struction to it which should involve a violation, however unintentional, of the Constitution." This presumption only applies where there is some real doubt or ambiguity. If a statute is clearly unconstitutional, it is the duty of the courts to so declare it; no court has the right to save any law by giving to it a meaning which it clearly did not have in the minds of those who passed it. SECTION 15. PRESUMPTIONS AGAINST IMPOSSIBILITY, In all cases of doubt or ambiguity as to the meaning of any statute that presumption will be adopted which will avoid impossible, unjust, inconvenient, or absurd provisions in such a statute. These presumptions, like the one discussed in the previous section, can only apply where there is a real doubt. If the impossible, unjust, inconvenient, or absurd results were actually intended by the legislature the law must stand as adopted. An impossible provision, of course, can be of no effect (unless it was put in the form of a condition subsequent), but the unjust, inconvenient and absurd provisions will be enforced (theoretically, at least, if not always in practice). In People for the use of Hall vs. Admire,' the Supreme Court of Illinois, construed a section of the statute of wills in that state providing that a demand must be made upon the administrator within a certain period or the claim against the estate would be barred. It was held that this could not be held to apply where the administrator had died and no new one been appointed. "The statute must receive a sensible con• 39 Ill., 252. struction even though such construction qualifies the universality of its language. When it directs that a demand shall be made upon an administrator by a person entitled, under the order of the Court, to money in his hands, it must be considered as having reference to cases where there is an administrator in being, upon whom the demand can be made. The demand is, in most cases, a matter of form, intended to protect parties from needless costs, and its requirement by the law was not designed to be used as a shield from liability, after a demand had become impossible. The law is not so unreasonable as to require the performance of impossibilities as a condition to the assertion of acknowledged rights, and when legislatures use language so broad as apparently to lead to such results, the courts must say, as they have always said, that the legislature cannot have intended to include those cases in which, by the act of God, a literal obedience to their mandate has become impossible. "The law itself, and the administration of it,' said Sir William Scott, as quoted in Broom's Maxims, page 181, 'must yield to that to which everything must bend-to necessity. The law, in its most positive and preemptory injunctions, is understood to disclaim, as it does in its general aphorisms, all intention of compelling to impossibilities, and the administration of laws must adopt that general exception in the consideration of all particular cases.'" As to absurd consequences, Washington, J., in his opinion in United States vs. Fisher, said: "If the literal expressions of the law would lead to absurd, unjust or inconvenient consequences, such a construction should be given as to avoid such consequences, if, 2 Cranch, 358, 400. from the whole purview of the law, and giving effect to the words used, it may fairly be done." SECTION 16. OTHER PRESUMPTIONS. Among the other presumptions which may be employed in the construction of statutes, the following may be mentioned: The presumption that the legislative department has not exceeded the scope of its authority. The presumption against any violation of the generally recognized principles of International Law. The presumption that the legislative body did not intend that the statute should have extra-territorial effect. The presumption against inconsistency by the legislative body. The presumption against ineffectiveness. The presumption against irrepéalable laws. The presumption against implied repeal of laws; which is in its nature closely connected with the presumption against unnecessary change of laws. The presumption against any violation of good morals. The presumption against any interference with the public policy of the State. • Ferguson vs. Stanford, 60 Conn., 432. CHAPTER IV. AIDS TO CONSTRUCTION. SECTION 17. THE CONTEXT. The first aid to be resorted to in the construction of a statute is the context. By the term context is meant those parts of the statute which follow or precede the part which is the subject of construction, or are so intimately associated with it as to throw light upon its meaning. The statements in the preceding paragraph are merely in line with the fundamental underlying principle that the whole of a statute must be construed together, and if possible, effect given to every part of it. "It is a general rule, without exception, in construing statutes, that effect must be given to all their provisions if such a construction is consistent with the general purposes of the act and the provisions are not necessarily conflicting. All the acts of the legislature should be so construed, if practicable, that one section will not defeat or destroy another, but explain and support it. When a provision admits of more than one construction, that one will be adopted which best serves to carry out the purposes of the act."1 "It is not by detached words and phrases that a statute ought to be expounded. The whole act must be taken together, and a fair interpretation given to it, neither extending nor restricting it beyond the legitimate import of its language, and its obvious policy and object." 1 Bernier vs. Bernier, 147 U. S., 242, 246. Taney, C. J., in Gayler vs. Wilder, 10 Howard, 477, 496. |