75 P. 695 | Or. | 1904
delivered the opinion.
This is a proceeding by mandamus to compel the defendant, as Secretary of State, to draw a warrant on the State Treasurer in favor of the plaintiff for $129.50, as compensation for services in the Indian wars of 1855-56. In 1903 the legislature passed an act “to provide for compensating volunteers for the service of the Territory of Oregon during the Indian wars of 1855-56 for such services, and appropriating money therefor ”: Laws 1903, p. 228. Section 1 provides “that there be and hereby is appropriated out of the general funds in the treasury of the State of Oregon the sum of $100,000, or so much thereof as shall be necessary, to pay the veterans of the
No person has a legal claim which he can enforce against the State except by its consent, and one demanding a warrant from the Secretary of State for the payment of money must be able to point out some law tfiat clearly authorizes the expenditure. Before he can require the secretary to audit or allow a claim in his favor, he must find some law under which it was incurred, and the claim must have been presented within a specified time. Now in this case there is no existing provision of law for the payment by the State of the claims of the Indian war veterans, except the act of 1903. If there ever was a legal obligation on the