SPRINGER AMENDMENT

TO THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION.

The following amendment to the Constitution of the United States is proposed by Congressman Springer, of Illinois:

ARTICLE XV

The Congress shall have power to make a uniform law of marriage and divorce.

Appended hereto are the causes of divorce, in this country, compiled from the Revised Statutes and subsequent session laws of the various States.

From this summary it will be seen that there is less real diversity in the divorce laws of the different States than many suppose.

Leaving out of the account South Carolina, in which State, though for certain causes the marriage is void or may be declared void, there is no law of divorce, we find that adultery is a cause for divorce, in every State. In three only, is there any. difference in this respect, whether the adultery is committed by wife or husband. In Kentucky, adultery by the wife is sufficient, but it is necessary that the husband should be living in adultery. So in North Carolina and Texas, the act on the part of the wife is sufficient, while the husband must be separated and living in adultery. In Texas, he must have abandoned his wife.

Again, in all the States but two, Connecticut and Louisiana, impotency is cause for divorce, or for declaring the marriage void. In many of the States, it must have existed at the time

of the marriage, and in some, it must be continuing at the time, of application for divorce.

In all the States, abandonment is cause for divorce. The difference is in time of absence. But that may be considered matter of evidence; the question being the intent to abandon. In Virginia and Louisiana, that intent will not be considered sufficiently proved, until there has been an absence of five years. In Rhode Island it may be five years or less in the discretion of the Court. In Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Texas, West Virginia, Vermont and Ohio, the time specified is three years. In Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Iowa, Nebraska and Pennsylvania, two years will suffice, while in Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Nevada, Oregon, Wisconsin, Washington and Montana, one year is deemed sufficient. In California, New Hampshire, Tennessee, North and South Dakota, New York and North Carolina, the abandonment may be proven by any competent evidence, without reference to the time of absence. But in New York and North Carolina the divorce from this cause can only be from bed and board.

In some States divorce can be obtained for absence a certain number of years without being heard from-willful absence a certain number of years, etc.

Again, cruelty is cause for divorce in all the States; though in Michigan, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Georgia and Maryland, only separation from bed and board can be obtained for this cause. In Nebraska, the divorce may be complete, or from bed and board only; so also in Tennessee, at the discretion of the Court. The degree and nature of the cruelty are differently characterized in different States. Thus, in Virginia, Washington, Georgia and Maryland, it is simply cruelty, or cruel treatment; in California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Kansas, Nebraska, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Nevada, Michigan, Ohio, Montana and New Jersey, it is extreme cruelty; Illinois, extreme and repeated cruelty; Connecticut, intolerable cruelty; in Indiana, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Tennessee,

Wisconsin, and West Virginia, cruel and inhuman treatment; in Vermont, intolerable severity; etc., etc. In Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, it must endanger life. In Kentucky only is any time specified. In that State, the statute requires cruel and inhuman behavior for six months. But cruel beating or injury, or attempt to commit such personal violence, is made a special cause, without reference to duration of time.

Habitual drunkenness is a cause for divorce in thirty-three States. In Arkansas, Colorado, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Oregon and Montana, it must have continued one year; in Illinois; two years; in New Hampshire and Ohio three years. In Wisconsin, if the wife is given to intoxication, it is cause of divorce in favor of the husband, but on his part, the habit must have been of one year's continuance. In Kentucky, it must be accompanied by a failure to provide for the family.

In Georgia, North Carolina and West Virginia, drunkenness is cause for divorce from bed and board only.

In twenty-eight States, having former husband or wife living, is either cause for divorce, or, as in most cases, the marriage is on that account, void or voidable.

In thirty-five States, imprisonment for, or conviction of felony or other infamous crime is cause for divorce; in Alabama, Kansas, New Hampshire, Ohio, Texas, Vermont and Washington, actual imprisonment is required; in the others, conviction is sufficient. In New Hampshire, the imprisonment must be for more than a year; in Vermont, under sentence for three years or more; in Alabama, two years, under sentence for seven years or more. In Maine, sentence to imprisonment for life and confinement under it, render the marriage void. In some of the States, which require conviction and sentence only, the sentence must be for life or a term of years.

Here are the seven principal causes of divorce. Adultery, abandonment or cruelty is sufficient in all the States; impotency in all but two, while habitual drunkenness, crime, or having former husband or wife living, is sufficient in a large majority of them.

Thus there is a consensus of the States upon the subject,

growing out of a common understanding as to the mutual obligations of husband and wife. These obligations are well summed up in the Ohio statute:

"Husband and wife contract toward each her obligations of mutual respect, fidelity and support."

It will be noticed that there are in some of the States special causes of divorce, which do not prevail in the others. And in Maryland and Rhode Island, divorce may be obtained when the marriage was void; in the latter State also when it is voidable merely. In the absence of any statutory provision upon the subject, the courts would refuse to grant a divorce for cause which rendered the marriage void; there not being, in that case, any binding marriage, such as would be necessary to sustain the decree.-(See Finn v. Finn, 62 How. [N. Y.] Pr. 83.) In South Carolina, the marriage is void when there was a former husband or wife living, with certain exceptions specified. Also marriages between whites and colored people, are declared by statute null and void. Marriages are voidable also for want of consent, or when for other cause not valid.

There is, however, as before stated, no law of divorce in South Carolina. By Act of 1878, all divorce laws in that State were repealed. The State Constitution gives the Courts of Common Pleas jurisdiction in cases of divorce. But Art. XIV requires a judgment of a court "as shall be pronounced by law;" and in Grant v. Grant, 12 S. C. 31, it was held that in the absence of a law authorizing such a judgment, none could be pronounced.

In order to decide upon the merits of the Springer Amendment, it is necessary to consider, first, whether a uniform divorce law is desirable; and secondly, whether if it is desirable, this is the proper way to bring it about.

First, is a uniform divorce law desirable? Its utility and desirability are not so great as might at first sight appear. It is those who favor more stringent divorce laws who are the most urgent in this movement, but they overlook the fact that the result would be directly the opposite of that for which they are working. The majority must prevail, and the majority are in favor of liberal divorce.

If, therefore, a general divorce law should be established by national authority, it would be a law of a liberal character. The result would be, that those who might desire a divorce, and who would be entitled to it according to the present law in most of the States, but who now are unable to obtain it in their own States, would, instead of going as they are now obliged to do, into another State to reside for that purpose, retain their residence, and get the divorce at home. The few States which are conservative upon the subject, would surrender their preferences and their independence of action, without receiving any corresponding benefit. If a liberal system of divorce is an advantage, we have it now. What matters it, whether it be by State or federal authority? If, on the other hand, the object be to reverse the policy of the country, by placing the legislation where it would naturally be more conservative, and where, being somewhat more removed from the people, it would less faithfully reflect their views and wishes, then that object is of itself sufficient to condemn the measure, since it is an attack upon the republican character of our institutions.

Secondly, conceding, for the sake of the argument, that a uniform divorce law is desirable, is this the proper mode to obtain it?

Why resort to an amendment of the federal Constitution? Or what necessity for national interference? How do we know the State Legislatures would not pass uniform laws if appealed to? Not the slightest attempt has been made to induce them to do so. Let a committee be appointed, consisting of one prominent citizen of each State, to consult and adopt a draft of a uniform law, and let that law be submitted to the Legislature of each State, with a memorial setting forth the advantages of the proposed law. We have no right to assume that the States would not all pass such an act; and if they should once pass it, the same considerations that induced them to enact the law, would prevail to preserve it afterward from material amendment.

Let the principle of comity be first invoked. If that rails, it will then be time enough to contemplate the system of force