Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 3).pdf/449

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STATE v. BOUCHER.
409

universal Subsequent provisions expressly granting appointing power are meaningless and confusing surplusage. But we are not allowed to thus construe the organic law. “In written constitutions there are no meaningless words. In the declared will of the sovereign people, every word has an office and a purpose. Hence these subsequent provisions must be necessary, and, if necessary it is because power to appoint to office does not necessarily adhere in executive power.” One further quotation will be excused by reason of the incomparable ability and fairness of the mind from which it issued. “The inferences which I think follow from these views are two: First, that the denomination of a department does not fix the limits of the powers conferred upon it, nor even their exact nature; and, second, (which, indeed, follows from the first,) that in our American governments the chief executive magistrate does not necessarily, and by force of his general character of supreme executive, possess the appointing power. He may have it or he may not, according to the particular provisions applicable to each case in the respective constitutions.” Webster's Speech on the Presidential Protest.

A careful study of all authorities to which we have been cited and all that we are able to find has made it entirely clear to each member of this court that the power of appointment to office does not necessarily and in all cases inhere in the executive department, and that when, as in this state, the express provisions of the constitution vest in the governor a limited power of appointment, such grant is exclusive, and no other or greater appointing power can be exercised. It is different with the legislative department. It is conceded in the brief of counsel that, by the great weight of authority, constitutional provisions are in the nature of grants of power to the executive and judiciary, but are limitations upon the power of the legislature. This is no doubt true. All governmental power not by the constitution lodged elsewhere resides in the legislature. ‘Whenever a power is not distinctly either legislative, executive, or judicial, and is not by the constitution distinctly confided to a department of the government