6 Utah 288 | Utah | 1889
Tbe defendant was found guilty of a violation of section 2023 of the Compiled Laws of Utah, 1888, in not listing his property as required by tbe assessor of Moroni City. From tbe judgment imposing tbe fine be has appealed to this court, and assigns tbe entry thereof as error- Tbe defendant was found guilty upon tbe following facts: Tbe United States issued a patent to tbe mayor of Moroni City, under tbe “town site law,” for 640 acres of land in San Pete county, Utah. To this tract tbe city is confined, so far as its extent is indicated by dwelling bouses or other buildings, or by lots, streets, blocks, alleys, or other improvements. Tbe territorial legislature, by a special act, included within tbe corporate limits of Moroni about twenty-five sections, making about 16,000 acres of land. Tbe lands within these limits, outside of tbe 640 acres occupied as a “town site,” are used for agricultural or
It is true that the government of the United States is also a government of delegated powers.; but it is a sovereignty ; it is the embodiment of the power of the American people in its highest dignity and greatest force; its.framers intended to confer upon it sufficient authority to protect rights and enforce duties, private or public, domestic or foreign, so far as might be necessary for the general government to do so. They designed it to stand amid all conditions and in every emergency, against everything human, reserving the right to change it according to the methods indicated in its constitution. When such a government expresses its intentions in law, the courts will construe them liberally in order to give full effect to them. So with the states, for sovereignty is exercised partly through the
In construing the provisions of the organic act in question, conferring power on the legislature, we are disposed to apply the rules of construction applicable to similar provisions in municipal charters. “Where the legislature, in terms, confers upon a municipal corporation the power to pass ordinances of a specified and defined character, if the power thus delegated be not in conflict with the constitution, an ordinance passed pursuant thereto cannot be impeached as invalid because it would have been regarded as unreasonable if- it had been passed under the incidental power of the corporation, or under a grant of power general in its nature. In other words, what the legislature
The defendant also relies upon the fifth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, declaring that private property shall not “be taken for public use without just compensation.” This has been held to be a restriction upon the power of congress, and not upon the States. But the territory being an agency of congress, the restriction applies to this legislature. We will now consider the provision as applicable to the facts of this case. Some .courts have held that it has reference only to the appropriation of private property under the right of eminent domain; others have given to it greater significance and a broader effect, and have applied it also to the appropriation to public use of private property in the form of money by the methods of taxation. The government may appropriate the property of the individual when necessary in one of three ways: First, by taking in the mode prescribed after paying the owner for it; second, by estimating the benefits to the owner’s property from the improvements to^ be made, and taking the amount estimated in money; third, by taking the property in the form of money by the methods of taxation for which the benefits of protection and other advantages are furnished by the government. The same principle underlies all these methods. When the property is taken under the right of eminent domain, the public pays the owner in money ; when money is exacted by means of a special assessment, the owners are compensated in special benefits to their property by public improvements made in its expenditure; and when money is exacted by a general tax, the payer is compensated in the benefits received from the government in any and all of the ways that a government may benefit society. Thus the individual is compensated for the property he' parts with, whether it consists of lands or money or other property. Effect may be .given to a law according to the letter in which it is couched, or it may be construed in the light of the conditions in which it is to be applied, and be made to affect everything within reach of its just implications.
In the case of People v. Mayor, etc., 4 N. Y. 420, the •court said: “The right of taxation and the right of eminent domain rest substantially on the same foundation.