Coyle v. Thomas Smith
| Decision Date | 29 May 1911 |
| Docket Number | No. 941,941 |
| Citation | 221 U.S. 559,55 L.Ed. 853,31 S.Ct. 688 |
| Parties | W. H. COYLE, Plff. in Err., v. THOMAS P. SMITH, Secretary of State of the State of Oklahoma, et al |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. Frank Dale, C. G. Horner, John H. Burford, A. G. C. Bierer, Frank B. Burford, and Benjamin F. Hegler for plaintiff in error.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 560-562 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Charles West, B. F. Burwell, Joseph W. Bailey, W. A. Ledbetter, and C. B. Stuart for defendants in error.
This is a writ of error to the supreme court of Oklahoma to review the judgment of that court upholding a legislative act of the state, providing for the removal of its capital from Guthrie to Oklahoma City, and making an appropriation from the funds of the state for the purpose of carrying out the act by the erection of the necessary state buildings. Acts of Oklahoma, December 29, 1910.
The opinion of the supreme court of Oklahoma may be found in 113 Pac. 944.
By an act passed December 7, 1910, the state gave to its supreme court 'original jurisdiction' to entertain any proceeding brought in that court by resident taxpayers of the state to have determined 'the legality of the removal or location, or attempt to remove or locate, the state capital' and certain other state institutions. This act was passed in advance of the removal act here involved, and for the express purpose of providing a speedy method for the determination of constitutional objections which might be urged against the proposed relocation of the seat of the state government. The removal act followed, and this proceeding was at once started in the supreme court of the state by the plaintiff in error, who claimed not only to be a citizen and tax-payer of the state, but also owner of large property interests in Guthrie, which would be adversely affected by the removal of the seat of government, as proposed by the act in question. The validity of the law locating the capital at Oklahoma City was attacked for many reasons which involved only the interpretation and application of the Constitution of the state. These were all decided adversely to the petitioner. We shall pass them by as matters of state law, not subject to the reviewing power of this court under a writ of error to a state court.
The question reviewable under this writ of error, if any there be, arises under the claim set up by the petitioner, and decided against him, that the Oklahoma act of December 29, 1910, providing for the immediate location of the capital of the state at Oklahoma City, was void as repugnant to the enabling act of Congress of June 16, 1906, under which the state was admitted to the Union. 34 Stat. at L. chap. 3335, p. 267. The act referred to is entitled, 'An Act to Enable the People of Oklahoma and of the Indian Territory to Form a Constitution and State Government and Be Admitted into the Union on an Equal Footing with the Original States,' etc. The same act provides for the admission of Arizona and New Mexico. The first twenty-two sections relate only to Oklahoma. The 2d section is lengthy and deals with the organization of a constitutional convention, and concludes in these words: 'The capital of said state shall temporarily be at the city of Guthrie. . . . and shall not be changed therefrom previous to Anno Domini nineteen hundred and thirteen; but said capital shall, after said year, be located by the electors of said state at an election to be provided for by the legislature; provided, however, that the legislature of said state, except as shall be necessary for the convenient transaction of the public business of said state at said capital, shall not appropriate any public moneys of the state for the erection of buildings for capital purposes during said period.'
Other sections of the act require that the Constitution of the proposed new state shall include many specific provisions concerning the framework of the government, and some which impose limitations upon the state as regards the Indians therein, and their reservations, in respect of traffic in liquor among the Indians or upon their reservations. The 22d and last section, applicable to Oklahoma, reads thus: 'That the constitutional convention provided for herein shall by ordinance irrevocably accept the terms and conditions of this act.'
The Constitution as framed contains nothing as to the location of the state capital; but the convention which framed it adopted a separate ordinance in these words:
This was submitted along with the Constitution as a separate matter, and was ratified as was the Constitution proper.
The efficacy of this ordinance as a law of the state conflicting with the removal act of 1910 was, of course, a state question. The only question for review by us is whether the provision of the enabling act was a valid limitation upon the power of the state after its admission, which overrides any subsequent state legislation repugnant thereto.
The power to locate its own seat of government, and to determine when and how it shall be changed from one place to another, and to appropriate its own public funds for that purpose, are essentially and peculiarly state powers. That one of the original thirteen states could now be shorn of such powers by an act of Congress would not be for a moment entertained. The question, then, comes to this: Can a state be placed upon a plane of inequality with its sister states in the Union if the Congress chooses to impose conditions which so operate, at the time of its admission? The argument is, that while Congress may not deprive a state of any power which it possesses, it may, as a condition to the admission of a new state, constitutionally restrict its authority, to the extent, at least, of suspending its powers for a definite time in respect to the location of its seat of government. This contention is predicated upon the constitutional power of admitting new states to this Union, and the constitu- tional duty of guaranteeing to 'every state in this Union a republican form of government.' The position of counsel for the plaintiff in error is substantially this: That the power of Congress to admit new states, and to determine whether or not its fundamental law is republican in form, are political powers, and as such, uncontrollable by the courts. That Congress may, in the exercise of such power, impose terms and conditions upon the admission of the proposed new state, which, if accepted, will be obligatory, although they operate to deprive the state of powers which it would otherwise possess, and, therefore, not admitted upon 'an equal footing with the original states.'
The power of Congress in respect to the admission of new states is found in the 3d section of the 4th article of the Constitution. That provision is that, 'new states may be admitted by the Congress into this Union.' The only expressed restriction upon this power is that no new state shall be formed within the jurisdiction of any other state, nor by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of such states, as well as of the Congress.
But what is this power? It is not to admit political organizations which are less or greater, or different in dignity or power, from those political entities which constitute the Union. It is, as strongly put by counsel, a 'power to admit states.'
The definition of 'a state' is found in the powers possessed by the original states which adopted the Constitution,—a definition emphasized by the terms employed in all subsequent acts of Congress admitting new states into the Union. The first two states admitted into the Union were the states of Vermont and Kentucky, one as of March 4, 1791, and the other as of June 1, 1792. No terms or conditions were exacted from either. Each act declares that the state is admitted 'as a new and entire member of the United States of America.' 1 Stat. at L 191, 189, chaps. 7, 4. Emphatic and significant as is the phrase admitted as 'an entire member,' even stronger was the declaration upon the admission in 1796 of Tennessee [1 Stat. at L. 491, chap. 47] as the third new state, it being declared to be 'one of the United States of America,' 'on an equal footing with the original states in all respects whatsoever,'—phraseology which has ever since been substantially followed in admission acts, concluding with the Oklahoma act, which declares that Oklahoma shall be admitted 'on an equal footing with the original states.'
The power is to admit 'new states into this Union.'
'This Union' was and is a union of states, equal in power, dignity, and authority, each competent to exert that residuum of sovereignty not delegated to the United States by the Constitution itself. To maintain otherwise would be to say that the Union, through the power of Congress to admit new states, might come to be a union of states unequal in power, as including states whose powers were restricted only by the Constitution, with others whose powers had been further restricted by an act of Congress accepted as a condition of admission. Thus it would result, first, that the powers of Congress would not be defined by the...
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