The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1881-01-28
"A FAR-REACHlNG DECISION.

"A FAR-REACHING DECISION. +,
The decision of the Supreme Court
of this State In the case of Saloy aud
others VS.. the City of New Orleans is
one of more than ordinary importance,
and is not unworthy the study even
Of iaymen. The suit, we understand,
was brought by plaintiffs to compel
the city to accept ten. mills as the full
tax per centum due by plaintiffs under
Article 209 of the Constitution limit |
ing corporations to that amount as the
the city having levied fif-
teen mills, the excess of five mills
being required, as was set up in oppo-
sition to plaintiffs prayer, to pay Inter-
est on bonds of the city outstanding at
the time the present Constitution was
adopted. The mandamus prayed for
was refused by the Court, Chief JUS |
tfce Bermudez and Justice Poche dis
senting, and the Court was similarly
divided on refusal to grant re-hear-
ing.
The case went off"-and how far
we may never know-on the point
that Art 2O9 of our Constitution is
violative of Art. of the Federal Con-
stitution forbidding State to enact
laws impairing the obligation of con-
tracts, the bonds of the city above
specified being of that class of contracts,
and hence that the city authorities of
New Orleans were justified in exacting
the additional five mills tax. In other
words the. Court decides that the
limitation fixed upon municipal cor
porations by Art. 200 is no Limitation
at all to taxation, where the corpora
ton had entered into contracts antece-
dent to the limitation, notwithstand-
ing they are the mere creatures of the
State and may have their charters
revoked at any session of the iegfsia-
ture.
1t was decided but recently, in the
Memphis case, where the legislature
had revoked that city's charter, that
the bonded creditors of that city were
without law to enforce the payment
Of their claims. Our Supreme Court
holds that the Memphis case and the
one before them are dissi,niiar-that
while Memphis had no city govern
ment, New Orleans has, and that this
dissimilarity makes the obligation
worthless in the first case and binding
in the second.
We must contend, in logic and in
law, that the New Orleans case is even
a stronger case than that of Memphis.
If the legislature of Tennessee-havinc
itself only delegated powers-could ex-
tinguish bonded obligation, or even
successfully resist payment, by mere
legislative will, as the U. S. Supreme
Count has just decreed, why may not a
convention OF the people of Louisiana,
convoked and acting in sovereign
notwithstanding legislatures which
may annul charters-limit corpora
ton in the assessment of the rate of
taxation? Supporting, as is said. that
there was ssnothing to act upon" in the
case of Memphis, might not the su-
preme Court have declared there that
the act of revocation by the legislature
was UNCONSTITUTIONAL, being destructive
of contracts antecedent, and that the
city government of Memphis must be
restored? We should think so; but it
is urged that the power belongs to a
legislature to destroy municipal corpor-
ations, the same as it does to create
them, and that the act of destruction
is constitutional, even though it may
impair the obligation Of contracts. A
legislature may wipe out completely.a
municipal corporation, but constitu-
tional convention may not SO much as
restrict it in the levy of taxes! Or, to
be more illogical, the Legislature of
Louisiana may destroy the municipal
governments of those cities in this
State which are recognized by name
in the Constitution, but the Constitu-
ton itself is worthless to limit the rate
of taxation!
The questions in this case are vital
and far.reochinr orl too