134 Ala. 275 | Ala. | 1901
Under an act of the General Assembly passed in 1820 lands described as the southwest quarter of section thirty-two in township 16 of range 3 east in Marengo county were fixed by the commissioners as the county seat and were platted as a town called Linden. On a lot reserved for that purpose, a, court house was built, which remained the seat of justice until December' 4, 1868, when by am act of the General Assembly, the county seat was removed to Demopolis and the court house lot at Linden was sold. At its session in 1869-70 the legislature passed an act which with an amendment at the same session provided for a vote of tire people to permanently locate the county seat, but no effective action was had thereunder.'
It has been declared as a general principle that “when a city or town is selected as the county-seat the boundaries of such city or town, as they then exist, become the boundaries of the county seat, and the subsequent inclusion of more territory in such city or town, does not enlarge -the county seat.” — 7 Am. & Eng. Ency. Law, 1013. This statement is not opposed by any authority brought to our notice, and is supported' by the decisions rendered in State v. Smith, 46 Mo. 60; Way v. Fox, 109 Iowa, 340; State ex rel. etc. v. Harwi, 36 Kan. 588 and State ex rel. etc. v. Board Co. Commr's Atchison Co., 44 Kan. 186. Each of tírese cases involved the authority of county commissioners or supervisors to- change the place for1 county offices and sittings of court, to an addition which had been made to a town previously constituting a county seat, and in each the existence of such
In Way v. Fox, supra, the town of Garner ambitious to become the county seat, extended its limits over uninhabited lands so as to include the county town of Concord. The county board of supervisors then sought to .substitute a county site in the original limits of Garner for the one used at Concord. The Supreme Court, in passing’ on the legality of the board’s proceedings, held, that Garner was not the county seat, and that the supervisors had no> power to' change the site of the county buildings to that place, and this notwithstanding there was in Iowa, a statute defining powers of the board which the court said “seems to authorize a change of site for the court, house, provided the place selected is within the limits of the town at which the county seat is located.” In the opinion there rendered is was also said: “Had Concord incorporated and extended her limits so as to take in Garden, there would be little doubt of the legality of the proceedings,” and that expression is referred to" in appellant’s brief as favoring the legality of their action. We have no such statute as the one there considered, and that the court’s utterance respecting the case supposed was based on the terms of that statute', appears from its preceding statement that “In the absentee of statute it seems to be well settled that, when a city or town is selected as the county seat,, the boundaries of such city or town, as they then exist, become the boundaries of the couhty seat, and the subsequent inclusion of more territory does not remove the county seat.”
These authorities recognize as true that:' ordinarily the term county seat, applies not merely to the lot and buildings, used for transacting public business, but to the territory occupied by such town as may be designated as a. county seat. They assume, however, that'a county seat is not necessarily coextensive with the town of its location, is not identical with the municipality, anld does not; move by force of the latter’s expansion. We think this principle is correct, and furthermore that
The case is not affected by the fact that the two enactments — the one fixing Linden as the county seat, and the subsequent one adding thereto' territory in township 15 — were near to each other in point of time or by tire fact set up by tire aniswer that the actual reestablishment of the court house and county offices in Linden, occurred after the enlargement of that town. The limits of the county seat were fixed by the act of February 8, 1871, and of the events which thereafter happened whether early or late, were ineffectual to alter the effect of that act.
The conclusion is that the proceedings here assailed were in excess of the powers possessed, by the court of county commissioners, and that the decree overruling tire demurrer to the- hill and the motion to dissolve the temporary injunction, should he affirmed.