Facts of the Case
This was an action in the nature of quo warranto brought, under the statutes of Kentucky, by J. C. W. Beckham against William S. Taylor and John Marshall, for usurpation of the offices of governor and Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky, in the Circuit Court of Jefferson County in that commonwealth.
Conclusions
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The Court of Appeals of Kentucky decided that the courts had no power to go behind the determination of the General Assembly in such a contest, duly recorded in the journals thereof; that the office of Governor or of Lieutenant Governor was not property in itself, and, moreover, that, under the constitution and laws of Kentucky, such determination being an authorized mode of ascertaining the result of an election for Governor and Lieutenant Governor, the persons declared elected to those offices on the face of the returns by the Board of Canvassers only provisionally occupied them because subject to the final determination of the General Assembly on contests duly initiated. Held: (1) That the judgment of the Court of Appeals to the effect that it was not empowered to revise the determination by the General Assembly adverse to plaintiffs in error in the matter of election to these offices was not a decision against a title, right, privilege or immunity secured by the Constitution of the United States, and plaintiffs in error could not invoke jurisdiction because of deprivation, under the circumstances, of property or vested rights, without due process of law.
The States and the NLRB: A Study in Comparative Sovereignty
Engage Volume 12, Issue 3, November 2011
Under a system of government that diffuses power and makes institutional “[a]mbition . . ....