State ex rel. Missouri State Bd. of Agric. v. Holladay

• Decision Date: 30 April 1877
• Parties: STATE ex rel. MISSOURI STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE, Relator, v. THOMAS HOLLADAY, STATE AUDITOR, Respondent.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

64 Mo. 526

STATE ex rel. MISSOURI STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE, Relator,

v.THOMAS HOLLADAY, STATE AUDITOR, Respondent.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

April Term, 1877.

Application for Mandamus.

Geo. W. Taussig with H. M. Jones, for Relator, cited: Sedgw. Const., 161, 164, 173 (2d. Ed).

J. L. Smith, for Respondent, cited: St. Joe. Board Pub. Sch. vs. Patten, 62 Mo. 450.

SHERWOOD, C. J., delivered the opinion of the court.

Argument has been heard touching this application for a mandamus against the State Auditor, who has refused to issue a warrant for the services of C. V. Riley, State Entomologist, during the current year commencing on the 23d ult. Reliance for the issuance of the writ is placed on the act of March 23d, 1870, whereby the sum of $3,000 is “appropriated annually” for the services of the last mentioned officer. On the other hand it is urged that recent and radical changes in our organic law have virtually repealed those statutory provisions whereon the petitioner relies; and this is the only point presented which goes to the merits of the present application.

Let us examine the grounds on which the assertion, offered in resistance to the issuance of the writ, is supposed to rest.

Section 20 of art. 4 of the Constitution, provides that “the general assembly shall meet in regular session once only in every two years.”

Section 43 of the same article prohibits “money to be drawn from the treasury except in pursuance of regular appropriations made by law.”

From a consideration of these two sections, it seems quite obvious that no appropriations of money find recognition in the constitution except ““regular appropriations,” and that such cannot be made except at regular legislative sessions, occurring biennially. This view of the matter receives abundant confirmation in the prohibitions of section 19 of article X, that “no moneys shall ever be paid out of the treasury of this State, or any of the funds under its management, except in pursuance of an appropriation by law; nor unless such payment be made, or a warrant shall have issued therefor, within two years after the passage of such appropriation act, and every such law making a new appropriation or continuing or reviving an appropriation, shall distinctly specify the sum appropriated, and the object to which it is to be applied; and it shall not be sufficient to refer to any other law to fix such sum or object,” etc.

The act of March, 1870, is clearly inconsistent with the provisions of the constitution above quoted, and in consequence thereof, and in conformity with what the schedule ordains, the provisions of that act ceased when the constitution was adopted. For although the sections of the constitution just cited, do not in express and direct terms inhibit the auditor from drawing his warrant in favor of a claimant who relies on an appropriation more than two years old, yet those sections, by necessary and inevitable implication, accomplish the same result; for it cannot, with any show of reason, be claimed that a warrant can be drawn without an appropriation; but as just seen, no...