mitted. By this act a general election was to be held; and if a majority of votes in any county should be cast against license, it should not thereafter be lawful for any person to retail intoxicating liquors within such county; but if the majority should be cast in favor of license, then licenses might be granted in the county so voting, in the manner and under the regulations in said act prescribed. The Court of Errors and Appeals of that State held this act void, as an attempted delegation of the trust to make laws, and upon the same reasons which support the cases before cited, where acts have been held void which referred to the people of the State for approval a law of general application. The same decision was made near the same time by the Supreme *Court of Pennsylvania,2 followed afterwards in an elabo- [* 125] rate opinion by the Supreme Court of Iowa. But the case in Pennsylvania has since been overruled.4

By statute in Indiana it was enacted that no person should retail spirituous liquors, except for sacramental, mechanical, chemical, medicinal, or culinary purposes, without the consent of the majority of the legal voters of the proper township who might cast their votes for license at the April election, nor without filing with the county auditor a bond as therein provided; upon the filing of which the auditor was to issue to the person filing the same a license to retail spirituous liquors, which was to be good for one year from the day of the election. This act was held void upon similar reasons to those above quoted. This case follows the previous decisions in Pennsylvania and Delaware, and it has since 2 Parker v. Commonwealth, 6 Penn. St. 507.

1

6

3 Geebrick v. State, 5 Iowa, 495. See State v. Wier, 33 Iowa, 134; s. c. 11 Am. Rep. 115.

4 Locke's Appeal, 72 Penn. St. 491; s. c. 13 Am. Rep. 716.

5 Maize v. State, 4 Ind. 342. Compare Groesch v. State, 42 Ind. 547, 558.

Rice v. Foster, 4 Harr. 479. Compare this with the recent case of Commonwealth v. Bennett, 108 Mass. 27, which is contra, and which is placed upon what seems to us the impregnable grounds, that "the subject, although not embraced within the ordinary power to make by-laws and ordinances, falls within the class of police regulations which may be intrusted by the legislature by express enactment to municipal authority." See also Bancroft v. Dumas, 21 Vt. 456. A local option law concerning the running at large of beasts has recently been held unconstitutional in Missouri. Lammert v. Lidwell, 62 279.

Mo. 188.

6 Parker v. Commonwealth, 6 Penn. St. 507; Rice v. Foster, 4 Harr. 479. See also State v. Field, 17 Mo. 529; Commonwealth v. McWilliams, 11 Penn. St. 61; State v. Copeland, 3 R. I. 33; Ex parte Wall, 48 Cal.

been followed by another decision of the Supreme Court of that State, except that while in the first case only that portion of the statute which provided for submission to the people was held void, in the later case that unconstitutional provision was held to affect the whole statute with infirmity, and render the whole invalid. But we think that at this time the clear weight of authority is in support of legislation of this nature commonly known as local option laws.2

Irrepealable Laws.

Similar reasons to those which forbid the legislative department of the State from delegating its authority will also forbid its passing any irrepealable law. The constitution, in conferring the legislative authority, has prescribed to its exercise any limitations which the people saw fit to impose; and no other power than the people can superadd other limitations. To say that the legislature may pass irrepealable laws, is to say that it may alter the very constitution from which it derives its authority; since, in so far as one legislature could bind a subsequent one by its enactments, it could in the same degree reduce the legislative power of its successors; and the process might be repeated, until, one by one, the subjects of legislation would be excluded altogether from

their control, and the constitutional provision, that the [* 126] * legislative power shall be vested in two houses, would be to a greater or less degree rendered ineffectual.3

2

1 Meshmeier v. State, 11 Ind. 484. Supporting such laws in addition to cases already cited are State v. Morris County, 36 N. J. 72; s. c. 13 Am. Rep. 422; State v. Wilcox, 42 Conn. 364; s. c. 19 Am. Rep. 536; Fell v. State, 42 Md. 71; s. c. 20 Am. Rep. 83; Commonwealth v. Bennett, 108 Mass. 27; Commonwealth v. Dean, 110 Mass. 357; Commonwealth v. Fredericks, 119 Mass. 199; Groesch v. State, 42 Ind. 547. In Locke's Appeal, supra, it is said, after an admission that the legislature cannot delegate the power to make laws, but it can make a law to delegate the power to determine some

64

fact or state of things upon which the law makes or intends to make its own action depend. To deny that would be to stop the wheels of gov ernment." And see Slinger v. Henneman, 38 Wis. 504; Erlinger v. Boneau, 51 Ill. 94.

8 Unlike the decision of a court, a legislative act does not bind a subsequent legislature. Each body possesses the same power, and has a right to exercise the same discretion. Measures, though often rejected, may receive legislative sanction. There is no mode by which a legislative act can be made irrepealable, except it assume the form and substance of a

"Acts of Parliament," says Blackstone, "derogatory to the power of subsequent Parliaments, bind not; so the statute 11 Henry VII. c. 1, which directs that no person for assisting a king de facto shall be attainted of treason by act of Parliament or otherwise, is held to be good only as to common prosecutions for high treason, but it will not restrain or clog any parliamentary attainder. Because the legislature, being in truth the sovereign power, is always of equal, and always of absolute authority; it acknowledges no superior upon earth, which the prior legislature must have been if its ordinances could bind a subsequent Parliament. And upon the same principle, Cicero, in his letters to Atticus, treats with a proper contempt those restraining clauses which endeavor to tie up the hands of succeeding legislatures. 'When you repeal the law itself,' says he, 'you at the same time repeal the prohibitory clause which guards against such repeal." "1 Although this reasoning does not in all its particulars apply to the American legislatures, the principle applicable in each case is the same. There is a modification of the principle, however, by an important provision of the Constitution of the United States, forbidding the States passing any laws impairing the obligation of contracts. Legislative acts are sometimes in substance contracts between the State and the party who is to derive some right under them, and they are not the less under the protection of the clause quoted because of having assumed this form. Charters of incorporation, except those of a municipal character, and which, as we have already seen, create mere agencies of government,-* are held to be contracts between the [* 127] State and the corporators, and not subject to modification

or change by the act of the State alone, except as may be authorized by the terms of the charters themselves.2 And it now seems

contract. If in any line of legislation a permanent character could be given to acts, the most injurious consequences would result to the country. Its policy would become fixed and unchangeable on great national interests, which might retard, if not destroy, the public prosperity. Every legislative body, unless restricted by the constitution, may modify or abolish the acts of its predecessors; whether it would be wise to do so, is a matter for legislative discretion."

Bloomer v. Stolley, 5 McLean, 161. See this subject considered in Wall v. State, 23 Ind. 150, and State v. Oskins, 28 Ind. 364; Oleson v. Green Bay, &c. R. R. Co., 36 Wis. 383. In Kellogg v. Oshkosh, 14 Wis. 623, it was held that one legislature could not bind a future one to a particular mode of appeal.

1 1 Bl. Com. 90.

2 Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. 518; Planters' Bank v. Sharp, 6 How. 301.

to be settled, by the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, that a State, by contract to that effect, based upon a consideration, may exempt the property of an individual or corporation from taxation for any specified period, or even permanently. And it is also settled, by the same decisions, that where a charter containing an exemption from taxes, or an agreement that the taxes shall be to a specified amount only, is accepted by the corporators, the exemption is presumed to be upon sufficient consideration, and consequently binding upon the State.1

Territorial Limitation to State Legislative Authority.

The legislative authority of every State must spend its [* 128] force within the territorial limits of the State. The legislature of one State cannot make laws by which people

outside the State must govern their actions, except as they may have occasion to resort to the remedies which the State provides, or to deal with property situated within the State. It can have no authority upon the high seas beyond State lines, because there is the point of contact with other nations, and all international questions belong to the national government.1 It cannot provide for the punishment as crimes of acts committed beyond the State boundary, because such acts, if offences at all, must be offences against the sovereignty within whose limits they have been done.2 But if the consequences of an unlawful act committed outside the State have reached their ultimate and injurious result within it, it seems that the perpetrator may be punished as an offender against such State.3

Other Limitations of Legislative Authority.

Besides the limitations of legislative authority to which we have referred, others exist which do not seem to call for special remark. Some of these are prescribed by constitutions,*

11 Bish. Cr. Law, § 120.

* State v. Knight, 2 Hayw. 109; People v. Merrill, 2 Park. Cr. R. 590; Adams v. People, 1 N. Y. 173; Tyler v. People, 8 Mich. 320; Morrissey v. People, 11 Mich. 327; Bromley v. People, 7 Mich. 472; State v. Main, 16 Wis. 398; Watson's Case, 36 Miss. 593.

In Tyler v. People, 8 Mich. 320, it was held constitutional to punish in Michigan a homicide committed by a mortal blow in Canadian waters, from which death resulted in the State. In Morrissey v. People, 11 Mich. 327, the court was divided on the question whether the State could lawfully provide for the punishment of persons who, having committed larceny abroad, brought the stolen property within the State. The power was sustained in People v. Williams, 24 Mich. 156, where the larceny was in another State. And see State v. Main, 16 Wis. 398; Regina v. Hennessy, 35 Upper Canada R. 603.

The restrictions upon State legislative authority are much more extensive in some constitutions than in others. The Constitution of Missouri of 1865 had the following provision: "The General Assembly shall not pass special laws divorcing any named parties, or declaring any named person of age, or authorizing any named minor to sell, lease, or encumber his or her property, or providing for the sale of the real estate of any named minor or other person laboring under legal disability, by any executor, administrator, guardian, trustee, or other person, or establishing, locating, altering the course, or effecting the construction of roads, or the building or repairing of bridges, or establishing, altering, or vacating any street, avenue, or alley in any city or town, or extending the time for the assessment or collection of taxes, or otherwise relieving any assessor or collector of taxes from the due performance of his official duties, or giving effect to in