Mayor v. Trigg

• Decision Date: 31 July 1870
• Parties: THE MAYOR, COUNCILMEN AND CITIZENS OF THE CITY OF BOONVILLE, Plaintiffs in Error, v. WILLIAM H. TRIGG, Defendant in Error.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

46 Mo. 288

THE MAYOR, COUNCILMEN AND CITIZENS OF THE CITY OF BOONVILLE, Plaintiffs in Error,

v.WILLIAM H. TRIGG, Defendant in Error.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

July Term, 1870.

Error to First District Court.

D. B. McMillan, for plaintiffs in error.

I. The act of the general assembly entitled “an act amendatory of an act to incorporate the city of Boonville,” approved March 23, 1868, is not in conflict with section 25 of article 4 of the constitution of the State of Missouri. (See Constitution.) This section does not require that the act or part of act amended shall be set forth and published as it stood before, but that the act or part of act amended shall be set forth and published as amended. (Cooley on Const. Limit. 151; People v. Mahaney, 13 Mich. 481.)

II. The said act of 1868 amends all that part of the act of 1839 relating to the bounds and limits of the city of Boonville, and the part so amended is set forth and published in full.

Adams, and Draffen & Muir, for defendant in error.

The attempted amendment of 1868 is in direct conflict with section 25, article 4, Const. Mo. (Gen. Stat. 1865, p. 31.) The amendment strikes out the words constituting the old bounds of the city, and inserts the words constituting the new bounds, without re-enacting the section thus amended as “if it were an original act or provision.” This can not be done. The section of the constitution referred to is mandatory, and not merely directory. The object of this provision was to force the Legislature to so enact amendments that the courts and all others might se at a glance, and without reference to the old law, the new law or amendment in all its bearings. In the present case this can not be done. (People v. Mahaney, 13 Mich. 497; Walker v. Caldwell, 4 La. Ann. 297; Heirs of Duverge v. Salter, 5 La. Ann. 94; Langdon v. Applegate, 5 Ind. 327; Rogers v. State, 6 Ind. 31; 41 Mo. 39; 42 Mo. 590.)

WAGNER, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

The only question presented for our consideration in this case involves the constitutionality of the act approved March 23, 1868, amending the charter of the city of Boonville. The city of Boonville was incorporated by an act of the Legislature, approved February 8, 1839, and the first section of the act defined the boundaries of the city, designated its name and style, and conferred upon it certain powers.

By section 1 of the act of 1868 the original act was amended so far as limits and boundaries were concerned. The whole section is not re-enacted or amended, but only so much as relates to boundaries. Everything which is included in the subject of the amendment, however, is given and re-enacted entire as a substitute for the old law. It is contended that because the whole section, as amended, is not embodied and inserted in the amendment, the act is invalid and repugnant to the twenty-fifth section of the fourth article of the constitution of this State. That section provides that “no act shall be revived or re-enacted by mere reference to the title thereof; nor shall any act be amended by providing that designated words thereof shall be struck out, or that designated words shall be struck out and others inserted in lieu thereof; but in every such case the act revived or re-enacted, or the act or part of act amended, shall be set forth and published at length, as if it were an original act or provision.”

In this section it will be perceived that different provisions are made. Where an entire act is revived or re-enacted it must be set forth and published in whole. Where a whole act is amended the same course must be pursued; but where a part of an act is amended, the amendatory part only need be set out and published.

Every person who is familiar with our past legislative history well understands the reasons which induced the insertion of this constitutional provision. Amendments were made in such a manner as to involve the law to which they pertained in inextricable confusion. Amendatory acts were passed which required only the insertion of certain words, or the substitution of one phrase for...