Court Opinion

ID: 9811621
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 22:26:14.107453+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:20:29.079145
License: Public Domain

Siutii, C. L,
(concurring). If the matter of the present action were res integra, and the question involved in the appeal an open one, I should be reluctant to give assent to the proposition that a municipal corporation, even under legislative sanction and with an approving popular vote, may make a donation of its bonds to a railroad company in aid of its work, and impose taxes for their payment. It certainly cannot do this to advance any mere business enterprise not of a public nature, for the incidental and substantial benefits its successful prosecution may confer upon a community in the midst of which it is carried on. In a case recently before the Supreme Court of the United States, was drawn in question the validity of an act of the General Assembly of Kansas, under which bonds of the city of Topeka were issued as a gratuity to the King Wrought Iron Bridge Manufacturing and Iron Works, to aid the company in erecting and operating bridge shops in that city, in expectation of the *235advantages to be conferred upon the business interest of the community. In an elaborate opinion, citing many adjudications in its support, the act was held to be unconstitutional and the securities void, the Court, declaring, through Mr. Justice Miller, “ that there can be no lawful tax which is not laid for a public purpose.” In reference to extending the debt — creating and taxing power beyond this limit, he thus speaks: “To lay with one hand the power of the government on the property of the citizen, and with the other to bestow it upon favored individuals to aid private enterprises, and build up private fortunes, is none the less robbery because done under the forms of law, and is called taxation.” Loan Association v. Topeka, 20 Wall., 655-664.
More especially would I hesitate, in view of the heavy indebtedness pressing upon the State, which caused a provision to be inserted, §4 of Art. VII, in the Constitution of 1868, which forbade the State to lend its credit to any person, association, or corporation, unless in completing unfinished roads, or in which the State has a direct pecuniary interest, unless the subject is submitted to the vote of the people of the whole State, and be approved by a majority of those who shall vote thereon.
The same popular sanction is required when a municipal corporation proposes to create a debt, pledge its faith, or .lend its credit, or to levy a tax, except for necessary expenses, and this restraint is put upon legitimate improvements contemplated, and taxation therefor; Art. IV, §7. But this does not extend to such as are not of a public nature.
But the authorities are numerous, that the aid rendered railroads, canals, and the like, which are both private undertakings and also publici jures, in the form of stock-subscriptions or in donations, is for a public purpose, and within the '■ompetency of the law-making power of the State, when ^iot forbidden by the organic law, to bestow upon subordinate municipal bodies.
*236Yielding to the precedents and the practice, I concur in the opinion of the other members of the Court, and sustain the enactment, not being at liberty to do more than ascertain the legislative will, and when not in conflict with the fundamental law, give it effect.
No error. Affirmed.