has been previously affirmed, and as strongly as if expressed. An affirmative enactment of a new rule implies a negative of whatever is not included, or is different; and if by the language used a thing is limited to be done in a particular form or manner, it includes a negative that it shall not be done otherwise.1 An intention will not be ascribed to the law-making power to establish conflicting and hostile systems upon the same subject, or to leave in force provisions of law by which the later will of the legislature may be thwarted and overthrown. Such a result would render legislation a useless and idle ceremony, and subject the law to the reproach of uncertainty and unintelligibility. An act which required trustees to collect debts due to banks whose charters were forfeited will be repealed by a later act which requires the trustees to sell all such debts.3 If there are two acts for the assessment and collection of a tax, and by one a notice of the election to vote it must be posted ten days, and published two weeks, and the tax is not to exceed one dollar and fifty cents on the hundred dollars, and by the other, the notice is to be posted twenty days, and published three weeks, and the rate of taxation is not to exceed seventy cents on the hundred dollars, the two acts are repugnant, and the later repeals the former. An act provided that in case of land damages for laying out roads, the county court should institute and prosecute in their names, in the circuit court, proceedings to ascertain the just compensation to be paid. It was held to be inconsistent with and to repeal a prior statute which, in such cases, required that the county court award a writ of ad quod damnum returnable to itself." Two acts related to the same subject-matter, the ferries of New York; the former to the ferries to Long Island, and the latter to all the New York ferries. They provided different and inconsistent modes of leasing or licensing the same. The last prevailed, displacing the other." The last act fixing the salary of a public officer will repeal an earlier one fixing a different 1 Wells v. Supervisors, 102 U. S. 625; Chandler v. Hanna, 73 Ala. 390. 2 Lyddy v. Long Island City, 104 N. Y. 218. 3 Commercial Bank of Natchez v. Chambers, 8 Sm. & M. 9. 4 People v. Burt, 43 Cal. 560; State v. Newark, 28 N. J. L. 491; Bowen v. Lease, 5 Hill, 221. 5 Herron v. Carson, 26 W. Va. 62. 6 People v. The Mayor, etc. of N. Y. 32 Barb. 102, 121. salary. An act granting the exclusive right to construct and use street railroads in all the streets of a city will repeal a prior act of the same tenor. If two independent officers or public boards have each power to number and alter the numbers of houses in a city, for the purpose of distinguishing them, the purpose would be frustrated by the duplication if both could act; therefore the power last granted was held exclusive.3 § 141. New grant of part of power already possessed.— Where a later act grants to an officer or tribunal a part of a larger power already possessed; and in terms which interpreted by themselves import a grant of all the power the grantee is intended to exercise, it repeals the prior act from which the larger power had been derived. By a statute of Kentucky of 1799 the county courts had power to appoint county jailers to serve during their pleasure. In 1802 a provision was inserted in an act to amend the penal laws, "that the several county courts respectively shall have full power to remove the keepers of the county jails whenever it shall appear to them that such jailers have been guilty of neglect of duty." This was held to repeal the prior statute." 1 Pierpont v. Crouch, 10 Cal. 315. 2 West End, etc. R. R. Co. v. Atlanta St. R. R. Co. 49 Ga. 151. county court, but should only be subject to forfeiture by neglect of duty, and be thus placed on a footing with 3 Daw v. Metropolitan Board, 12 the great mass of other offices in this C. B. (N. S.) 161. 4 Gorham v. Luckett, 6 B. Mon. 146. Marshall, J., said in this case: "As it is unquestionable that the power of the legislature to prescribe the tenure of the office of jailer, and to regulate the power of the county court in vacating that office, continued the same after the act of 1799 as it had been before; and as the subsequent legislative will upon a subject thus completely within its control must, if sufficiently indicated, prevail over that will as previously expressed, the inquiry is whether there is in the twentieth section of the act of 1802 any sufficient indication of the legislative will or intention that thenceforth the office of jailer should not be held at the mere pleasure of the commonwealth. Did the legislature intend to express in this twentieth section the whole power of removal as it should thenceforth exist in the county court? If they did, then as the power previously existing is inconsistent with this intention, and as the proviso conferring the previous power is therefore inconsistent with the twentieth section of the act of 1802, intended to restrict that power, the proviso comes clearly within the purview of this twentieth section, and is embraced by the repealing clause of the statute, if indeed it would not be repealed by implication without it. "If it were allowable to suppose that the legislature who framed and enacted this twentieth section were ignorant of the proviso in the act of While a statute existed giving appeals to the county court from judgments of justices of the peace in all cases without 1799, and of the power thereby vested in the county court, of removing the jailer at pleasure, the inference would seem to be irresistible, that as the twentieth section of the act of 1802 was intended to confer a new power on the county court, so it was intended to express, and did express, the whole power which it was intended that they should have over the subject. This would necessarily be the construction of the section considered as conferring a new power. And as every person ignorant of the pre-existing law would, upon reading this section, understand it as conferring a new power, so every such person would understand it as conferring all the power which the court was intended to have. But supposing, as one must do, that the legislature of 1802 understood well the pre-existing law on the subject to which this twentieth section relates, that they knew that the county court had already the power of removing the jailer, not only for breach of duty, but for any other cause, and without cause and without question, then the inquiry comes, for what purpose and with what intent do these legislators introduce into this act for amending the penal laws, a section which professes to make a formal and substantial grant of power, which, construed by its terms, would be universally understood as granting a new power, and therefore as expressing the whole power which it was intended that the grantee should have? Why make an express grant of a part of the power, if understanding that the whole power, including this part, was already vested in the court, it was intended that the whole power, including this part, should still remain? If the proviso of the act of 1799 remained in force after the enactment of the twentieth section of the act of 1802, then it is absolutely certain that so much of that section as relates to the removal of county jailers was utterly without effect, and might just as well have been out of the section. And the same is true, if any part of the pre-existing power beyond that which is expressed in this twentieth section continued to exist after its enactment. For to the extent that the power is expressed in this section, it already existed and would have continued to exist without any new grant, and the new grant can have no effect whatever, unless it have the effect of restricting the pre-existing power, by bringing it down to the measure of the new grant. Can we then say that the legislature did not intend this section to have any effect and virtually expunge it from the statute? Or must we allow to it the only effect which it can possibly have, by understanding It to be, what if construed exclusively with reference to its own terms it must be understood to be, a substantial grant of power expressing all the power the grantee was intended to have, and withholding or resuming whatever beyond this had been formerly granted? This question does not arise upon a single expression or clause of a sentence, making casual reference to a subject foreign to the context, and which may have been inadvertently introduced. Here is an entire section, which relates to no other subject but the power of removing the officers therein named, and of which the principal subject is the power of removing county jailers, and the principal object (apparently the least) to regard to the amount, other than upon the verdict of a jury, a new statute was passed which allowed appeals from such confer or regulate that power. The section must have been introduced deliberately, designedly and to effect some particular purpose. Are we at liberty to say that it should have no effect whatever? "It is not a case of the re-enactment of a former law in the same words, or with additional provisions, nor of a regrant of a pre-existing power to the same or a greater extent. It is not a case of cumulative or additional power or right or remedy. Nor does it come within the rule that a subsequent affirmative statute does not repeal a previous one, which can only apply where both can have effect. This is a formal and express grant of limited power to a depository which already had unlimited power. And it can have no effect, nor be ascribed to any other purpose, but that of limiting the extent of the existing power. If certain provisions of two statutes are identical, the last need not be construed as repealing, but merely as continuing or re-affirming, the first, for which there might be various reasons. So if a statute give a remedy, or provide that certain acts shall be sufficient for the attainment or security of certain objects, and a subsequent statute declare that a part of the same remedy or some of the same acts, or other acts entirely different, shall suffice for the accomplishment of the same object, here the latter act does not necessarily repeal the former, except so far as it may be expressed or implied in the former that the end shall be attained by no other mode but that which it prescribes. If there be no such restriction in the first, there is no conflict between them. Both may stand together with full effect, and the provisions of either may be pursued. "But if a subsequent statute requires the same, and also more than a former statute had made sufficient, this is in effect a repeal of so much of the former statute as declares the sufficiency of what it prescribes. And if the last act professes, or manifestly intends, to regulate the whole subject to which it relates, it necessarily supersedes and repeals all former acts, so far as it differs from them in its prescriptions. The great object, then, is to ascertain the true interpretation of the last act. That being ascertained, the necessary consequence is, that the legislative intention thus deduced from it must prevail over any prior inconsistent intention to be deduced from a previous act. "Since, then, the twentieth section of the act of 1802, interpreted according to its own terms, imports a substantial grant of power, and of all the power that the county courts were intended to have on the subject, and since it would be useless and without effect, unless thus understood as regulating the whole subject of the removal of jailers by the county courts, we feel bound to give to it this interpretation; and, therefore, to conclude that, after that act took effect, the county courts had no other power of removing jailers but that which the twentieth section confers, of removing them whenever it shall appear to the court that such jailers have been guilty of a neglect of duty. If this twentieth section had been the first and only enactment on the subject, all must have concurred in the conclusion that it was intended to regulate the whole subject, and that judgments when they exceeded $5. It was held a repeal of the former statute; for otherwise there would be imputed to the legislature the folly of enacting a statute without purpose, and which leaves the law precisely as it stood before.1 By an act of 1776, adopted by Kentucky from Virginia, it was provided that "a person residing in any other country, for passing any lands and tenements in this commonwealth by deed, shall acknowledge or prove the same before" the mayor or chief magistrate of the city or corporation wherein or near to which he resides. But where there was no mayor or other chief magistrate within the county, then a certificate under the hands and seals of two justices or magistrates of the county, that the proof or acknowledgment has been made. before them, should be sufficient. And "where any person making such conveyance shall be a feme covert, her interest in any it granted all the power which the court was intended to have. The difficulty, or rather the embarrassment, in the case, arises from the fact that a previous law had given to the same grantee unlimited power on the same subject, and that this twentieth section makes no reference to the previous law, and contains no express words of restriction or change, but, granting an express and limited power, is framed as if it were the first and only act on the subject. But do not these circumstances indicate that it is to be construed as if it were the only act on the subject? Or shall the first act, which is inferior in authority so far as they conflict, so far affect the construction of the last as to deprive it of all effect? We say the last act must have effect according to its terms and its obvious intent. And as both cannot have full operation according to their terms and intent, the first and not the last act must yield. If it could be supposed to have been a matter of doubt whether, under the act of 1799, the county court had power to remove the jailers for neglect of duty, or if any motive could be assigned for introducing a separate section expressly granting this power, except the purpose of expressing the whole power which the courts were to have, then the basis of the construction which we have assumed would be greatly weakened, if not destroyed. But we do not perceive that any other plausible motive can be assigned. And as, notwithstanding the act of 1799, it was entirely within the legislative power to withdraw, retract or modify the power of removal thereby given to the county courts, and the courts had no right of resistance or refusal, we regard the subsequent grant of a more limited power, advisedly and formally made, as implying the resumption of the old grant, and a restriction of the power according to the terms of the new one, as by the acceptance of a new lease during a subsisting term, the rights of the tenant are governed by the terms of the new grant." 1 Curtis v. Gill, 34 Conn. 49; Parrott v. Stevens, 37 Conn. 93. See United States v. Ten Thousand Cigars, 1 Woolw. 123. |