Montgomery v. State

• Decision Date: 20 December 1889
• Citation: 88 Ala. 141,7 So. 51
• Parties: MONTGOMERY v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

7 So. 51

88 Ala. 141

MONTGOMERY v. STATE.

Supreme Court of Alabama

December 20, 1889

Appeal from circuit court, Blount county; JOHN B. TALLY, Judge.

Inzer & Ward and Dickinson & Hall, for appellant.

W L. Martin, Atty. Gen., for the State.

MCCLELLAN J.

By an act approved February 5, 1885, certain territory extending four miles north and south, and three miles east and west and including the town of Blountsville, was made a separate school-district. The title of the act is "To constitute the town of Blountsville and vicinity, in Blount county, a separate school-district." The provisions of the act down to the seventh and last section, are such as pertain to the establishment of a school-district, and to the management, control, and mantenance of schools therein, though the fourth section, which authorizes the levy of a special tax, is probably obnoxlous to the constitution, ( Schultes v. Eberly, 82 Ala. 242, 2 South. Rep. 345,) and are referable to and properly covered by its title. Section 7, however, prohibits the sale, etc., of liquor within the district, and makes can infraction of its provisions a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of not less than $100, payable only in currency, to the trustees of the district, as a part of the school funds thereof. The appellant was charged with a violation of this section, and on the trial, which resulted in this conviction, reserved exceptions which present for our consideration the constitutionality of the prohibitory and penal section of the act. It is contended that this part of the statute is offensive to that provision of section 2, art. 4, of the present constitution, which declares that "each law shall contain but one subject, which shall be clearly expressed in its title." The settled construction of this clause is that while it will not be so exactingly enforced as to cripple legislation, or to require the title of a bill to specify every provision of the statute, but that, on the contrary, it is permissible to insert those matters which, though they may not be specifically expressed in the title, are proper to the full accomplishment of the object which is expressed, or are naturally suggested by, or connected with, that object; yet matters which are not so suggested by the title, or not so connected with the subject expressed as to appear to follow as a natural and legitimate complement thereto, or which do not appear to be proper to the accomplishment of the indicated purpose, or pertinent or germane to that purpose, cannot be constitutionally embraced in the act. Ballentyne v. Wickersham, 75 Ala. 533; Stein v. Leeper, 78 Ala. 517.

The expressed purpose of the act under consideration was to constitute certain territory a separate school-district. This implied simply that the locality in question-which had theretofore, perhaps,...