CHAPTER VI. REQUIREMENT OF GENERAL LAWS AND THAT THEY BE OF UNIFORM OPERATION. § 116. Constitutional requirements. 117. They are mandatory. 120-123. General laws, or laws of general nature. 124-126. Required uniform opera tion. § 127-129. Special and local laws. It is the aim of the § 116. Constitutional requirements. government to provide just and equal laws, and to prevent, as far as possible, enactments which are not such. The accomplishment of this purpose is in part intended to be secured by the framers of state constitutions by adopting therein certain provisions, mandatory to the legislature, prohibiting special or local laws on certain enumerated subjects, and as to all others, either where general laws exist, or where they can be made applicable. Another provision adopted in several states requires that all laws of a general nature shall have a uniform operation throughout the state. This requirement is not confined to the subjects enumerated in the prohibition of special or local laws; nor is it a mere repetition in substance of the general injunction to pass general laws where they can be made applicable. Laws of a general nature are those which relate to subjects of that nature, and deal generally with them. The requirement involves the question what is such a subject, and how comprehensively it must be treated in legislative acts. Laws to which the requirement is applicable must be so framed as to have a uniform operation throughout the state. § 117. These constitutional provisions mandatory. They are mandatory to the legislature; and a compliance with them is necessary to the validity of legislation. Whether a particular act is conformable or not is a judicial question; that is, the courts have power to determine it, and they will hold any act void which violates either of these regulations,' with one exception. This exception is the question whether on a nonenumerated subject, not of a general nature, a general law can be made applicable. That is a legislative question. When a special act has been passed, in such a case, it implies that in the legislative judgment a general act could not be made applicable. It is a conclusive implication, and that judgment is final; the courts will not enter at all upon the inquiry; they will accept the judgment of the legislature as exercised within its exclusive legislative domain, and give it effect. These requirements are prospective, and do not apply to or affect the validity of existing statutes.3 § 118. If a general law exists which is applicable to a subject, the question whether such a law can be made applicable is resolved. The legislature has by the enactment of a general law practically decided the question. Hence if, while such a general law is in force, a special or local law is passed affecting the same subject and modifying the general law, the question of its validity is judicial; it will be held invalid in the case supposed, for an applicable general law being in existence, it is no longer a question whether such a law can be made applicable; therefore the special or local law is prohibited. The injunction to pass general laws when they can be made applicable is imperative as to subjects of a general nature, where 1 Falk, Ex parte, 42 Ohio St. 683; State v. Powers, 38 id. 54; State ex rel. v. Supervisors, 25 Wis. 339; State ex rel. v. Riordan, 24 id. 484. 2 Gentile v. State, 29 Ind. 409; Marks v. Trustees of Purdue University, 37 id. 161; Kelly, Treasurer, v. State, 92 id. 236; State v. Tucker, 46 id. 355; State v. County Court, 50 Mo. 317; S. C. 11 Am. R. 415; State v. County Court, 51 Mo. 82; Hall v. Bray, id. 288; St. Louis v. Shields, 62 id. 247; Brown v. Denver, 7 Colo. 305; S. C. 3 Am. & Eng. Corp. Cas. 630; State v. Hitchcock, 1 Kan. 178. See Hess v. Pegg, 7 Nev. 23; Clarke v. Irwin, 5 Nev. 124; State v. Squires, 26 Iowa, 340. 3 State v. Barbee, 3 Ind. 258; Brown v. State, 23 Md. 503. By the Missouri constitution of 1875 this question is made judicial. It is legislative by the terms of the New York constitution, section 1, article VIII. Mosier v. Hilton, 15 Barb. 657; United States Tr. Co. v. Brady, 20 Barb. 119; People v. Bowen, 21 N. Y. 517; 30 Barb. 24. The New Jersey constitution in this respect is like that of New York. State ex rel. v. Supervisors, 25 Wis. 339; State ex rel. v. Riordan, 24 id. 484; Walsh v. Dousman, 28 id. 541. laws of a general nature are required to have a uniform operation. The questions affecting the validity of such laws are judicial; the courts must determine what are laws of a general nature which must be so framed as to operate with uniformity.' The enumerated subjects must be dealt with by general laws; the constitutional provision determines conclusively that they can be so dealt with. All special legislation being prohibited, no other than general laws can be valid. Under the provision prohibiting special or local laws where a general law exists which is applicable, the validity of a special or local law intended to operate in modification of an existing general law will be determined by the courts as obviously a judicial question, for it depends wholly upon judicial elements -the meaning of the constitutional provision, the scope and effect of the general law, and the sense and proposed effect of the special or local act. § 119. Independently of these provisions the legislature has power to pass local and special laws. A mere want of symmetry in the legislation of a state, or the mere circumstance that all parts of a state are not subjected to the same regulations, or that statutes are not made to embrace all the subjects to which they might extend if the law-maker so desired, is no objection. As said by a learned author: "Laws public in their objects may, unless express constitutional provision forbids, be either general or local in their application; they may embrace many subjects or one, and they may extend to all citizens or be confined to particular classes, as minors, married women, or traders, or the like. The authority that legislates for the state at large must determine whether particular rules shall extend to the whole state and all its citizens, or, on the other hand, to a subdivision of the state, or to a single class of its citizens only." There are fundamental principles secured by all the constitutions, and elementary in the very definition of the "law of 1 See post, § 120. 2 Lin Sing v. Washburn, 20 Cal. 534; State v. Duffy, 7 Nev. 342; Cory v. Carter, 48 Ind. 327; Ward v. Flood, 48 Cal. 36; State v. McCann, 21 Ohio St. 198; Merritt v. Knife Falls B. Corp'n, 34 Minn. 245; County of Hennepin v. Jones, 18 Minn. 199; Bruce v. County of Dodge, 20 id. 388. 3 Cooley's Const. Lim. 488; State v. Piper, 17 Neb. 614; Smith v. Dunn, 64 Cal. 164. the land," which impose restrictions upon the power to enact partial, invidious and unequal laws; but it would be foreign to my present purpose to enter upon that subject. § 120. General laws, or laws of a general nature. The important questions, under these constitutional provisions, are: what are laws of a general nature which must have a uniform operation throughout the state? And what are general laws as distinguished from special and local laws? The descriptive term general laws has been in use for a long time. In the common-law classification of statutes it applies to and includes all public acts; those of which the courts take judicial notice; all except private acts. This classification will be more particularly discussed in another place. It is obvious that this term is not used in these constitutional provisions in this sense. Some cases, however, seem to have proceeded on the contrary assumption, but I think erroneously. Public statutes may be local or special, and incapable of uniform operation throughout the state, and therefore within the purpose of these provisions. The frequency and inconvenience of such local and special legislation in public acts led to the adoption of these provisions. The enumeration of subjects as to which local or special legislation is forbidden is chiefly an enumeration of subjects upon which the prior legislation was of that character-public laws-of which courts would take judicial notice. Under these requirements it must not be by special or local but by general laws; and where the requirement of uniform operation is in force these must so operate. An act to establish a municipal court in a particular city or a particular municipal government would not be a general law, but it would 1 Lewis v. Webb, 3 Me. 326; Durham v. Lewiston, 4 id. 140; Holden v. James, 11 Mass. 396; Bull v. Conroe, 13 Wis. 238-244; Wally v. Kennedy, 2 Yerg. 554; Vanzant v. Waddel, id. 259; State Bank v. Cooper, id. 605; Ragio v. State, 86 Tenn. 272; Budd v. State, 3 Humph. 483; Pope v. Phifer, 3 Heisk. 701; Mayor v. Dearmon, 2 Sneed, 121; Daly v. State, 13 Lea, 228; Burkholtz v. State, 16 id. 71; Woodard v. Brien, 14 id. 520; Memphis v. Fisher, 9 Baxt. 239; State v. Duffy, 7 Nev. 349; Griffin v. Cunningham, 20 Gratt. 31; Dorsey v. Dorsey, 37 Md. 64; S. C. 11 Am. R. 528; Lawson v. Jeffries, 47 Miss. 686; S. C. 12 Am. R. 342; Wilder v. Railway Co. 70 Mich. 382; Trustees v. Bailey, 10 Fla. 238; Arnold v. Kelley, 5 W. Va. 446; Cooley, Const. L. 487. 2 Hingle v. State, 24 Ind. 28; State ex rel. Stoutmeyer v. Duffy, 7 Nev. 350. be a public law. That which concerns the administration of public justice, like legislation relating to a court, though it be of limited jurisdiction and its sittings confined to a specified locality, is a public law, but local; it is a law which affects the public generally. It is not necessary, in order to give a statute the attributes of a public law, that it shall be equally applicable to all parts of the state, nor that it extend in its operation. to all of the inhabitants. 3 In some constitutions it is provided that general laws shall not be in force until published. Such a provision is contained in the constitution of Wisconsin. It was there held that an act establishing a municipal court in the city of Milwaukee was a general law, and could not have effect until after publication. The object of that provision was notice to those who must obey; hence it referred comprehensively to public laws, not merely to such as were general in distinction from local or special laws." § 121. General laws, therefore, in this constitutional antithesis, are public laws, general in the common-law sense; but a more limited class. They are not general because they are public acts, though they are such; but general because their subject-matter is of common interest to the whole state, and not local; because the provisions embrace the whole subject, or a whole class of it. Not being confined to a part they are not partial nor special. The state contains a great variety of subjects of legislation, each requiring provisions peculiar to itself. Generic subjects may be divided and subdivided into State ex rel. Webster v. Baltimore County, 29 Md. 516; County Commissioners v. Commissioners, 51 id. 465; People v. Hill, 8 N. Y. 449; City Council of Montgomery v. Wright, 72 Ala. 411; S. C. 5 Am. & Eng. Corp. Cas. 642; Cass v. Dillon, 2 Ohio St. 607, 617; City of Covington v. Voskotter, 80 Ky. 219; S. C. 3 Am. & Eng. Corp. Cas. 578; Luling v. Racine, 1 Biss. C. C. 316. 2 People v. Davis, 61 Barb. 456; In re De Vaucene, 31 How. Pr. 337; State v. Dalon, 35 La. Ann. 1141; Phillips v. Mayor, etc. 1 Hilt. 483; Healey v. Dudley, 5 Lans. 115; Williams v. People, 24 N. Y. 405; Conner v. Mayor, etc. 5 id. 285; Graves v. McWilliams, 1 Pin. 491; People v. McCann, 16 N. Y. 58; Kerrigan v. Force, 68 N. Y. 381; Falk, Ex parte, 42 Ohio St. 638. 3 State ex rel. Webster v. Baltimore County, 29 Md. 516; State v. Wilcox, 45 Mo. 458. 4 In re Boyle, 9 Wis. 264. See Luling v. Racine, 1 Biss. C. C. 316. 5 Clark v. Janesville, 10 Wis. 136; Luling v. Racine, 1 Biss. C. C. 316. |