Case Name: STATE, EX RELATIONE THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL, v. HAGOOD
Court: Supreme Court of South Carolina
Jurisdiction: South Carolina
Decision Date: 1879-01-26
Citations: 13 S.C. 46
Docket Number: CASE No. 809
Parties: STATE, EX RELATIONE THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL, v. HAGOOD.
Judges: 
Reporter: South Carolina Reports
Volume: 13
Pages: 46–74

Head Matter:
CASE No. 809.
STATE, EX RELATIONE THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL, v. HAGOOD.
1. When the constitution prescribes certain requisites in the enactment of a statute, the court may look behind the seal of the state, the approval of the governor and the signatures of the presiding officers of the general assembly, to ascertain whether the constitutional requirements have been complied with.
2. An act of the legislature, as ratified by the two houses and approved by the governor, is not valid unless it has had three readings on three several days in each branch of the general assembly. Gonst., Art. XL, (S 21.
8. Where a specific tax levy, without having passed the general assembly, is inserted in the enrolled copy of a bill which has passed, and the enrolled bill is ratified and approved, such levy has not the force of a law.
4. Where a bill providing for a tax levy of four and one-half mills, passes both branches of the general assembly, but the enrolled copy for ratification has the one-lialf changed to “ three-quarters,” so as to read “ four and three-quarters mills,” in which form it is ratified and approved — Held, that there was no authority to levy a tax of either four and one-half or four and three-quarters mills. McGowan, A. J., dissenting.
5. Slate v. Platt, 2 S. C. 150, doubted by McIver, A. J.
This was an original application, on January 15th,_ 1880, by the Hon. Le Hoy F. Youmans, attorney-general, for a writ of mandamus to compel the Hon. Johnson Hagood, comptroller-general, to proceed with the levy of taxes under the act of December 24th, 1879. 17 Stat. 115.
The petition set forth the following matters:
1. That on December 24th, 1879, William D. Simpson, gov ■ernor of the State of South Carolina, approved and signed an act of the general assembly of this state, entitled “An act to raise supplies and make appropriations for the fiscal year commencing 1st November, 1879,” which act had had the great seal of the state affixed to it, and had been signed in the senate and house by the president of the senate and the speaker of the house of representatives.
2. That it is the duty of the comptroller-general of this state to annually notify each county auditor of the rate per centum authorized by law to be levied for the various state purposes, and to prepare and transmit to each county auditor the necessary forms and instructions to carry into effect the provisions of the tax laws, which forms and instructions are required to be obeyed by all county, town and municipal officers.
3. That although it is the official duty, by statute, of Johnson Hagood, as comptroller-general, to perform the acts hereinbefore stated, for the purpose of carrying into effect the act of Assembly in Paragraph 1, hereinbefore mentioned, yet the said Johnson Hagood has refused and still refuses so to do, unless herein directed by judicial authority.
4. That unless the said Johnson Hagood does perform the said duties of the office of comptroller-general, the entire machinery of the state for raising revenue and paying appropriations will be paralyzed, to the great and irreparable detriment of the State ■of South Carolina.
An order was signed requiring the said Hagood to show cause forthwith why a writ of mandamus should not issue as prayed for.
The return was then filed, which was as follows:
1. Johnson Hagood, comptroller-general of said state, upon whom an order of this honorable court has been served, requiring him to show cause why a writ of mandamus should not issue, as prayed for by the petition herein, for cause shows: That he admits that he has refused and still refuses to proceed, as comptroller-general, under the alleged act of the general assembly, entitled “ An act to raise supplies and make appropriations for the fiscal year commencing 1st November, 1879 ;” rati fied and approved December 24th, 1879, as stated in said petition, for the following reasons :
2. That the alleged act, as ratified and approved purports to levy a tax of four and three-quarters mills in the first section thereof, and purports to authorize the county commissioners of Charleston county to levy a tax sufficient to raise the sum of $3000 for the Charleston military in'the second section thereof j whereas the act, as it passed the senate and house of representatives, purported to levy a tax of only four and a half mills in the first section thereof, and did not contain any provision whatever, authorizing the levy of any tax for the Charleston military.
That the said act, when sent, after its passage in the house, to the senate, purported to authorize a levy of a tax of four and a half mills in the first section thereof, and the senate amended the said section by striking out the words “a half,” and inserting in lieu thereof “ three-quarters,” in which amendment the house refused to concur, and the senate receded therefrom.
That the senate amended the second section thereof, by inserting therein the following provision: “ That the county commisioners of Charleston county be, and are hereby authorized and required to levy a tax upon all the taxable property of said county sufficient to raise the sum of three thousand dollars, which tax shall be paid at the same time with other taxes. The proceeds arising therefrom shall be held by the treasurer of said county, subject to the draft of the • major-general commanding-the first division, and shall by him be apportioned, as follows r the one-tenth thereof, for the use of the militia in said county without the city of Charleston ; another tenth thereof to the use of the first regiment of the national guard • and the remaining eight-tenths to be equally divided amongst the companies composing the fourth brigade, by companies.”
In which amendment the house refused to concur and the senate receded therefrom, all of which fully appears in the journals of the senate and house of representatives. • Wherefore it being in the apprehension of this respondent, involved in the gravest doubt whether the said alleged act has been passed in accordance with the requirements of the constitution, and has authorized any notification whatever to the county auditors of the state by this respondent as comptroller-general, and even, if so authorizing, whether this respondent should include in such notification any rate per centum as authorized by law, to be levied for the various state purposes; and if so, what rate; and whether he should include in such notification the provision as to the Charleston military in the second section of said act herein-before specially set forth: this respondent has felt it not to be in the line of his official duty to proceed in any manner under the said alleged act, save under sanction of the proper judicial tribunal.
"Wherefore this respondent submits himself to the order of this court "in the premises.
This return was verified and was not traversed; the matters therein stated were admitted to be true.
Mr. Youmans, attorney-general, for the relator.
We make no charge of contumacy against the comptroller-general. The matter being involved in doubt, it was not proper for him to proceed, nor for the governor to convene the legislature, without legal sanction.
The particular question here is novel only in the instance, but may be solved by legal formula and under well-established principles of law.
It is the highest exercise of the powers of courts in the American States, to declare an act unconstitutional. No more of an act should be declared unconstitutional than is clearly so, and that being stricken out, the remainder must be sustained. The only objection to this act is that one-quartér mill additional has been added on in the first section, and the CharlestQn military tax levy in another section. Strike both out and the remainder stands.
Prima facie it is the duty of the comptroller-general to execute the act as it stands on the statute-book. But under decision in Blackwell v. Barnwell, or State v. Platt, 2 S. G. 150, the court can go behind the signatures and the great seal, which seems to be the American rule; and we agree that that case is the law of this. See to same point, 4 Otto 260. The courts, however, will not interfere, unless the departure from the constitution is patent and plain. Fletcher v. Peclc, 6 Or. 87, and other cases say so. They also say part may be good and part bad, and only the bad will be declared unconstitutional. There is difficulty sometimes in separating good from bad, but .where, the bad being stricken out, the good part remaining is capable of execution, it must stand; the whole must fall only where the two are so interdependent that it cannot be presumed that the legislature would enact one without the other. Bedg. on Const. Law 413; Cooley Const. Lim. 177.
The precise constitutional objection here is in Article II., Section 21, of the constitution, where the ratification of an act is prescribed. This act passed the general assembly with a tax levy of four and one-half mills; there was added at the ratification an additional one-quarter mill and the Charleston military tax levy. Both of these additions, we concede, must go. Here lies our trouble, but we will show that the four and three-quarters mills is capable of separation, and that if it can be, it must bo. State v. Copeland, 3 B. L. 36; and compare 13 Rich. 498 with. 14 Rich. 129. So, too, in Homestead Cases. Coarts hold same words good as to futurq Contracts, but void as to past. See, too, 14 Piale. 96. "We do not think four and three-quarters can stand; we do think that four and one-half can; that they are separable, that the one-quarter is not necessarily dependent on the four and one-half. The journals show that there was no struggle for diminution; the senate proposed to amend by sub-. stituting “three-quarters” for “one-half” and the house did not concur. This shows that a foreign substance, one-quarter mill, was attempted to be added, and did slip in at the ratification. This proves that the four and three-quarters mills is separable. Nothing on earth is so exactly separable as numbers, and hence mathematics is a certain and exact science. The one-quarter mill here was simply an addition which may be taken off. In approving the four and three-quarters mills, the governor approved the four and one-half mills, for majus minus continet. It cannot be said that the governor approved the greater tax, but might have vetoed the lesser. Such a course by the executive would be unparalleled; it is for the legislature to determine what the tax levy shall be. Even if the amounts were grossly disproportioned, the greater would include the less.
Mr. J. T. Bhett, for respondent.
"We accept the law strictly as laid down in State v. Platt, 2 S. O. 150, and confirmed in 4 Otto 260, and 3 B. I. 33. In our case all of the facts are fully stated in the return and admitted. As to the Charleston military tax levy, that is clearly within the decision of Blaehioell v. Barnwell. As to the four and three-quarters mills, not being constitutionally passed, the whole act goes Avith it. .2 S. O. 157, 160; Cooley Const. Lim. (lsi ed.), oh. VII., § 6, pp. 178, 179. The four and three-quarters mills tax levy is clearly not good in Avhole; is it .in part? One vieAv is that the “four” not being changed at all, neither the “one-half” nor the “ three-quarters ” is valid, but being lopped off, the act stands good for four mills. This sticks too much to the letter, and cannot be a proper one unless it would fit other figures; as, for instance, a substitution of five for four and one-half. This vieAv ignores the fact that four and three-quarters is as much an entity as five or one. Another vieAv, and that of the attorney-general, is, that the laAV should be enforced for four and one-half, leaving out the one-quarter mill erroneously added. To do' this, you must go beyond the decision in Bluehwell v. Barnwell, Avhich simply struck out and then Avent back to a preexisting law; you must replace words, and thus legislate and not adjudicate. You must also ignore the governor’s right of veto, or explain it away by saying that his approval of the greater was an approval of the lesser number. This is a fanciful and mathematical vieAv scarcely conceivable in the intent of the constitution.
Again, Avords are the expression of thoughts, and thoughts, whether in one word or more, are no more divisible in the mathematical sense claimed for any effectual purpose conuected Avith the thought itself, than words are divisible in letters for any effectual purpose connected Avith the word itself.- Four and three-quarters is a fixed quantity, an entity; a thought in itself complete and absolutely single.
January 26th, 1879.

Opinion:
The judgment of the court was delivered by
Willard, C. J.
This was an application for a mandamus to compel the comptroller-general to notify each county auditor in the state of the rate per centum of the tax authorized by law to be levied for various state purposes, and to prepare and transmit to each county auditor the necessary forms and instructions to carry into effect the provisions of the act to raise supplies, &c., approved December 24th, 1879. The return of the comptroller-general, which is not traversed, and which must, therefore, be taken to be true, raises two legal questions. First, as to the validity of the first section of the act fixing the amount to be levied for general state purposes; and, Second, as to the validity of the provision in the second section for the military organizations in the county of Charleston.
A majority of the court having reached the conclusion that the error in the first section is fatal to the validity of that section, and the court having unanimously reached the conclusion that so much of the second section as makes provision for the Charleston military organizations is without the force of law, it is ordered that the motion for mandamus be refused.
The following opinions were subsequently filed in this case:
Willard, C. J.
The relator asks for a writ of mandamus to compel the performance of certain duties imposed by law upon the comptroller-general where an act has been passed directing the imposition of a general tax, looking to the enforcement of such law.
No question is raised as to the propriety of the remedy, in the event that it shall be held that authority exists for the performance of the duties sought to be enforced.
The single question propounded is, whether the act entitled " An act to raise supplies and make appropriations for the fiscal year commencing 1st November, 1879," is authority for proceedings on the part of the executive officers to levy and collect a tax for state purposes.
It appears by the pleadings, and also by the journals of the general assembly, that the act, as passed by the two houses, di rected a tax of four and one-half mills, but that the act, as ratified and published, directs the imposition of a tax of four and three-quarters mills.
It cannot be questioned that the amount of tax is a material part of the act, and that it cannot be enforced unless that amount is ascertained to have been fixed by the act. It is obvious that the legislature did not intend to leave the amount of the tax to be ascertained by the executive officers of the government, if such a delegation of authority is permissible; but that it was intended that the amount of the levy should be ascertained by the law itself. We must, therefore, inquire whether the act itself has ascertained the amount of tax to be levied in a conclusive and binding form.
It cannot be questioned that, independently of constitutional authority vested in this court, enabling it to look into the actual proceedings of the bodies composing the general assembly, to ascertain the fact of compliance with some constitutional requirement on which the validity of the law depends, the evidence afforded by the certificates of the presiding officers, the great seal affixed to it, and the approval of the governor, must be regarded as conclusive evidence of the action of the legislative body. Such was the law of England, from which our ideas of the force and effect of statutes were derived, and it has become embodied in our jurisprudence. It is then only when we can point to constitutional authority for the purpose that we can demand other evidence of the authenticity of an act, than that which is afforded by the customary modes of authentication.
Section 21, Article II., of the constitution of this state, provides as follows: "No bill shall have the force of law until it shall have been read three times and on three several days in each house, has had the great seal of the state affixed to it, and has been signed in the senate-house by the president of the senate and the speaker of the house of representatives." It cannot be denied that the existence of each one of these requisites is essential to the validity of an act. State v. Platt, 2 S. C. 150. It is not enough that the great seal shall be affixed, and that the presiding officers of the two houses shall affix their signatures, but, in addition to this, the bill must have had its three readings on three several days in each house.
It will not be disjmted that the courts are competent to ascertain and'declare effectively whether the constitutional conditions, on which the force of an act depends, exist. To perform this duty it is necessary to ascertain the existence of the fact of the three readings, and, applying the rules that govern all judicial proceedings, such inquiry must be made in accordance with the rules of evidence that belong to the subject, according to its nature. In the present case, if we come to the conclusion that the act, as published, is not identical with the bill from which it originated, we are relieved from all intricate questions as to the nature of the proofs available for such an inquiry; for the facts admitted upon the pleadings, and the journals of the houses, read with the original bill, sustaining that statement of facts, show that the act, as ratified, was not read three times in each house on three several days. If such was the case, then the constitution denies, in express terms, the force of law to such bill, and the act, as ratified, stands as though it never existed in the form of a bill before the two houses, and is not effective as a law. If such be found to be the case, our competency and duty so to declare are manifest.
The question then arises, whether want of identity between a ratified act and the bill in which it claims to have originated, is fatal to such ratification. Stating this question in this broad manner places it beyond a doubt. If the legislative bodies enact one law and the presiding officers and the custodian of the great seal publish another', of a totally different nature, to allow force to such publication would defeat all the objects intended by the constitution. It would be placing the homage due to the great seal before the constitution, and all the practical safeguards devised by the experience of popular government for the protection of the people; it would be giving a legal stone, though ornamented with the arms of the state, for the constitutional bread of efficient protection. Fictions of law are often convenient when dynastic interests are to be upheld against the reason that commends popular rights, but have no place in interpreting the great instrument from which all governmental power springs, and by which its efficacy is to be tested. Of what avail are all the safeguards of liberty and property, with their carefully-studied provisions, giving form to legislative procedure, if the custodian of the great seal and (he presiding officers of the two houses of the general assembly can, by an arbitrary act, divide between themselves public property and public power? That such efficacy should be ascribed to the great seal in England, is easily understood, for the imposition of that seal was considered as a personal act of the sovereign,- who, according to legal ideas, could not -do wrong, but that such a doctrine could have any advocacy in a government that professes to be one of laws and not of personal authority, is not readily accounted for.
The attorney-general has placed the case of the relators on ground that allows full force to the considerations that have just been stated; but whether he has distinguished the case successfully from one in which the ratified act is totally different from the bill as passed, remains to be. examined.
It would follow, from what has been already stated, that the act, as ratified, must, to have the force of law, be substantially identical with the bill that received its several readings in the houses. What, then, is the test of such identity ? Many cases may be supposed that would give rise to nice questions as to what deviations affect the question of identity and what do not, but the present case is free from any such difficulty. It is the highest prerogative of the legislative body to impose taxes and prescribe limits to the burden of taxation. The value and importance of this prerogative is expressed by the cost in blood and treasure of the establishment of the authority'of the house of commons of Great Britain as the constitutional means of expressing the popular will. The quantity that the people shall be taxed is of the very life and essence of an act raising supplies for the maintenance of the government. It was not the abstract right of imposing taxes that was the matter of contest between Charles I. and the house of commons, but to what extent and in what manuer such taxes should be imposed. At this day the vital question involved in every supply bill is, how much shall the people be taxed ? To say, then, that a bill authorizing taxa tion to a specified amount and an act fixing a different amount are identical is to hold that the amount of the tax is an immaterial part of the bill, and to contradict both public history and reason. It follows that the bill in the present case that authorized a tax of four and one-half mills was not identical with the act before us that assumes to impose a tax of four and three-quarters mills, and the act as it stands cannot have the force of" law, for want of the requisite readings in the two houses of the general assembly.
It was contended, however, that the quarter mill may be rejected as something superadded to the amount of the tax directed by the bill as passed, which, not having been a part of the bill,, may be rejected from the ratified act, leaving the amount of four and one-half mills valid and capable of enforcement. We have not been pointed to any authority for thus disintegrating the- provisions of a law and rejecting part and retaining the residue. State v. Platt, 2 S. C. 150, is an authority for rejecting some independent provision of an act that may be severed from the other provisions of an act without affecting their efficacy, where such independent part has failed to receive constitutional enactment; but it does not go to the extent of holding that the words of an act may be changed to express the real intention of the legislature that has been imperfectly expressed in the ratified act. It is contended that the declaration of an intent to impose a tax of four and one-half mills is embraced within the direction to levy a tax of four and three-quarters mills, and that all that is necessary is to reject the excess. This argument is placed on the ground that a numerical statement is in its nature severable into-its parts so that a portion of the sum stated may be good and another portion bad. It is true that the subject of a numerical statement may be regarded as in its nature divisible with reference to a known unit, but the verbal statement of that sum is not for that reason necessarily divisible. The one is a question of arithmetic and the other of logic. It cannot be claimed that the court can re-state the language of an act to make it agree with some possible conclusion as to its intention as affecting the subject matter of the act. The language declaring the intent of an act is as much beyond our power as the subject to which that declaration relates, and it would violate the principles of law to change the phraseology of a statute to make it conform to the assumed purpose of the law-giver in any other way than as warranted by the rules'of construction. It is not contended and cannot be claimed that the present difficulty can be overcome in conformity with the principles of construction. The proposition is, in its real nature, that we should reform the language of the statute to give it efficacy under the constitution, and that cannot be done consistently with the principles of law that bind the court. It is to be regretted that this court has no power to obviate the inconveniences that must arise from the conclusions that have been stated; but usurpation by the court of authority for that purpose would tend to inflict a permanent injury upon the balance of authority established between the legislature and the courts, while the iuconveniences that result from adhering to a clear and simple line of duty will be temporary at the most.
The ratified act does not appear to have received the constitutional sanction of the general assembly, and cannot be reformed in the manner claimed by the relators. The motion should be dismissed.