to accomplish its purpose so far as attainable, and to carry out the policy which we may assume dictated it.” The collateral inheritance tax is permanent. "It is always uncertain upon whom it will fall and how much revenue it will produce." It would be impracticable for the legislature to specify the particular objects to which the tax should be applied, “and we are of opinion that this section was intended to apply to the annual recurring taxes known at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and imposed generally upon the entire property of the state." Re McPherson (1887) 104 N. Y. 306, 58 Am. Rep. 502, 10 N. E. 685.

§ 25. [Three-fifths bills.]-On the final passage, in either house of the legislature, of any act which imposes, continues, or revives a tax, or creates a debt or charge, or makes, continues, or revives any appropriation of public or trust money or property, or releases, discharges, or commutes any claim or demand of the state, the question shall be taken by yeas and nays, which shall be duly entered upon the journals, and three fifths of all the members elected to either house shall, in all such cases, be necessary to constitute a quorum therein.

[Const. 1846, art. 7, § 14.]

This belongs to the same class as § 24.

The provision for a commutation tax in the militia law of 1851 did not render the act subject to the requirement that three fifths of each house of the legislature must be present at its passage. The commutation is not a tax in the ordinary sense. People ex rel. Scott v. Chenango (1853) 8 N. Y. 317.

An act enlarging the territorial boundaries of a village did not require the presence of three fifths of the legislature on its final passage. Pumpelly v. Owego (1863) 45 How. Pr. 219.

The act of 1855, chap. 428, for compensating parties whose property may be destroyed in consequence of mobs and riots, did not require the presence of three fifths of the legislature on its fina! passage. Darlington v. New York (1865) 31 N. Y. 164, 88 Am. Dec. 248.

The act of 1879, chap. 89, making the plaintiff in this case the recipient of the percentage of premiums received on business transacted in this state by foreign insurance companies, did not require the presence of three fifths. Exempt Firemen's Benev. Fund v. Roome (1883) 93 N. Y. 313, 45 Am. Rep. 217.

§ 26. [Board of supervisors.]—There shall be in each county, except in a county wholly included in a city, a board of supervisors, to be composed of such members and elected in such manner and for such period as is or may be provided by law. In a city which includes an entire county, or two or more entire counties, the powers and duties of a board of supervisors may be devolved upon the municipal assembly, common council, board of aldermen, or other legislative body of the city.

[As amended in 1899; for original, see amendments of 1874.]

In the chapter on the Commission of 1872, I have given a sketch of the origin of the provision requiring a board of supervisors in each county, including a reference to the discussion of the subject in the Convention of 1867. I have there noted the fact that the second part of the section relating to boards of aldermen was added by the legislature while the report of the Commission was under consideration. This provision then applied only to the city and county of New York, which were conterminous. By the New York charter of 1873, which was passed by the same legislature that recommended the constitutional amendments, the board of aldermen became the supervisors of the county. The constitutional provision was not changed by the Convention of 1894. The Greater New York charter of 1897, chap. 378, which, in general, took effect January 1, 1898, extended the boundaries of the city by including the counties of Kings and Richmond and a part of the county of Queens. This situation

rendered inapplicable the second part of the above section, and the counties composing the new city, including the county of New York, became subject to the first part of the section, which required a board of supervisors in every county, except as therein indicated, and that exception then had no meaning. Accordingly the same legislature which passed the charter passed a supplemental act (1897, chap. 380) which provided that “in every county of the state wholly included within the limits of a city, but not comprising the whole of such city, there shall be a board of supervisors, to be composed of the members of the municipal assembly, board of aldermen, common council, or other legislative body of such city, who shall be elected as such, and also as supervisors within the territorial limits of the county," and certain duties were imposed on such board. This did not include Queens county, only a part of which was in the city, and whose supervisors therefore continued to exercise the powers vested in them before the charter. The unsatisfactory condition in Queens county resulting from the fact that a part of it was included in the city and a part remained subject to the ordinary county and town laws, suggested a division of that county and the legislature of 1898 accordingly erected the county of Nassau, comprising three towns, Oyster Bay, North Hempstead, and Hempstead, not included in the city of New York, and this act, as to most of its provisions, took effect on the 1st of January, 1899. This left all of Queens county in New York and subject to the provisions of the supplemental act of 1897, chap. 380, already cited. The legislature of 1899, by chap. 74, amended § 1586 of the New York charter by including Queens county, and by adding a provision which terminated the duties of the board of supervisors on the 31st of December, 1899. But subsequently, at the same session, chap. 416, the legislature

extended the powers of such board until the end of the term for which the supervisors had been elected. As a result of these statutes, the city of New York comprised four entire counties,-New York, Kings, Richmond, and Queens,—and that part of Queens county not included in the city had become the county of Nassau. The necessity of re-establishing a board of supervisors in New York county consequent upon the enlargement of the city suggested a constitutional amendment which should relieve all the counties in the city from the operation of the requirement that each county must have a board of supervisors. An amendment was accordingly proposed in the legislature of 1898, and was approved and submitted to the legislature of 1899, by which it was again approved and submitted to the people and adopted at the November election in that year.

In construing the act of 1898, chap. 588, erecting the county of Nassau (Re Noble [1898] 34 App. Div. 55, 54 N. Y. Supp. 42), the court say that "although the board of supervisors is a county organization, its members are not elected by the body of electors of the county, but are chosen by the electors of their several towns respectively, and individually they are classed as town officers," and quote the provision of the county law that "the supervisors of the cities and towns in each county, when lawfully convened, shall be the board of supervisors of the county." By the Nassau act, the supervisors of three towns, Oyster Bay, North Hempstead, and Hempstead, then in office, were to constitute the board of supervisors of the new county, but the court suggest that by operation of the county law, these supervisors would constitute such board without any other legislative declaration. Supervisors are town officers, with specific powers and duties as such, and they are also made members of the legislative body of the county.

§ 27. [Powers of boards of supervisors.]—The legislature shall, by general laws, confer upon the boards of supervisors of the several counties of the state such further

powers of local legislation and administration as the legis lature may, from time to time, deem expedient.

[Const. 1846, art. 3, § 17; Am. 1874]

This section, except as to the provision relating to general laws, was included in the Constitution by the Convention of 1846, and was one expression of the result of a discussion concerning the distribution of the powers of government which engaged the attention of the statesmen of that period, and was a reaction from the policy of centralized authority which was such a conspicuous feature in the first and second Constitutions. But it will be observed, as noted in the article on home rule in the third volume, that the provision, as it came from that Convention, conferred no authority on the legislature which it did not already possess, and imposed on that body no duty in respect to the powers which might be vested in boards of supervisors. The Commission of 1872 made the provision mandatory instead of permissive, and required powers to be conferred on boards of supervisors by general laws. The legislature had, before the Convention of 1846, conferred on boards of supervisors extensive powers of local legislation and administration, and that policy has since been continued in a large number of statutes, with the result that such boards have now become verv important subordinate governmental agencies.

Within the limits of the power delegated to it under this section, a board of supervisors "is clothed with the sovereignty of the state, and is authorized to legislate as to all details precisely as the legislature might have done in the premises. The evident intent of the framers of the Constitution in permitting the legislature to delegate certain of its powers to the local boards was to carry out a public policy which assumes that the interests of a particular locality are best subserved by those who are familiar with its affairs. It would