< Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu
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Ki: 'MI I.KCTIoNS OK AN OLD PlONKKK. 277

amended by the very same body that passed the original bill,

m<l at the instance of the very same member who intro-

duced it. An act that is simply prospective, and does not take effect until two years after the date of its passage, is an incomplete measure, liable to be amended at any time before it goes into operation; and, if amended before any one suffers any injury frm its erroneous provisions, those provisions are as if they never had been. It is like a bill imperfect when first introduced by a member of a legislative body, and so amended by the author, before its final passage, as to remove its ob- jectionable features. In such case no sensible man would censure the introducer for mistakes he himself had corrected. All that could be said is, that the second sober thought of the member was better than his first hasty thought. It was substantially so in this case. In the hurry of the June session of 1844 I could not think of any other mode of nforeinir the act but the one adopted; but by the December <>n of 1844 I had found another and less objectionable remedy, and promptly adopted it. This remedy was not the one urged by the executive committee, as will easily be seen. Neither myself nor the other members who voted for the original bill are responsible for the objectionable features of the measure, because we ourselves corrected the error. I maintain as true this general proposition: that a person who commits a mistake, and then corrects it himself, before any >ne suffers in consequence of it. deserve* a commendation in- stc ;l d of a censure; because the act of correction shows a love of justice, and a magnanimous willingness to admit and cor- rect error. All the intense indignation of the historian is. then-fore, thrown away upon an imaginary evil, about which he is as much mistaken as the girl that wept over the imagin- ary death of her imaginary infant. On page 378 the historian gives, professed!;/ from the Journal, the yeas and nays upon the final passage of the original bill, as follows: "Yeas, Burnett, (iilmore, Kei/er. Y;il.l>. .vell. and Mr. Speaker MeCarver 8; nays. L..VC

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