The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-02-15

by making sams appear to be. In effect, q ios@ isw fqF sns esnsns noas,0 Oa griva,s sSs bill which substantiatss the statement of facts. nor the conciusions drawn therefrOm- Hut. assuming the correct- sss sss ssnas. CT n,s b so as
 to be no force in his reasoning. nor logic in his conclusion. The fact that years ago particular street in small can be no reason why many years thereafter, when the business portion Of that town had become congested and tho street h question extremely i'm. of the business district of the city; that a city and It's people and the public at large should be forever debarred from structed when it's use was not needed; It will be seep by Exhibit
 attached hereto, that at the time Of ob- taining original permission from the up the north end of Lee Street 1t was well understood both by the City Coun- ell and by the railroad company that
 such permission was unauthorized in i law and was accepted with the knowl- edge that the obstructtons would have | to be removed when the public inter. ests demanded it. But In Mir. Jones
 takes to bolster up the Acknowledgements l action of the City Council Dy the cura- i, tive Act approved necemper 10, 1900,
 the title Of which is as follows: ITO 1 rights, privileges and granchises, here.
 granted to railroads by the City coun-
 or that wSls ise eEssturs is ay
 ratify an imperfect or even illegal
 method of doing legal act. that It is without authority to ratify or validate I that. which was null and void. Since
 the days of the original creation of the
 universe. as recounted by Moses, there has been, no creation of something out of nothing. The ordinance of the City a public street, was not only void.--a mere nothing. but 1t was an attempt to | grant authority to corporation to commit q misdsmaanor; me to viodaae a sne scs which if it had done itself would have
 rendered the City of Montgomery
 liable to Indictment The act of
 braces and as to the rights. fran,iiises l and privileges that may have been | granted. Nor was there anything m
 the title of the Act which would tend
 to imply that any illesai grant of rights, privileges and franchises was | attempted to be validated. As to sucn l ordinances granted. from its organiza-
 Act may properly apply. without at | tempting to embrace therein void, nu-
 gatory and Illegal franchises and privi- l ieges. When street IS oedicated to | creates a contract if the dedication be
 accepted by the municipality. between the city and the grantor of the ease ment, which contract Is perpetual m | It's nature and mutually forbids the | original grantor and the municipal au- l thorities from ever thereafter tnterfer- | ing with the terms of the grant. The
 donation by the gransor is TOT specific p,en, cipality Is for specific purposes namely,
 that from henceforth the street thus dedicated shall be forever open so long from side to side for the use of the general public of our whole country l for t-~vel and transportation; and while regulation of such highways, as 1t was originally granted. is left large.
 ly to the Legislature. it cannot be held
 that the Legislature by an ex post facto law could impair the obligation iute abrogation of the usese for which such dedication was made.
 The Act of 1900 Is also offensive to Section 23 of the Bill of Rights, tnas-
 much as 1t undertakes to confirm and
 validate 3 grant of special privilege to block up a public street of city. As appears from the statement of Mir. across Lee street was made years prior to the passage of tho Act of 1900; and had all along been an indictable ms
 o na hs Sas Ae so a ad Ad
 takes to. suspend the operation of a genera! law in behalf of a particular ] corporation. The Act of 1900 is offen- | Constitution of Alabama, inasmuch az Z tt falls to notify the Legislature by It's caption of what was embraced in the
 body of the. Act. All ordinances of the nhises and privileges to railroads are
 essentially local and are not presumed
 10 be known even by the inhabitants of
 much iess, then, would the Legislature
 gathered from ali parts of the State
 De informed of what it was doing un- der a caption which would refer to a municipal action with reference to rail- roads from the inception of the city to
 the present time. At the time of the passage of the Act of 1900 the general law Of this state was that ao pgSS pnnnS be blocked or obstructed by any indi-
 vidual or corporation. If this Act un- dertalEes to be retroactive in It's scope of of Section 50 of Article 4 of the Con. stitution which forbids the Legislature 10 authorize any municipal corporation to pass any laws inc0i sistent with tn" general laws of this State.
 Mir. Jones in his printed argument contends that the contract-ordinan jointly enacted by the City Council or Montgomery and the Louisville and 20. 1896. had the legal effect to irrevo- cably vest the use and title of DOT
 ton of Lee street in sthe railroad com pany, and this contention, he ayers, Is made convincing by the hlanket Act of 1900. He would hardly claim that pri- vate property could be appropriated to private uses by the City Council, or by the Legislature, yet 1t seems clear to him that the City Council could appro- prlate pubI'~ street to the exclusive use of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company. This contention of Mir. Jones is made in the face of Sec ton 23 of the Bill of Rights which de- clares that the Legislature shall have no power to pass any law granting an irreVocable privileges Or ,lmmunities: and also in the face of Section 55 of Article { of the Constitution, which
 provides that the Legislature shall
 have no power to authorlze any mu-
 nicipality to, grant public money or soclation or corporation whatsoever.
 1t will hardly be seriously insisted
 that the perpetual grant Of the ex-
 elusive use of public street Is not q thing of value. Besides the title to
 the portion of Lee street occupied by
 the L. & N. freight depot Is still the private property of the adjacent lot owners burdened by the easement granted 10 the public for use for trav- el and transportation. and hence the appropriation of this street for pri- proceedings, Is clearly unconstitutton-
 The constitutional references are to
 Citizens.