compliance. Bond Debt Cases, 12 S. C. 200. In Osburn v. Staley, supra, it appeared that the full senate had consisted of twenty-two members; that one afterwards resigned. On the final passage of the bill in question, after such resignation, there were eleven votes in its favor, and it was declared passed and by a majority of In State v. Francis, supra, the act Under the Michigan constitution, requiring on the final passage of a bill a majority of all the members elected, it was held that the court would not enter into an inquiry whether de facto members were properly elected. People v. Mahaney, supra. In Turley v. County of Logan, 17 Ill. 153, it was said by the court that "while the absence of facts in the journals may rebut the presumption raised by the signatures of the proper officers, and the publication of the act as a law, still we cannot doubt the power of the same legislature, at the same or a subsequent session, to correct its own journals by amendments which show the true facts as they actually occurred, when they In Miller v. State,1 Thurman, C. J., used this emphatic language: "That the power to make laws is vested in the assembly alone, and that no act has any force that was not passed by the number of votes required by the constitution, are nearly or quite self-evident propositions. These essentials relate to the authority by which, rather than to the mode in which, laws are to be made." § 49. Required readings of bills. The readings required of bills are intended to afford opportunities for deliberate consideration of them in detail, and for amendment. Hence, amendments are admissible during the progress of a bill through the process of enactment; they are not subject to the same rule as bills in regard to the number of readings. They must be germane to the subject of the bill, and are not required to be read three times. Nor does concurrence by one house in amendments made by the other require the yeas and nays, and their entry on the journal, under the provision for these things on the final passage of bills.1 It is not necessary that everything which is to become law by the adoption of a bill be read. Thus a bill may be passed for the adoption of the common law, and it would not be necessary to set it forth in the bill. An act was held valid which provided for the punishment as at common law of misdemeanors for which no punishment was provided by statute.5 The requirement that bills be read on different days will not prevent one house from reading a bill the first time on the same day it was read the third time and passed in the other house.6 § 50. What shall be sufficient cause for suspending the rule requiring the readings on different days is solely within the discretion of the legislative body voting it, where power to dispense with it is given.7 are satisfied that by neglect or design the truth has been omitted or suppressed." 13 Ohio St. 475. 4 Hull v. Miller, 4 Neb. 503. 5 Dew v. Cunningham, 28 Ala. 471 ; Dane v. McArthur, 57 Ala. 454; People v. Whipple, 47 Cal. 592; Bibb 2 State v. Platt, 2 S. C. 150; S. C. 16 County Loan Asso. v. Richards, 21 Am. R. 647. 3 Miller v. State, 3 Ohio St. 475; People v. Wallace, 70 Ill. 680; State v. Platt, supra. Ga. 592. 6 Chicot Co. v. Davies, 40 Ark. 200; State v. Crawford, 35 id. 237. 7 Hull v. Miller, 4 Neb. 503. The requirement that there be three readings and that they occur on three different days, being intended to prevent hasty and imprudent legislation, ought on principle to be, and by the weight of authority is, regarded as mandatory. In Ohio it seems to be regarded as directory.2 § 51. Necessity of signature of presiding officers. Where the constitution requires every bill passed to be signed by the presiding officers of the respective houses, it is mandatory, and cannot be dispensed with where the journals are not records, and the act when passed and duly authenticated is conclusive as a record. But where such fact is required to be entered on the journal it is necessary as the evidence of the due passage of the bill. If the constitution does not require their signing, it is not deemed essential. And since it is no part of the essential process of legislation, and is designed solely to verify the passage of the bill or resolution, where the legislative journals and files are records of which the court takes judicial notice, or which may be brought to judicial notice, and from them it plainly appears that the bill or resolution, not signed by one or both of the presiding officers, was regularly considered and passed, there is much reason to sustain it as valid notwithstanding the absence of those signatures. If that evidence will prevail to avoid a statute erroneously signed by them, it should suffice to sustain one which was duly passed, though lacking that particular verification, if the other record evidence sufficiently shows the essential proceedings. The signature of the presiding officer is in such cases only a certificate to the governor that the bill or resolution has passed the requisite number of readings, and been adopted by the constitutional majority of the house over which he presides. But where the vote must be determined by the journals, the absence of the signatures of the presiding officers is not fatal, if the governor has signed the bill, for it will be pre4 Speer v. Plank Road Co. 22 Pa. St. 376. 1 Ante, § 45; Cooley, Const. L. 170. 2 Miller v. State, 3 Ohio St. 481; Pim v. Nicholson, 6 id. 178. People v. Commissioners, 54 N. Y. 276; Pacific R. R. Co. v. The Governor, 23 Mo. 364; Cooley's Const. Lim. 153; Burrough, Pub. Securities, 425. 5 Hull v. Miller, 4 Neb. 503; Cottrell v. State, 9 Neb. 128; Commissioners v. Higginbotham, 17 Kan. 75; State v. Glenn, 18 Nev. 39; Houston, etc. R. R. Co. v. Odum, 53 Tex. 343. sumed that the governor had sufficient evidence, the assurance which the journals afford to the court, of its passage at the time of his approval The court § 52. How the validity of statutes is tried. takes judicial notice of all general laws. This is a cardinal rule, and necessarily includes cognizance of whatever must be considered in determining what the law is; not because it is the prerogative of the courts arbitrarily to determine what are the public statutes, nor because they are required or supposed to have a knowledge of those laws without evidence of them, but because they have the means, and it is their duty, to make themselves acquainted with them.' Whatever extrinsic facts are proper to be considered, the courts may have recourse to to aid them in their duty to ascertain the law. Judicial knowledge takes in its whole range and scope at once; it embraces simultaneously, in contemplation of law, all the facts to which it extends. It would be a solecism to hold that a statute regularly authenticated is prima facie valid, if there exist facts of which the court must take judicial notice showing it to be void. On principle and the weight of authority the courts take judicial notice of the legislative journals. If they invalidate a statute it is not apparently valid, for in every view of it the court perceives what impugns it and prevents its having force. And if the court has other sources of information which explored disclose facts fatal to an act, it is void from the beginning, void on its face; for what is manifest to the judicial mind is legally palpable to the whole public. None can plead ignorance of it. It is, however, held in some of the states that the courts do not take such judicial notice of legislative journals and extrinsic facts. In Grob v. Cushman, the court say: "It is true. that they are public records, but it does not follow that they are to be regarded as within the knowledge of the courts like public laws. Like other records and public documents they should be brought before the court as evidence. But when offered they prove their own authenticity. Until so produced they cannot be regarded by the courts." It is held in that 1 Eld v. Gorham, 20 Conn. 8. 245 III. 124, 125; Illinois Cent. R. R. Co. v. Wren, 43 Ill. 77; Larrison v. 2 Peoria, etc. R. R. Co. 77 id. 18; People v. De Wolf, 62 Ill. 253. state not to be the province of the court, at the suggestion or request of counsel, to explore the journals for the purpose of ascertaining the manner in which a law duly certified went through the legislature and into the hands of the governor.' § 53. These cases came under review in the supreme court of the United States in Town of South Ottawa v. Perkins,2 and that court was in doubt and divided on the question whether by the state decision the validity of a statute was a conclusion of law or fact, when the statute, properly authenticated, is avoided by the legislative journals showing it was not constitutionally enacted. The majority, by Bradley, J., say: "In our judgment it was not necessary to have raised an issue on the subject, except by demurrer to the declaration. The court is bound to know the law without taking the advice of a jury on the subject. When once it became a settled construction of the constitution of Illinois that no act can be deemed a valid law unless by the journals of the legislature it appears to have been regularly passed by both houses, it became the duty of the courts to take judicial notice of the journal entries in that regard. The courts of Illinois may decline to take that trouble, unless the parties bring the matter to their attention; but on general principles the question as to the existence of a law is a judicial one, and must be so regarded by the courts of the United States." § 54. The investigation upon an objection that an act was unconstitutionally passed may be expected to be made primarily by the parties; they will desire to be heard in respect to the source and the evidentiary quality of information obtained, and the effect of facts considered. Doubtless this interest of the parties, and a conservatism of the courts restraining them from a consideration of any important ingredient of a case without notice to the parties, and the aid of their counsel, have induced the course of decision in Illinois and in some other states in which it is held that the courts will not take judicial notice of the legislative journals, though they are required by the constitution to be kept, and will be considered only when brought before the court as evidence. It has been intimated 1 Illinois Cent. R. R. Co. v. Wren, supra. 294 U. S. 260. 3 Post v. Supervisors, 105 U. S. 667. 4 Burt v. Winona, etc. R. R. Co. 31 Minn. 472; S. C. 4 Am, & Eng. Corp. |