121 Ky. 1 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1905
Opinion by
Reversing.
Appellant is an educational institution, created, maintained and operated by the State of Kentucky. It is incorporated, but is officered by trustees appointed by the Governor by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, the Governor being ex officio member and chairman of the board. ' While a part of its sustenance is drawn from general appropriations made by the United States government, and in part from tuition fees received from certain of its pupils, yet it is in every essential feature a State college. Its main support is derived from the tax of one-half cent on the $100 levied in its behalf by the State of Kentucky. An act of the General Assembly
It is claimed on behalf of appellee that the act of appropriation violates sec. 184 of the Constitution; that by that section no sum whatever can be appropriated for education by the State, other than for the common schools, unless it be first approved by a majority of the votes of the people at an election to determine the question.
Sec. 184 of the Constitution reads as follows: “The bond of the Commonwealth issued in favor of the Board of Education for the sum of one million three hundred and twenty-seven thousand dollars shall constitute one bond of the Commonwealth in favor of the Board of Education, and this bond and the seventy-three thousand five hundred dollars of the stock in the Bank of Kentucky, held by the Board of Education, and its proceeds, shall be held inviolate for the purpose of sustaining the system of common schools. The interest and dividends of said fund, together with any sum which may be produced by taxation or otherwise for purposes of common school education, shall be appropriated to the common schools, and to no other purpose. No sum shall he raised or collected for education other than in common schools until the question of taxation is submitted to the legal voters, and the majority of the votes cast at said election shall be in favor of such
The inherent power of the Legislature to appropriate public funds or to raise funds by taxation for governmental purposes, save as may have been withheld or limited by the Constitution, is not questioned. It is conceded that public education is a purpose for which taxes may be levied, and that, unless restricted by the Constitution, the exercise of the power in behalf of appellant would fall clearly within the rule. "Whether there is such restriction in the section quoted is the question for decision. Its analysis discloses that it is severable into three parts, viz: One, wherein a capital fund is provided, whose income and all other sums raised for the common school system are exclusively set apart for the benefit of the common schools; second, the exclusion of all other methods of public education by taxation until the question has been approved by the voters of the State; and, third, a limitation of the last-named provision, excluding from its operation certain institutions.
The common school system of this State is defined by statute (chap. 133, p. 1524, Ky. Stats. 1903). It is a uniform series of district schools, each local in its district, but all of general or equal grade throughout the State, varying only according to the population of the districts, and whether the districts have or not adopted the graded or high school system in addition. They afford free tuition for certain parts of the year to all resident children within the statutory age. They are sustained, in the main, by the income provided by sec. 184 of the Constitution, by certain taxes levied directly for their benefit, and certain fines and forfeitures. They may be aided,
A mere reading of the section does not afford a conclusive guide to the intention of the framers of the Constitution, and presumably of the voters who adopted it. But as is usual, and always permissible, the evils which it was intended to avoid, and the conditions existing at the time of its adoption, must he looked to also. If the words of the section were perfectly plain and admitted of hut one interpretation, there would be no occasion to consult anything but the language of the section itself. But they are not. The expression “the tax now imposed for educational purposes” implies that there was then being raised by taxation a fund for the purpose of education, other than through the common school system already just provided for in the first part of the section. Indeed, the phrase forms an exception to the preceding clause, which treats of “education other than in common schools” through taxes levied for the purpose. Iti is, therefore, necessary to a clear understanding of the proviso, and of the clause with which it is most intimately connected, that we look to see what taxes were then being imposed for educational purposes, other than through the
There are yet other sources from which light may be drawn to aid in the more complete understanding of the section. One is the history of the time, including the troubles which had been encountered before the convention was called, and which, it may fairly be assumed, acted in part upon the popular judgment in bringing it into being to redraft the organic law of the State. The cause of public education had suffered at the hands of some of the previous Legislatures. Funds distributed to the State in the first Federal allotment for the benefit of education
Still another aid to a proper interpretation of the section is open to us; that is, a recourse to the debates of the constitutional convention. While recognizing that these are in no sense controlling, as they may not have represented the views of the great majority of the body whose votes incorporated the measure as'finally adopted, and with even less assurance that they represent the views of the people-whose votes ratified the instrument at last, still they may properly be consulted in arriving at the meaning of doubtful phrases. As observed by Judge Cooley (Cooley’s Const. Lim., 66): “Where the proceedings clearly point out the purpose of the provision, the aid will be valuable and satisfactory.” The section was reported from the committee on education without the proviso. It was objected to on the ground that it might be construed to prevent further appropriations to the very institutions which have been named above, including appellant. Members of the committee, including its chairman, a distinguished citizen and lawyer, disclaimed such purpose, and defended the report by the assertion that it could not be properly so construed. At that time a specific tax of one-half cent on the $100 was being collected by law for the maintenance of appellant college. Its friends in the convention feared that the committee’s report, if adopted, would take away that aid, unless it were submitted specially to a vote of the people. A member of the committee (the delegate from Crittenden county) used this language in response to criticism of the stringency of the committee’s report: “So far as I am individually concerned, let this convention use language in this report that will not
There is yet another aid to the interpretation of the section: That is, its contemporaneous, practical construction by all the other departments of the State government, including the Legislature. Every one of these institutions has been sustained by annua] appropriations, and at nearly every session of the Legislature since-the adoption of the present Constitution special additional appropriations have been made to some of them. These acts have received the approval of the various chief executives of the State, and have not been questioned, so far we are advised, by any other executive officer. Thus for fourteen years the legislative and executive departments have construed that there was reserved to the Legislature the plenary power with regard to the subject of education conducted through the means of the institutions just discussed; that the limitation upon its power was as to extensions by means of other institutions. This long and unquestioned construction, coming up for actual decision at least several times each year, ought to have and, by the rules of the courts, does have, great weight in resolving any doubt that the words themselves may have left as to the meaning of the section.
The final canon of construction, too, is, where there may be doubt, after all proper sources of aid have been resorted to, whether the act of the Legislature
It is argued for appellee that there is really a difference between appellant and the other institutions particularized, in that the others are charitable institutions. While in a sense charitable in that they provide a means of education to classes of helpless unfortunates — not materially different in principle, though, from that required to be done by appellant — - yet they are distinctively educational institutions. They are provided with teachers, not guards. Instruction, not restraint, not physical care alone, is the main idea. The inmates are received as pupils at ages when other pupils are thought to be most impressionable, and are required to leave the institution upon the completion of the courses of instruction provided there. This is true- of all. Appellant and the State Normal School for Colored Persons are so similar in character that they may be deemed identical for purposes of classification.
Appellant seeks to uphold the appropriation on the ground that it is not a levying of taxes, and that only the levying of taxes for educational purposes is prohibited by the Constitution. We reject the argument as unsound. Appropriations of public funds and levying taxes to raise funds for the same end rest upon the same principle. If an object can not have a tax levied for it, if deemed necessary by the proper power, then no appropriation of public money can be made to it. Where the Constitution forbids the levying of a tax for a given purpose, it must be held that it also .withholds the power of making appropriations for that purpose, 'unless there is something in the Constitution which particularly
The judgment of the circuit court must be reversed, and the cause remanded, with directions to overrule the demurrer to the petition, and for further proceedings not inconsistent herewith.
Judge Cantrill absent.