Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/100/47/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 10:21:13+00:00

Document:
1. Where no federal question is involved, this Court will follow the construction which has been uniformly given to the constitution or the laws of a state by its highest court.
2. Cases affirming this principle cited and examined.
"No county, city, town, township, or other municipality shall ever become subscriber to the capital stock of any railroad or private corporation, or make donation to, or loan its credit in aid of, such corporation, provided, however, that the adoption of this article shall not be construed as affecting the right of any such municipality to make such subscriptions where the same have been authorized, under existing laws, by a vote of the people of such municipalities prior to such adoption,"
and holding that such previous donations, if sanctioned by a popular vote under pr-existing laws, were not forbidden, but were, in like manner as subscriptions, excepted by the proviso from the general prohibitory terms of the section.
4. Where therefore, pursuant to the authority conferred by a legislative enactment, such a donation was voted by a county in Illinois before the adoption of that constitution, the donation may be thereafter completed by the issue of the requisite bonds.
5. Chicago v. Iowa Railroad Co. v. Pinckney, supra, was decided before, but not reported until after, the ruling in Town of Concord v. Portsmouth Savings Bank, 92 U. S. 625, involving the construction of that section, and the attention of this Court was not called to it; but as it established in Illinois a rule of property which has been since maintained, the latter case, so far as it conflicts therewith, is overruled.
The facts of this case, so far as they are needed to exhibit the question presented by the writ of error, are very few. The defendant, on and prior to Feb. 28, 1868, was a lawfully organized and existing county of the State of Illinois, through which was located the railroad of the Illinois Southeastern Railway Company, a company incorporated on the 25th of February, 1867. The county was authorized by the legislature of the state to donate to the railroad company, as a bonus or inducement towards the building of the railroad, any sum not exceeding $100,000, and was authorized to order the clerk of the county court, or board of supervisors of the county, to issue county bonds to the amount donated, and deliver them to the company, provided that no donation exceeding $50,000 should be made until after the question of such larger donation should have been submitted to the legal voters of the county, at an election called and conducted in the usual manner. The statute further enacted that if a majority of the ballots cast at such an election should be in favor of a donation, it should be the duty of the county court or board of supervisors to donate some amount, not less than $50,000 nor more than $100,000, to the company, and to order the issue of county bonds for the amount so donated.
$100,000 of its bonds in aid of the said road, and the election resulted in authorizing their issue. The bonds were accordingly issued by the county judge and county clerk, under the direction of the county court, and they were delivered to the railroad company on the 6th or 8th of October, 1870, after the conditions precedent to their delivery had been fulfilled. The plaintiff is the holder of coupons belonging to said issue, having purchased them before due, in the usual course of his business.
"No county, city, town, township, or other municipality shall ever become subscriber to the capital stock of any railroad or private corporation, or make donation to, or loan its credit in aid of such corporation, provided, however, that the adoption of this article shall not be construed as affecting the right of any such municipality to make such subscriptions, where the same have been authorized under existing laws, by a vote of the people of such municipalities, prior to such adoption."
The question presented, then, is whether a donation to a railroad company, by a county empowered by the legislature to make such a donation, when approved by a majority of the legal voters of the county at an election held for that purpose, is forbidden by this clause of the constitution, if it was authorized under laws then existing by a vote of the people of the county prior to the adoption of the constitution? What should be the answer to the question depends upon the construction that must be given to the section thus quoted. Are donations, thus authorized by a popular vote, within the prohibition, or are they excepted out of it by the proviso?
any other manner, and if a necessity or reason existed to protect a subscription there was also the same reason and demand to protect a donation, and we entertain no doubt it was the intention of the framers of the constitution, by adding the proviso to the section, to place subscriptions and donations on the same footing."
This authoritative exposition of the meaning of the constitution of the state by its highest court has repeatedly been recognized by that tribunal. Town of Middleport v. The Aetna Life Insurance Co., 82 Ill. 562; Lippincott v. The Town of Pana, decided Oct. 1, 1879, not yet reported. It has also been the understanding of the legislature of the state that donations as well as subscriptions, if authorized by a vote of the people before the adoption of the constitution, are saved by the proviso. In 1874, an act of the General Assembly was passed which declared that the liability of all counties, cities, townships, towns, or precincts that had voted aid, donations, or subscriptions to the capital stock of any railroad company, in conformity with the laws of the state, should cease and determine at the expiration of three years after July 1 of that year, and that after that time no bonds should be issued on account of or upon authority of such vote. This implied that up to July, 1877, donations voted before July 2, 1870, were lawful, and might be completed by the issue of bonds. It was an expression of the legislative understanding that such donations were not forbidden by the constitution. Act of March 17, 1874. A similar act was passed on the 29th of May, 1877, extending the time for issuing bonds for donations upon the authority of a vote of the people until July 1, 1880. It thus appears to have become a rule of property in the state that municipal bonds, issued to railroad companies on account of donations voted by the people before the adoption of the constitution, are valid, though not issued until after the adoption. Such was the earliest exposition of the constitution, made by the court of last resort in the state, twice since recognized by it, and recognized also by repeated legislative action. There is every reason to believe that the rule has been relied upon, and that on the faith of it many municipal bonds have been issued, bought, and sold in the markets of the country.
"established doctrine that this Court will adopt and follow the decisions of the state courts in the construction of their own constitution and statutes, when that construction has been settled by the decisions of its highest tribunal."
In Walker v. State Harbor Commissioners, 17 Wall. 648, we said, "This Court follows the adjudications of the highest court of the state" in the construction of its statutes. "Its interpretation is accepted as the true interpretation, whatever may be our opinion of its original soundness." See also Elmendorf v. Taylor, 10 Wheat. 152; Green v. Neal's Lessee, 6 Pet. 291; Leffingwell v. Warren, 2 Black 599; Summer v. Hicks, 2 Black 532; Olcott v. The Supervisors, 16 Wall. 678; State Railroad Tax Cases, 92 U. S. 575.
first day of May, 1833, and, therefore, that a promissory note given for the price of slaves thus introduced was not void. This was held, though it appeared that prior to the decision the chancellor of the state had refused to enjoin a judgment at law recovered upon a bond for the purchase of salves brought into the state for sale after May 1, 1833, and the Court of Errors, two judges against one, had affirmed the refusal of the chancellor. But the decision of the chancellor was rested entirely upon the ground that the matter relied upon to obtain the injunction should have been set up as a defense in the suit at law. This was all that was really decided. The opinions expressed in the Court of Errors by the judges upon the question whether the introduction of slaves after May 1, 1833, was prohibited by the constitution, were extrajudicial, and were so regarded by this Court. It was said they were not sufficient to justify this Court in considering that the construction of the constitution in Mississippi had become so fixed and settled as to preclude the federal Supreme Court from regarding it as an open question. Groves v. Slaughter, therefore, is not an exception to the rule that this Court will follow the construction given by the highest court of a state to its constitution. On the contrary, the court assented to the rule.
"Undoubtedly this Court will always feel itself bound to respect the decisions of the state courts, and, from the time they are made, will regard them as conclusive in all cases upon the construction of their own constitution and laws. But we ought not to give to them a retroactive effect, and allow them to render invalid contracts entered into with citizens of other states, which, in the judgment of this Court, were lawfully made."
that the decisions upon which this Court had relied were made under peculiar circumstances, and were never in the state considered as fully settling the construction of the act. This Court therefore overruled its former two decisions and followed the later construction adopted by the state court. See also Suydam v. Williamson, 24 How. 427. With much more reason may we change our decision construing a state constitution when no rights have been acquired under it, and when it is made to appear that before the decision was made the highest tribunal of the state had interpreted the constitution differently, when that interpretation within the state fixed a rule of property, and has never been abandoned. In such a case, we think it our duty to follow the state courts, and adopt as the true construction that which those courts have declared.

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