Court Opinion

ID: 9811547
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 22:23:54.182885+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:16:07.594685
License: Public Domain

Furches, C. J.,
concurring in conclusion.
I concur in the eonclusion reached in the opinion of the Court that the judgment appealed from should be affirmed. But I do> not agree to the argument by which that conclusion is reached. And as it involves a question of constitutional law, it seems proper that I should state some of the reasons for my disagreement.
I will not enter into an argument of the question, but it seems to me that the Court has failed to' distinguish the difference between an act of incorporation and an act to levy taxes. One is an act to subdivide the political powers of the States — to> create an entity, clothed with a part of sovereign powers of the State. It is nothing, and can do nothing, until it is created. But when it is thus erected into a county or a city or a town, it then becomes a sovereign to a limited extent, clothed with its powers and subject to' its obligations and duties to the public. It can not lawfully disregard either. It was created for a public good, and, as a sovereign (in its limited extent) it has the power of self-preservation. And it can not continue to exist without means to pay its •necessary *297expenses. These can only be bad by the levy and collestion of taxes.
There is no provision of the Constitution requiring or providing that the Legislature shall give a municipal corporation power to levy and collect taxes. But it seems to be assumed Lb at such corporations have the power of taxation. And wherever taxation is mentioned in the Constitution, with reference to' municipal corporations, it is to' restrict their powers, and not to- grant them. This is so in Article VII, See. 7, and it is so in Article VIII, Sec. 4, which provides for the organization of cities and towns, “and to restrict their powers of taxation.” Can it be that the framers of the Constitution’ intended that such bills, as are provided for in these sections, should be read on three several days and the yeas and nays called and recorded on the two last readings ? If so, why did not the Constitution say so? Because they are not bills to raise revenue.
Section 14, Artice II, of the Constitution, in my opinion, Lias nothing to do with the legislation to create a municipal corporation. If the views expressed in the opinion of the Court are correct, I venture to say that not a county, city or town in the State has been properly incorporated. And if what is said is true as to towns arid cities, it must be true as to counties. If the views of the opinion are correct, no county, city or town had any right to levy any tax until The Code of 1883.
I am in favor of sustaining the provisions of the Constitution where they properly apply to taxation, but I am not willing to carry it to legislation to' which it does not apply, and to my mind makes it an absurdity.