condition which has been conceded to be unconstitutional in the case of a bill subject to the approval of the Governor. What is the difference? A law depending for its existence on the approval of one man, is the same in principle with a law depending on the approval of any number of men or of the whole people. For it is not pretended that any legislative power resides in the people any more than in the GovWhat difference is there, then, between the two

ernor.

cases?

CHAPTER IX.

FLORIDA.

THE Constitutional provisions of the State of Florida are as follows:

SECTION 17, ARTICLE IV.-The Legislature shall not pass special or local laws in any of the following enumerated cases, that is to regulating county, township and municipal business; for the assessment and collection of taxes for State, county and municipal purposes, &c.

say;

.

SECTION 22, ARTICLE IV. - The Legislature shall provide by general law for incorporating such municipal, educational, agricultural, mechanical, mining and other useful companies or associations as may be deemed necessary.

SECTION 3, ARTICLE X.-The respective counties of the State shall provide in the manner fixed by law for those of the inhabitants who, by reason of age, infirmity or misfortune, may have claims upon the aid and sympathy of society.

The provision last above given, it will be seen, makes the support of certain classes compulsory upon the counties as a public duty. The issue of Municipal Bonds for such purpose is, therefore, clearly allowed.

SECTION 25, ARTICLE XVI.-All bills, bonds, notes, or evidences of debt outstanding and unpaid, given for or in consideration of bonds or treasury notes of the so-called Confederate States, or notes and bonds of this State paid and redeemable in the bonds and notes of the Confederate States, are hereby declared null and void, and no action shall be maintained thereon in the courts of this State.1

The present Constitution, adopted subsequent to the Rebellion, differs somewhat in its provisions affecting

15

1 See Chap. V.

225

municipalities from that which previously obtained. But the principles announced in the opinion in the case of Cotten v. Commissioners of Leon Co., 6 Fla., 610, which we give in full, may be taken to be the law of the State. The legislative rule is adhered to with marked distinctness. The following are the points specifically decided, and will be of importance in presenting new facts as well as establishing the validity of Municipal Bonds.

Under our State Constitution, it is the appropriate function of the judicial department to decide whether a statute of the Legislature be or be not constitutional; but, in deference to a co-ordinate branch of the Government, it ought never to nullify a statute, except in a case free from doubt.

In proceeding to define and determine the constitutional power of the legislative department, it is proper to note the characteristic difference which marks our Federal and State Constitutions. Whilst the former contains only specific grants of powers, the latter makes a general grant of all the political power of the people, restrained only by specific reservations. Hence, in determining upon the validity of statutes, the Acts of Congress are to be construed with greater stringency than the Acts passed by our General Assembly.

No certain rule can be prescribed by which to determine when a work of internal improvement shall be deemed to be embraced within the meaning of the phrase, "county purposes," as the same is used in the fourth clause of the eighth Article of the State Constitution. Neither the locality of the work, nor the anticipated benefit to be derived from it, is of itself a certain test; but as furnishing a general rule, the concurrence of the two would seem to be required.

That the Pensacola and Georgia Railroad Company is

a private corporation, affords no valid reason why the shares of its capital stock, purchased by and on behalf of the county of Leon, should not be deemed to be the public property of the citizens of the county.

The act of subscription to the capital stock of the Pensacola and Georgia Railroad Company, by the Board of County Commissioners of Leon County, is within the meaning of the phrase "county purposes," as used in the Constitution of the State.

The word "necessary," occurring in the second clause of the eighth Article of the Constitution, and by implication transferred to the fourth clause of the same Article, when applied to the taxing-power of the county authorities, is to be taken rather as an indication of a grant of discretion, to be exercised within the appropriate limits of their general power, than as a restraint upon that power.

The provision of the Act, which required that a subscription to the stock of the railroad company, by the county commissioners, should depend upon a vote of the qualified voters of the county, was not a delegation to the people of legislative powers, but only a legitimate mode of obtaining an expression of the will of the constituent, as a guide for the action of the representative.

The provision contained in the Act, that each taxpayer should receive a remuneration, in the shape of stock in the railroad company, equivalent to the amount of his tax assessment, is not in conflict with either the first or twenty-fourth clauses of our "Declaration of Rights."

The provision of the Act which authorizes the counties to issue bonds for the purpose of raising money to pay for the stock to be purchased, does not contravene the letter or spirit of the thirteenth clause of the thirteenth Article of the Constitution, which prohibits the General

Assembly from pledging the faith and credit of the State to raise funds in aid of corporations.

The twenty-second section of the Act of the General Assembly of 1855, entitled "An Act to provide for and encourage a liberal system of internal improvements in this State," is declared to be constitutional.

Appellants filed their bill for an injunction to restrain the county commissioners of Leon County from levying and collecting a tax imposed by them, to meet an instalment of stock subscribed by the county in the Pensacola and Georgia Railroad Company.

On presenting the bill, an injunction was granted, which, however, was dissolved on the coming in of the answer, and the bill was dismissed.

The question presented by the pleadings for the decision of the court is, whether the General Assembly has the constitutional power to confer upon counties, as attempted by the "Act to provide for and encourage a liberal system of internal improvements in this State," passed in January, 1855, the authority to subscribe for shares in the capital stock of certain railroad companies, and impose and collect taxes for the payment thereof. The following is the opinion of the court in full:

DUPONT, J., delivered the opinion of the court.

It would prove but a useless waste of words, an unprofitable expenditure of time, to engage in any labored effort to impress the importance of the question presented by this case for the adjudication of the court.

The bare announcement that it involves the construction and interpretation to be given to certain clauses of the Constitution of the State-the fundamental law of the land, the embodiment of the delegated sovereignty of the people — is a sufficient guarantee that it has received at the hands of the court that calm, thorough and anxious consideration which befitted the occasion. Without, therefore, indulging in the encomiums upon our republican institutions which