Stewart v. Court of County Com'rs

• Decision Date: 03 May 1887
• Citation: 2 So. 270,82 Ala. 209
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court
• Parties: STEWART AND OTHERS v. COURT OF COUNTY COM'RS OF HALE CO.

2 So. 270

82 Ala. 209

STEWART AND OTHERS v. COURT OF COUNTY COM'RS OF HALE CO.

Supreme Court of Alabama

May 3, 1887

Appeal from circuit court, Hale county.

Petition for certiorari. The petitioners, Charles Stewart and others, having set forth the matters wherein they felt aggrieved, applied to Hon. JOHN MOORE, judge of the Fourth judicial circuit, who granted the writ of certiorari prayed for, directed to the court of county commissioners of Hale county, returnable to the next regular term of said circuit court. Upon the answer of said court of county commissioners being filed, the said petitioners moved, on October 22, 1886, that the order of said court establishing said agricultural district be annulled and vacated; and upon the hearing of said motion the same was denied, from which action of the court this appeal is prosecuted.

Thomas R. Roulhac, for petitioners.

Coleman & Coleman, contra.

SOMERVILLE J.

On November 14, 1885, the court of county commissioners of Hale county, the appellees in this suit, acting under the authority supposed to be conferred on them by the act approved February 23, 1883, (Acts 1882-83, pp. 616-618,) made an order establishing a new and separate "agricultural district" in that county, within certain limits of territory particularly described. In the present proceeding which is a petition for a certiorari, the effort it made by the appellants to annul and vacate that order, by motion to quash, duly made on the hearing in the circuit court. The ground of the motion is the alleged unconstitutionality of the act of February 23, 1883, under the authority of which the commissioners acted in making the order.

There are several distinct clauses in the present constitution to which, it is contended, the act is repugnant. We propose to notice but one, which, in our judgment, is fatal to its validity as a constitutional enactment. It is provided by section 2 of article 4 of the constitution that "each law shall contain but one subject, which shall be clearly expressed in its title," with certain exceptions not affecting the present case. In the same section it is further provided that " no law shall be revived, amended, or the provisions thereof extended or conferred by reference to its title only; but so much thereof as is revived, amended, extended, or conferred, shall be re-enacted and published at length. " Const. 1875, art. 4, § 2.

The first clause of this section, which is analogous in its purpose to the last, has been many times construed by this court. In Ballentyne v. Wickersham, 75 Ala. 533, 536, referring to the phrase, "shall be clearly expressed in the title," it was said that "the intention of this was that the title of the act or bill should inform the members of the legislature, and perhaps the public, of the subject on which the former was invited to vote and legislate. Matters foreign to the main object of the bill," it was added, "had sometimes found their way into bills,-surreptitiously, at times, it was charged; and thus the members were induced to vote for measures in ignorance of what they were doing. The constitutional provision intended to render a continuance of this abuse impossible."

The second clause of the same section, quoted above, has in view a like policy. It prohibits, in plain language, the revival amendment, extension, or the otherwise conferring of the benefits of the provisions of any law, "by reference to its title only." But, to accomplish this purpose, it is made mandatory that "so much thereof as is revived, amended, extended, or conferred, shall be re-enacted and...