County of Livingston v. Darlington

• Decision Date: 01 October 1879
• Citation: 25 L.Ed. 1015,101 U.S. 407
• Parties: COUNTY OF LIVINGSTON v. DARLINGTON
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

101 U.S. 407

101 U.S. 407

25 L.Ed. 1015

COUNTY OF LIVINGSTON v. DARLINGTON.

October Term, 1879

ERROR to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of Illinois.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Mr. Richard T. Merrick and Mr. Robert G. Ingersoll for the plaintiff in error.

Mr. Wayne MacVeagh, contra.

MR. JUSTICE HARLAN delivered the opinion of the court.

The court is asked in this action to declare an act of the General Assembly of Illinois to be repugnant to the Constitution of that State. The act referred to was approved March 5, 1867. It established a State Reform School for the discipline, education, employment, and reformation of juvenile offenders and vagrants, between the ages of eight and eighteen years. The management of the institution was committed to a board of trustees, appointed by the Governor by and with the consent of the Senate. Cook County was excepted from the operations of the act, because a similar institution had been previously established in that county.

The board, upon its organization, was required to procee in the selection of a suitable site, in or near the central portion of the State, on which the necessary buildings should be erected. In determining such location, the trustees were directed to take into consideration any proposition, of the performance of which they had satisfactory assurance, to give to the State the lands necessary for the site of the 'house of refuge,' or any materials or money to aid in the erection thereof. Any bond or other obligation executed to the people of the State, and delivered to the trustees of the institution, to secure any such site, money, or materials, the act declared, should be binding upon the parties executing the same. 1 Gross Stat. 564.

On the 19th of April, 1869,—the institution not then having been permanently located,—an amendatory act was passed, which, among other things, declared,——

That any township, county, town, or city might make a subscription in aid of the school, in money, bonds, or lands, for the purpose of securing its location within its limits;

That such subscription, if by a county, should be made by resolution, to be adopted by a majority vote of its Board of Supervisors, at a regular or special meeting thereof; if by a township, by resolution of the supervisor, town clerk, and assessor, acting as a board for the township; if by a town, by resolution or ordinance of its board of trustees; and if by a city, by a resolution or ordinance passed in the usual manner.

That no subscription should be made by a township, town, or city, except in pursuance of a popular vote, at an election called and held in the manner specified in the act; and,

That the township, county, town, or city making such subscription might provide for the payment of the principal and interest thereof, by tax upon the taxable property of such county, township, town, or city, to be levied and collected as other taxes. Id. et seq.

Under this legislation the county of Livingston, through its Board of Supervisors, in consideration of the location of the school within its limits, and to aid in the erection of the necessary buildings, donated the sum of $50,000, and, in payment thereof, issued county bonds, with interest coupons attached. The bonds, dated July 15, 1869, signed by the chairman and clerk of the Board of Supervisors, under the county seal, and reciting upon their face that they were executed and issued under the provisions of the acts of March 5, 1867, and April 19, 1869, and in accordance with the resolution of the Board of Supervisors, were delivered to the trustees of the school, who caused them to be sent to Pennsylvania for sale. They were there sold, in open market, to citizens of that State, and the proceeds applied, by the State of Illinois, to the completion of the buildings connected with the Reform School.

The institution went into operation as contemplated by the legislature.

The present action was brought by Darlington upon some of the interest coupons, he, it is agreed, having become the legal holder thereof, in good faith, for a valuable consideration.

The Circuit Court gave judgment against the county.

Upon this writ of error the controlling question presented for our determination is whether the acts of the General Assembly of Illinois, under which the bonds were issued, are, as to the provisions authorizing municipal donations to secure the location of the Reform School, repugnant to the fifth section of article nine of the Constitution of the State, ratified in 1848.

That section declares that 'The corporate authorities of counties, townships, school districts, cities, towns, and villages may be vested with power to assess and collect taxes for corporate purposes; such taxes to be uniform in respect to persons and property within the jurisdiction of the body imposing the same. And the General Assembly shall require that all the property within the limits of municipal corporations, belonging to individuals, shall be taxed for the payment of debts contracted under authority of law.'

The argument of counsel in be alf of the county consists mainly of two propositions, viz:——

That according to the settled construction by the Supreme Court of Illinois of the State Constitution, at the time the bonds in suit were issued, the General Assembly could not invest the corporate authorities of counties or other municipal organizations with power to assess and collect taxes for any except corporate purposes That it is equally well settled by the same court not to be a corporate purpose for a county or other municipal body to aid, by donation or otherwise, in the establishment of a State institution for the discipline, education, employment, or reformation of juvenile offenders and vagrants.

In determining whether the General Assembly of Illinois has transgressed the fundamental law of that State, we recall what this court said in Fletcher v. Peck (6 Cranch, 128), where it became our duty to consider whether a statute of Georgia was in conflict with its Constitution.

'The question,' said Mr. Chief Justice Marshall, 'whether a law be void for its repugnancy to the Constitution is, at all times, a question of much delicacy, which ought seldom, if ever, to be decided in the affirmative in a doubtful case. The court, when impelled by duty to render such a judgment, would be unworthy of its station, could it be unmindful of the solemn obligations which that station imposes. But it is not on slight implication and vague conjecture that the legislature is to be pronounced to have transcended its powers and its acts to be considered as void. The opposition between the Constitution and the law should be such that the judge feels a clear and strong conviction of their incompatibility with each other.'

This language was cited with approval in Chicago, Danville, & Vincennes Railroad Co. v. Smith (62 Ill. 268), where the Supreme Court of Illinois added:——

'Enough has been cited to show the firm position of the judiciary, that the courts ought not, and in justice to the rights of a co-ordinate department of the State government cannot, declare a law to be void without a strong and earnest conviction, divested of all reasonable doubt, of its invalidity.' Lane v. Dorman, 4 Ill. 238; People v. Marshall, 6 id. 672.

Adhering to these doctrines as vital in the relations which exist between the legislative departments of the several States and the courts of the Union, we first inquire as to the state of the law in Illinois, as declared by its highest judicial tribunal, at the time (July 15, 1869) the bonds in suit were issued and put upon the market for sale.

Prior to that date it seems to have been settled by that court,—— 1. In Harvard, &c. v. St. Clair Drain Co. (51 Ill. 130), that under the Constitution in force prior to that of 1848, and which contained no provision similar to sect. 5, art. 9, of the Constitution of 1848, the right of the ligislature to confer upon municipal corporations the power of taxation for local or corporate purposes was constantly exercised and never denied or doubted; that sect. 5, art. 9, of the Constitution of 1848, was not, therefore, intended as a grant of such power or to remove doubts as to its existence, but to define the class of persons to whom the right of taxation might be granted and the purposes for which it might be exercised; that, consequently, the legislature could not constitutionally confer that power upon any other than the corporate authorities of a county, township, school districts, cities, towns, and villages, or for any other than corporate purposes;

2. In Johnson v. County of Stark (24 id. 75), re-affirmed in Chicago, Danville, & Vincennes Railroad Co. v. Smith, supra; Perkins v. Lewis, 24 Ill. 208; Butler v. Dunham, 27 Id. 473; Town of Keithsburg v. Frick, 34 id. 405, and other cases, that the subscription by a county to the capital stock of a railroad company engaged in the construction of a road running through the limits was a corporate purpose, for t e accomplishment of which the corporate authorities of the county could, under legislative sanction, assess and collect taxes upon persons and property within its jurisdiction; that such aid was a corporate purpose, because in the completion of such improvements 'the whole community is either immediately or remotely interested, those near the line on which it passes in a larger, and those more remotely situated in a less degree, but all participate in its benefits;' that among the corporate purposes for which a county may be taxed are court-houses, jails, poor-houses, the opening and keeping of common highways, and the erection and maintenance of bridges.

3. In Taylor v. Thompson (42 Ill. 9), followed by Henderson v. Lagow (42 id. 361), Briscoe v. Allison (43 id. 291), Misner v. Bullard (43 id. 470), and Johnson v. Campbell (49 id. 317), that a tax levied by a township under...