146 Ga. 753 | Ga. | 1917
(After stating the foregoing facts.) The constitution of this State (art. 3, sec. 7, par. 18) declares that the General Assembly shall have no power to grant corporate powers and privileges to private companies, but that it shall prescribe by law the manner in which such powers shall be exercised by the courts. The General Assembly has enacted that the superior courts of this State shall have power to create private corporations in the following manner: The persons desiring a charter shall file, in the office of the clerk of the superior court of the county in which they desire to transact business, a petition or declaration specifying the object of their association, the particular business they propose to carry on, together with the corporate name, and the amount of capital to be employed by them actually paid in, and their place of doing business, and the time, not exceeding twenty years, for which they desire to be incorporated. This petition is required to be published once a week for four weeks; and upon the hearing of the petition, if the court shall be satisfied that the application is legitimately within the purview and intention of the act, it shall pass an order declaring the application granted, and the “petitioners and their successors incorporated for and during a term not
In 1897, a few months after the grant of the charter, the legislature passed an act specifying the manner in which such charters may be renewed. The course prescribed is that “a petition signed with the corporate name of the company whose charter is sought to be renewed, stating the name of the corporation, when incorporated, the date and manner of its original incorporation, and all amendments thereto, that it desires a renewal of its charter as set out in the original act of incorporation and the amendments thereto, together with any further amendments which may be desired in the renewal of said charter; and it shall file along with the petition a certified abstract of the minutes of the corporation, showing that the application for renewal and amendment has been authorized
Judgment affirmed.
The first legislation in this State on the right of renewal of charters of corporations of the kind involved in this action was the act approved December 18, 1843 (Acts 1843, p. 108). By section one of the act it was declared: “that when the persons interested shall desire to have any . , trading com