Source: http://openjurist.org/print/13582
Timestamp: 2015-08-02 14:42:17
Document Index: 610079799

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 13', '§ 34', '§ 35', '§ 13', '§ 14', '§ 1', '§ 7', 'Art. 2', '§ 16', '§ 14']

180 US 506 Board of Commissioners of Wilkes County v. W N Coler Company
Home > 180 US 506 Board of Commissioners of Wilkes County v. W N Coler Company
180 US 506 Board of Commissioners of Wilkes County v. W N Coler Company 180 U.S. 506
21 S.Ct. 458
45 L.Ed. 642
BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS OF WILKES COUNTY et al. Appts.,v.W. N. COLER & COMPANY.
Each bond was in the usual form of such instruments, was made payable October 1st, 1913, and recited that it was 'one of a series of one hundred bonds of the denomination of $1,000 each, issued by authority of an act of the general assembly of North Carolina, ratified the 20th day of February, A. D. 1879, entitled 'An Act to Amend the Charter of the North Western North Carolina Railroad for the Construction of a Second Division from the Towns of Winston and Salem, in Forsyth County, up the Yadkin Valley, by Wilkesboro, to Patterson's Factory, Caldwell County,' and authorized by a vote of a majority of the qualified voters of Wilkes county, by an election regularly held for that purpose on the 6th day of November, A. D. 1888, and by an order of the board of commissioners of Wilkes county made on the 1st day of April, A. D. 1889. This series of bonds is issued to pay the subscription on $100,000 made to the capital stock of the North Western North Carolina Railroad Company by said county of Wilkes.'
The question of a subscription by Wilkes county to the extent of $100,000 to the stock of that company, to be paid in bonds, was submitted to a popular vote, and a majority of the qualified voters approved of the proposition. Taxes were imposed and collected for eight years to pay the interest on the bonds, and the amounts collected were so applied; but the county officers refused to pay the interest due and payable April 1st, 1896, April 1st, 1898, and October 1st, 1898, although they had in their hands moneys collected from taxpayers for that purpose. The object of the present suit was to compel those officers to apply the moneys so collected in payment of such interest.
Was the act of 1879—which was recited in the bonds as authority for their being issued—passed by the legislature in such manner as to become a law of North Carolina? Was there power to issue the bonds without the aid of that enactment? These are the principal matters involved in or depending upon our answer to the certified questions.
A few days prior to its final adjournments, namely, on the 9th day of March, 1868, the Convention passed an ordinance (which, by its terms, was to take effect from its passage) that constituted the charter of the North Western North Carolina Railroad Company. The company was incorporated by the ordinance for the purpose of constructing a railroad of one or more tracks from some point on the North Carolina Railroad between the town of Greensboro in Guilford county and the town of Lexington in Davidson county, running by way of Salem and Winston in Forsyth county 'to some point in the northwestern boundary line of the state to be hereafter determined.'
By the 12th section it was declared that 'all counties or towns subscribing stock to said company shall do so in the same manner and under the same rules, regulations, and restrictions as are set forth and prescribed in the act incorporating the North Carolina & Atlantic Railroad Company, for the government of such towns and counties as are now allowed to subscribe to the capital stock of said company;' and by § 13, that 'the company shall have power to construct branches of said road, one of which shall run from the towns of Winston and Salem by way of Mount Airy, in Surry county, to the line of the state of Virginia.'
The North Carolina & Atlantic Railroad Company referred to in the 12th section was the Atlantic & North Carolina Railroad Company incorporated by an act of assembly approved December 27th, 1852. By the 33d section of the charter of that company it was declared to 'be lawful for any incorporated town or county near or through which said railroad may pass to subscribe for such an amount of stock in said company as they shall be authorized to do by the inhabitants of said town or the citizens of said county, in manner and form as hereinafter provided.' Provision was made (§ 34) in the same act to take the sense of the qualified voters of any town or county upon the question of a subscription by it to the stock of the company, and it was declared (§ 35) that if a majority of the qualified voters of any county or town voting upon the question were in favor of the subscription, the corporate authorities of the town and the justices of the county should appoint an agent to make the subscription in behalf of such town and county, to 'be paid for in the bonds of such town and county, and on such time as shall be agreed on by said town officers and the justices of such county.' Laws N. C. 1852, pp. 484, 499.
By the 1st section of the above act of February 20th, 1879, it was declared that '§ 13 of chapter 17 of the ordinance of the Convention of 1868, ratified the 9th day of March, 1868, be amended by adding the words—'and one of which shall be constructed from the town of Winston and Salem, up the valley of the Yadkin by the way of Jonesville and Wilkesboro, in the county of Wilkes, to Patterson's Factory, in the county of Caldwell, which branch shall be known as the second division." By the 1st and 2d sections the ordinance of 1868 was further amended in particulars that need not be mentioned. By the 4th section it was provided: 'That any township or city, town, county, or other municipal corporation of this state shall have power and authority to subscribe for and take any number of shares of capital stock of said company that a majority of the voters of such township or city, town, county, or other municipal corporation may elect to take therein.' After prescribing the mode in which the will of the people as to a subsection of stock should be ascertained, that section proceeded: 'If the result of any such election shall show that a majority of the qualified voters of any township or city, town, county, or other municipal corporation, favor the taking of the amount of stock so voted for in such election, then the authorities who, by this act, are empowered to determine what amount of stock shall be taken, shall subscribe the amount of stock so voted for in said company, and shall have power to levy and collect taxes for the special purpose to pay for the said stock in instalments as the same may become due, or, in case it shall not be deemed best to collect taxes to pay by taxation such subscription for stock, then such township or city, town, county, or other municipal corporation shall have power to issue bonds for the purpose of raising money to pay for such subscription, and shall provide for the payment of interest upon such bonds, and also for the payment of said bonds when they become due: . . .' At the close of that act, as published, are these words: 'Read three times in the general assembly and ratified the 20th day of February, A. D. 1879.'
The validity, under the Constitution of the state, of each of the above acts of March 11th, 1868, February 20th, 1879, and March 2d, 1881, was questioned upon grounds presently to be stated.
'1. Whether, upon the averment of the bill of complaint, answers, replications, orders, exhibits, and other evidence, and matters and things recited herein, the circuit court of the United States was bound in passing upon this case by the decisions of the supreme court of North Carolina in the following cases: Wilkes County Comrs. v. Call, 123 N. C. 308, 44 L. R. A. 252, 31 S. E. 481; Union Bank v. Oxford Comrs. 119 N. C. 214, 34 L. R. A. 487, 25 S. E. 966; Stanly County Comrs. v. Snuggs, 121 N. C. 394, 39 L. R. A. 439, 28 S. E. 539; Rodman v. Washington, 122 N. C. 39, 30 S. E. 118; Buncombe County Comrs. v. Payne, 123 N.C. 432, 31 S. E. 711, considered in connection with prior decisions of said court and the following provisions of the Constitution of said state: Article 2, §§ 14 and 16, and article 5, §§ 1, 4, 6, and 7, and article 7, § 7.
Messrs. A. C. Avery, R. O. Burton, and James E. Shepherd, for appellants.
We are asked whether the circuit court was bound to follow those decisions when considered in connection with prior decisions of the supreme court of North Carolina and with the above and other provisions of the state Constitution, by one of which it is declared that 'each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings, which shall be printed and made public immediately after the adjournment of the general assembly.' Art. 2, § 16.
In Union Bank v. Oxford Comrs. (1896) 119 N. C. 214, 220, 34 L. R. A. 487, 488, 25 S. E. 966, 967, which involved the validity under the 14th section of the state Constitution of an act passed in 1891 authorizing a municipal subscription to the stock of a railroad company and the issuing of bonds in payment thereof, it was said: 'This section of the Constitution is imperative and not recommendatory, and must be observed; otherwise this wise and necessary precaution inserted in the organic law would be converted into a unllity by judicial construction. . . . The point is one of transcending importance, and is simply whether the people, in their organic law, can safeguard the taxpayers against the creation of state, county, and town indebtedness by formalities not required for ordinary legislation, and must the courts and the legislature respect those provisions? This safeguard is § 14 of article 2 of the Constitution. . . . The journals offered in evidence showed affirmatively that 'the yeas and nays on the second and third reading of the bill' were not 'entered on the journall.' And the Constitution, the supreme law, says that, unless so entered, no law authorizing state, counties, cities, or towns to pledge the faith of the state or to impose any tax upon the people, etc., shall be valid. . . . The people had the power to protect themselves by requiring in the organic law something further as to acts authorizing the creation of bonded indebtedness by the state and its counties, e., are void unless the bill for the purpose by the speakers of three readings in each house, and ratification. This organic provision plainly requires, for the validity of this class of legislation, in addition to the certificates of the speakers, which is sufficient for ordinary legislation, the entry of the yeas and nays on the journals on the second and third reading in each house. It is provided that such laws are 'no laws,' i. is provided that such laws are 'no laws,' i. shall have been read three several times in each house of the general assembly and passed three several readings, which readings shall have been on three different days, and agreed to by each house respectively, and unless the yeas and nays on the second and third reading of the bill shall have been entered on the journal. This is a clear declaration of the nullity of such legislation unless this is done, a