State ex rel. Dunton v. Cobb
| Decision Date | 15 August 1877 |
| Citation | 8 S.C. 123 |
| Parties | THE STATE, ex rel. DUNTON, v. COBB. |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
The Legislature may constitutionally provide that the poll tax of any year shall be applied to the payment of past due school claims against the County.
There is nothing in § 3, Article 9, of the Constitution of the State which prohibits the General Assembly fro providing for the payment of deficiencies out of other sources of income than a deficiency tax levied under that Section.
The poll tax is imposed by the Constitution itself, and the limit within which it may be applied is to be found in the term " educational purposes," as used in that instrument.
This was a petition by L. M. Dunton as relator against A. L. Cobb County Treasurer, for a writ of mandamus to compel the respondent to pay certain school claims held by the relator.
The points of law decided in the case sufficiently appear in the opinion of the Court.
Jones & Mower , for relator.
Suber & Caldwell , contra.
The only question in this case is as to the constitutionality of certain provisions of an Act entitled " An Act to provide for the payment of past due school claims in the several Counties of this State," approved March 3, 1874, (15 Stat. 565). The Act provides for ascertaining the amounts due by the respective Counties for school claims up to November 1, 1873, and sets apart a fund, consisting in part of receipts in the offices of the County Treasurers on account of the poll tax, for the payment of such school claims. The clause to which objection on the ground of unconstitutionality is made is the following, at the close of Section 1 of the Act, viz.: " Provided , That all school claims issued prior to the first day of November, 1872, shall be first paid as prescribed by this Act." The point of objection is that the Act prefers in the order of payment out of funds derived from current poll taxes a class of school claims matured before November 1, 1873.
It is contended that the Constitution intended that current receipts from the poll tax shall be applied to current demands properly chargeable against it; at all events, that the fund derived from that source shall not be appropriated by the Legislature to past due claims so as to postpone the payment of more recent claims of that class. The only clauses of the Constitution pointed out as interfering with the effect claimed for this provision of the Act are Sections 2 and 3, Article IX, and Section 5, Article X. Section 2, Article IX, provides as follows: " The General Assembly may provide annually for a poll tax not to exceed one dollar on each poll, which shall be applied exclusively to the public school fund." Section 5, Article X, provides that
It is clear that there is nothing contained in the provisions just recited limiting the appropriations made by the Legislature, provided the proceeds of the poll tax are not diverted from the object intended by the Constitution. This object is defined in Section 2, Article IX, by the declaration that such fund shall be applied exclusively to " the public school fund," and in Section 5, Article X, by the declaration that it shall be applied solely for " educational purposes." Payment of past due claims is no less an application to educational purposes than of current demands. Nor is there any reason to be drawn from the above recited provisions why the public school fund should not be applied to debts incurred for educational purposes in the past as well as for current obligations. The duty of the State to pay its past indebtedness incurred for educational purposes rests on higher ground than its duty to maintain its schools in the present and future. The latter rests on benevolence and the former on justice.
It is argued that the intent of the Constitution was to maintain the school system as a means of education, and withdrawing the school funds from that...
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