Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of 1901. Such a review has been upheld in City of Montgomery v. Graham, 255 Ala. 685, 53 So.2d 363 (1951):
This court may, when construing a provision of the Constitution, look to the debates and proceedings of the Constitutional Convention.
During the Official Proceedings, Governor Oates, a member of the Committee on Legislative Department, made the following statement concerning Section 98 when it was offered to the Convention:
It prevents any civil pension list. I move its adoption.
The Official Proceedings continue at page 2646: "A vote being taken, the Section was adopted."
It is clear that there was in the movant's mind a relationship between Section 98 and pensions, and it cannot go unnoticed that after he used the phrase, "civil pension list," there were noquestions from the delegates nor any further discussion before the vote was taken. Was there a general understanding among the delegates of the meaning of the phrase at the time Section 98 was adopted? Undoubtedly there was such an understanding as we shall demonstrate.
In the first edition on his Commentaries on the Laws of England, Vol. 1, Chap. 8 (Clarendon Press, 1765), Sir William Blackstone discussed extensively the expenses of civil government and the manner in which the revenues for these obligations were obtained. His description of the civil list on page 320 is particularly instructive:
The expences defrayed by the civil list are those that in any shape relate to civil government; as, the expenses of the household; all salaries to officers of state, to the judges, and