Hall v. Steele

• Decision Date: 18 July 1887
• Citation: 82 Ala. 562,2 So. 650
• Parties: HALL v. STEELE.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

2 So. 650

82 Ala. 562

HALL v. STEELE.

Supreme Court of Alabama

July 18, 1887

Appeal from circuit court, Colbert county.

Application for mandamus to probate judge, refusing to grant license for retailing spirituous liquors.

This was an application by petition on the part of Thomas L. Hall for a writ of mandamus against John A. Steele, the probate judge of Colbert county, requiring him to issue to petitioner a license to retail spirituous liquors in the town of Leighton, in said county, on his compliance with all the requisitions of the law governing the issue of such license. Said probate judge made an order, reciting that the law had been complied with, but on account of the recent act of the legislature prohibiting the sale of vinous or spirituous liquors in the town of Leighton, in said county, he refused to issue said license. The date of the order and petition is March 24, 1887. Afterwards an appeal was taken to the circuit court for said county, where the petition was likewise denied, and this appeal is taken from such order.

Saml. F. Rice, J. B. Moore, and James Jackson, for appellant.

No counsel contra.

CLOPTON J.

The judge of probate based his refusal to issue to the appellant a license to sell vinous or spirituous liquors in the town of Leighton on an act passed during the last session of the general assembly, "to prohibit the sale, giving away, or disposing of any spirituous, vinous, or malt liquors, or intoxicating bitters, beverages, or drinks, or fruits preserved in alcohol or alcoholic liquors," in a number of enumerated localities in different parts of the state; the town of Leighton being one of them. The act was originally introduced as a bill "to prohibit the sale or giving away of spirituous, vinous, or malt liquors, and other intoxicating beverages, in the county of Montgomery, outside of the corporate limits and police jurisdiction of the city of Montgomery," and in this form was passed by the senate. In the house of representatives a substitute was adopted by way of amendment, extending the provisions of the bill to numerous other localities, and the title was correspondingly changed, and the act was eventually passed as published in Pamphlet Acts 1886-87, p. 665. It is insisted that the act is violative of section 19 of article 4 of the constitution, for the reason that the bill was so altered or amended on its passage as to change its original purpose. This clause of the constitution we fully considered and construed in Stein v. Leeper, 78 Ala. 517, when the constitutionality of a statute having the same purpose, and in this respect substantially a similar legislative history, was under consideration.

We held the original purpose of the bill, being local prohibition, was not altered or changed by increasing by amendment the localities in which the act should have operation; that such were extensions, and not changes of the purpose. We find no reason to depart from the construction then placed on the clause of the constitution referred to.

It is further insisted that the act was not passed in accordance with the constitutional requirements, and is therefore in valid. This contention is founded on two grounds: That the manner in which the bill was amended and passed, repels the...