Part 179

II. To appoint and remove freely the Secretaries of the Cabinet, to remove the diplomatic agents and superior employés of the Treasury, and to appoint and remove freely the other employés of the Union whose appointment and removal are not otherwise provided for in the Constitution or in the laws.

III. To appoint ministers, diplomatic agents, consuls-general, with the approval of Congress, and, in its recess, of the Permanent Commission.

IV. To appoint, with the approval of Congress, the colonels and other superior officers of the national army and navy, and the superior employés of the treasury.

V. To appoint the other officers of the national army and navy, according to the laws.

VI. To control the permanent armed force by sea and land for the internal security and external defence of the Federation.

VII. To control the national guard for the same objects within the limits established by Article 72, Clause XX.

VIII. To declare war in the name of the United States of Mexico, after the passage of the necessary law by the Congress of the Union.

IX. To grant letters of marque, subject to bases fixed by the Congress.

X. To direct diplomatic negotiations and make treaties with foreign powers, submitting them for the ratification of the Federal Congress.

XI. To receive ministers and other envoys from foreign powers.

XII. To convoke Congress in extra sessions when the Permanent Commission shall consent to it.

XIII. To furnish the judicial power with that assistance which may be necessary for the prompt exercise of its functions.

XIV. To open all classes of ports, to establish maritime and frontier custom-houses and designate their situation.

XV. To grant, in accordance with the laws, pardons to criminals sentenced for crimes within the jurisdiction of the Federal tribunals.

XVI. To grant exclusive privileges, for a limited time and according to the proper law, to discoverers, inventors, or perfecters of any branch of industry.

Article 86. For the dispatch of the business of the administrative department of the Federation there shall be the number of Secretaries which the Congress may establish by a law, which shall provide for the distribution of business and prescribe what shall be in charge of each Secretary.

Article 87. To be a Secretary of the Cabinet it is required that one shall be a Mexican citizen by birth, in the exercise of his rights, and fully twenty-five years old.

Article 88. All the regulations, decrees, and orders of the President must be signed by the Secretary of the Cabinet who is in charge of the department to which the subject belongs. Without this requisite they shall not be obeyed.

Article 89. The Secretaries of the Cabinet, as soon as the sessions of the first period shall be opened, shall render an account to the Congress of the state of their respective departments.

Article 90. The exercise of the judicial power of the Federation is vested in a Supreme Court of Justice and in the district and circuit courts.

Article 91. The Supreme Court of Justice shall be composed of eleven judges, four supernumeraries, one fiscal, and one attorney-general.

Article 92. Each of the members of the Supreme Court of Justice shall remain in office six years, and his election shall be indirect in the first degree, under conditions established by the electoral law.

Article 93. In order to be elected a member of the Supreme Court of Justice it is necessary that one be learned in the science of the law in the judgment of the electors, more than thirty-five years old, and a Mexican citizen by birth, in the exercise of his rights.

Article 94. The members of the Supreme Court of Justice, on entering upon the exercise of their charge, shall take an oath before Congress, and, in its recesses, before the Permanent Commission, in the following form: "Do you swear to perform loyally and patriotically the charge of Magistrate of the Supreme Court of Justice, which the people have conferred upon you in conformity with the Constitution, seeking in everything the welfare and prosperity of the Union?"

[Footnote: See Additions to the Constitution, September 25, 1873. ]

Article 95. A member of the Supreme Court of Justice may resign his office only for grave cause, approved by the Congress, to whom the resignation shall be presented. In the recesses of the Congress the judgment shall be rendered by the Permanent Commission.

Article 96. The law shall establish and organize the circuit and district courts.

Article 97. It belongs to the Federal tribunals to take cognizance of:

I. All controversies which may arise in regard to the fulfilment and application of the Federal laws, except in the case in which the application affects only private interests; such a case falls within the competence of the local judges and tribunals of the common order of the States, of the Federal District, and of the Territory of Lower California.

II. All cases pertaining to maritime law.

III. Those in which the Federation may be a party.

IV. Those that may arise between two or more States.

V. Those that may arise between a State and one or more citizens of another State.

VI. Civil or criminal cases that may arise under treaties with foreign powers.

VII. Cases concerning diplomatic agents and consuls.

Article 98. It belongs to the Supreme Court of Justice, in the first instance, to take cognizance of controversies which may arise between one State and another, and of those in which the Union may be a party.

Article 99. It belongs also to the Supreme Court of Justice to determine the questions of jurisdiction which may arise between the Federal tribunals, between these and those of the States, or between the courts of one State and those of another.

Article 100. In the other cases comprehended in Article 97, the Supreme Court of Justice shall be a court of appeal or, rather, of last resort, according to the graduation which the law may make in the jurisdiction of the circuit and district courts.

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Article 101. The tribunals of the Federation shall decide all questions which arise:

I. Under laws or acts of whatever authority which violate individual guarantees.

II. Under laws or acts of the State authority which violate or restrain the sovereignty of the States.

III. Under laws or acts of the State authority which invade the sphere of the Federal authority.

Article 102. All the judgments which the preceding article mentions shall be had on petition of the aggrieved party, by means of judicial proceedings and forms which shall be prescribed by law. The sentence shall be always such as to affect private individuals only, limiting itself to defend and protect them in the special case to which the process refers, without making any general declaration respecting the law or act which gave rise to it.

Article 103. The Senators, the Deputies, the members of the Supreme Court of Justice, and the Secretaries of the Cabinet are responsible for the common crimes which they may commit during their terms of office, and for the crimes, misdemeanors, and negligence into which they may fall in the performance of the duties of said office. The Governors of the States are likewise responsible for the infraction of the Constitution and Federal laws. The President of the Republic is also responsible; but during the term of his office he may be accused only for the crimes of treason against the country, express violation of the Constitution, attack on the freedom of election, and grave crimes of the common order. The high functionaries of the Federation shall not enjoy any Constitutional privilege for the official crimes, misdemeanors, or negligence into which they may fall in the performance of any employment, office, or public commission which they may have accepted during the period for which, in conformity with the law, they shall have been elected. The same shall happen with respect to those common crimes which they may commit during the performance of said employment, office, or commission. In order that the cause may be initiated when the high functionary shall have returned to the exercise of his proper functions, proceeding should be undertaken in accordance with the provision of Article 104 of this Constitution.

Article 104. If the crime should be a common one, the House of Representatives, formed into a grand jury, shall declare, by an absolute majority of votes, whether there is or is not ground to proceed against the accused. In the negative case, there shall be no ground for further proceedings; in the affirmative, the accused shall be, by the said act, deprived of his office, and subjected to the action of the ordinary tribunals.

Article 105. The houses shall take cognizance of official crimes, the House of Deputies as a jury of accusation, the Senators as a jury of judgment. The jury of accusation shall have for its object to declare, by an absolute majority of votes, whether the accused is or is not culpable. If the declaration should be absolutory, the functionary shall continue in the exercise of his office; if it should be condemnatory, he shall be immediately deprived of his office, and shall be placed at the disposal of the Senate. The latter, formed into a jury of judgment, and, with the presence of the criminal and of the accuser, if there should be one, shall proceed to apply, by an absolute majority of votes, the punishment which the law designates.

Article 106. A judgment of responsibility for official crimes having been pronounced, no favor of pardon may be extended to the offender.

Article 107. The responsibility for official crimes and misdemeanors may be required only during the period in which the functionary remains in office, and one year thereafter.

Article 108. With respect to demands of the Civil order, there shall be no privilege or immunity for any public functionary.

Article 109. The States shall adopt for their internal regimen the popular, representative, republican form of government, and may provide in their respective Constitutions for the reelection of the Governors in accordance with what Article 78 provides for the President of the Republic.

Article 110. The States may regulate among themselves, by friendly agreements, their respective boundaries; but those regulations shall not be carried into effect without the approval of the Congress of the Union.

Article 111. The States may not in any case:

1. Form alliances, treaties, or coalitions with another State, or with foreign powers, excepting the coalition which the frontier States may make for offensive or defensive war against the Indians.

II. Grant letters of marque or reprisal.

III. Coin money, or emit paper money or stamped paper.

Article 112. Neither may any State, without the consent of the Congress of the Union:

I. Establish tonnage duties, or any port duty, or impose taxes or duties upon importations or exportations.

II. Have at any time permanent troops or vessels of war.

III. Make war by itself on any foreign power except in cases of invasion or of such imminent peril as to admit of no delay. In these cases the State shall give notice immediately to the President of the Republic.

Article 113. Each State is under obligation to deliver without delay the criminals of other States to the authority that claims them.

Article 114. The Governors of the States are obliged to publish and cause to be obeyed the Federal laws.

Article 115. In each State of the Federation entire faith and credit shall be given to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of all the other States. The Congress may, by means of general laws, prescribe the manner of proving said acts, records, and proceedings, and the effect thereof.

Article 116. The powers of the Union are bound to protect the States against all invasion or external violence. In case of insurrection or internal disturbance they shall give them like protection, provided the Legislature of the State, or the Executive, if the Legislature is not in session, shall request it.

Article 117. The powers which are not expressly granted by this Constitution to the Federal authorities are understood to be reserved to the States.

Article 118. No person may at the same time hold two Federal elective offices; but if elected to two, he may choose which of them he will fill.

Article 119. No payment shall be made which is not comprehended in the budget or determined by a subsequent law.

Article 120. The President of the Republic, the members of the Supreme Court of Justice, the Deputies, and other public officers of the Federation, who are chosen by popular election, shall receive a compensation for their services, which shall be determined by law and paid by the Federal Treasury. This compensation may not be renounced, and any law which augments or diminishes it shall not have effect during the period for which a functionary holds the office.

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Article 121. Every public officer, without any exception, before taking possession of his office, shall take an oath to maintain this Constitution and the laws which emanate from it.

[Footnote: See the Additions of September 25, 1873.]

Article 122. In time of peace no military authority may exercise more functions than those which have close connection with military discipline. There shall be fixed and permanent military commands only in the castles, fortresses, and magazines which are immediately under the government of the Union; or in encampments, barracks, or depots which may be established outside of towns for stationing troops.

Article 123. It belongs exclusively to the Federal authorities to exercise, in matters of religious worship and external discipline, the intervention which the laws may designate.

Article 124. The States shall not impose any duty for the simple passage of goods in the internal commerce. The Government of the Union alone may decree transit duties, but only with respect to foreign goods which cross the country by international or interoceanic lines, without being on the national territory more time than is necessary to traverse it and depart to the foreign country. They shall not prohibit, either directly or indirectly, the entrance to their territory, or the departure from it, of any merchandise, except on police grounds; nor burden the articles of national production on their departure for a foreign country or for another State. The exemptions from duties which they concede shall be general; they may not be decreed in favor of the products of specified origin. The quota of the import for a given amount of merchandise shall be the same, whatever may have been its origin, and no heavier burden may be assigned to it than that which the similar products of the political entity in which the import is decreed bear. The national merchandise shall not be submitted to definite route nor to inspection or registry on the ways, nor any fiscal document be demanded for its internal circulation. Nor shall they burden foreign merchandise with a greater quota than that which may have been permitted them by the Federal law to receive.

Article 125. The forts, military quarters, magazines, and other edifices necessary to the government of the Union shall be under the immediate inspection of the Federal authorities.

Article 126. This Constitution, the laws of the Congress of the Union which emanate from it, and all the treaties made or which shall be made by the President of the Republic, with the approval of Congress, shall be the supreme law of the whole Union. The judges of each State shall be guided by said Constitution, law, and treaties in spite of provisions to the contrary which may appear in the Constitutions or laws of the States.

Article 127. The present Constitution may be added to or reformed. In order that additions or alterations may become part of the Constitution, it is required that the Congress of the Union, by a vote of two-thirds of the members present, shall agree to the alterations or additions, and that these shall be approved by the majority of the Legislatures of the States. The Congress of the Union shall count the votes of the Legislatures and make the declaration that the reforms or additions have been approved.

Article 128. This Constitution shall not lose its force and vigor even if its observance be interrupted by a rebellion. In case that by any public disturbance a government contrary to the principles which it sanctions shall be established, as soon as the people recover their liberty its observance shall be reestablished, and in accordance with it and the laws which shall have been issued in virtue of it, shall be judged not only those who shall have figured in the government emanating from the rebellion, but also those who shall have cooperated with it.

Additions.

Article 1. The State and the Church are independent of one another. The Congress may not pass laws establishing or prohibiting any religion.

Article 2. Marriage is a civil contract. This and the other acts relating to the civil state of persons belong to the exclusive jurisdiction of the functionaries and authorities of the civil order, within limits provided by the laws, and they shall have the force and validity which the same attribute to them.

Article 3. No religious institution may acquire real estate or capital fixed upon it, with the single exception established in Article 27 of this Constitution.

Article 4. The simple promise to speak the truth and to comply with the obligations which have been incurred, shall be substituted for the religious oath, with its effects and penalties.

CONSTITUTION OF MEXICO: End----------

CONSTITUTION OF NETHERLANDS KINGDOM. After 1830, this became the Kingdom of Holland.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1830-1832, and 1830-1884.

NETHERLANDS: End----------

CONSTITUTION OF NORWAY.

"On May 17, 1814, … a constitution was granted to Norway. The Fundamental Law of the constitution (Grundlöv), which almost every peasant farmer now-a-days has framed and hung up in the chief room of his house, bears the date the 4th of November 1814."

_C. F. Keary, Norway and the Norwegians, chapter 13._

The following the text of the constitution as granted in 1814:

Title I.

Article 1. The kingdom of Norway is a free, independent, undivisible, and inalienable state, united to Sweden under the same king. The form of its government is limited, hereditary, and monarchical.

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Article 2. The Lutheran evangelical religion shall continue to be the ruling religion of the kingdom; those of the inhabitants which profess it are bound to bring up their children in its tenets; Jesuits and monastic orders shall not be prohibited in the kingdom. The admission of Jews into the kingdom shall always be, as formerly, prohibited.

Title II.

Article 1. The executive power is declared to be in the person of the king.

Article 2. The king shall always profess the evangelical Lutheran religion, which he shall maintain and protect.

Article 3. The person of the king is sacred: he can neither be blamed or accused.

Article 4. The succession is lineal, and collateral, such as it is determined by the order of succession decreed by the general estates of Sweden, and sanctioned by the king in the Act of the 26th September 1810, of which a translation is annexed to this Constitution. Of the number of legitimate heirs, is comprehended the child in its mother's womb, which, as soon as it shall be born, after the death of its father, takes the place which is due to him in the line of succession. When a Prince, heir of the re-united crowns of Norway and Sweden, shall be born, his name, and the day of his birth shall be announced at the first Storthing, and inscribed in the registers.

Article 5. Should there not be found any prince, a legitimate heir to the throne, the king can propose his successor at the Storthing of Norway, and at the same time to the states general of Sweden. As soon as the king shall have made the proposition, the representatives of the two nations shall choose from among them a committee, invested with the right of determining the election, in case the king's proposition should not, by the plurality of voices, be approved of separately by the representatives of each of the countries. The number of members of this committee, shall be composed of an equal number of Norwegians and Swedes, so that the step to follow in the election shall be regulated by a law which the king shall propose at the same time to the next Storthing, and the states general of Sweden. They shall draw by lot one out of the committee for its member.

Article 6. The Storthing of Norway, and the states general of Sweden shall concert to fix by a law the king's majority; if they cannot agree, a committee, taken from the representatives of the two nations, shall decide it in the manner established by article 5th, title 2nd. As soon as the king shall have attained the years of majority fixed by the law, he shall publicly declare that he is of age.

[Footnote: Storthing is the national assembly, or general estates of the kingdom.]

[Footnote: A law of the Storthing, 13th July 1815, and sanctioned by the king, declared that the king is major on arriving at the age of eighteen years.]

Article 7. When the king comes of age he shall take into his hands the reins of government, and make the following oath to the Storthing: "I swear, on my soul and conscience, to govern the kingdom of Norway conformably to its constitution and laws." If the Storthing is not then assembled, this oath shall be deposited in writing in the council, and solemnly repeated by the king at the first Storthing, either vivâ voce or by writing, by the person whom he shall have appointed to this effect.

Article 8. The coronation of the king shall take place when he is of age, in the cathedral of Drontheim, at the time and with those ceremonies that shall be fixed by himself.

Article 9. The King shall pass some time in Norway yearly, unless this is prevented by urgent circumstances.

Article 10. The king shall exclusively choose a council of Norwegians, citizens, who shall have attained the seventieth year of their age. This council shall be composed at least of a minister of state, and seven other members. In like manner the king can create a viceroy or a government. The king shall arrange the affairs between the members of the council, in such manner as he shall consider expedient. Besides these ordinary members of council, the king, or in his absence the viceroy (or the government jointly with the ordinary members of council) may on particular occasions, call other Norwegians, citizens, to sit there, provided they are not members of the Storthing. The father and son, or two brothers, shall not, at the same time, have a seat in the council.