102 Ind. 307 | Ind. | 1885
The appellee resists the collection of a tax
The complaint proceeds upon the theory that the statute authorizing common councils of cities to levy a school tax to be applied to the payment of the compensation of teachers employed in the common schools is in conflict with the Constitution, and void. The contention of appellee’s counsel is, that taxes for tuition purposes must be levied by the Legislature, and that the authority to levy them can not be delegated to the local school corporations of the State.
An interpretation of the Constitution which frustrates one of its great and fundamental purposes can not be a sound one. The great and controlling duty of the courts when called upon to interpret the Constitution is to give effect to the intention of the people as expressed in the instrument. Cooley Const. Lim. (5th ed.) 68. This intention is not to be sought for nor gathered from isolated or detached parts of the Constitution, but from an examination of all of its provisions. Cooley Const. Lim. (5th ed.) 70. It is true that language is to be taken in its ordinary meaning, and that courts are to take, without addition or subtraction, the language employed .by the people; but the sole office of language is to express the intention and purpose of the people, and from the language of the whole instrument the courts must gather and give effect to the purpose expressed. There can be no doubt as to the purpose of our people regarding common schools; both in the Constitution of 1816 and in that of 1851 are written provisions clearly expressing the purpose of the people to build up a great and beneficent system in which tuition shall “ be without charge and equally open to all.” The prime object sought is the creation of a system that shall be efficient and enduring. The best means adapted to this end are to be chosen, and all things that will tend to defeat this great purpose are to be put aside. We should wander far from our path of duty if wc should give a meaning to the language of
The principal purpose of the constitutional provisions respecting common schools is so plain and prominent that it can not be mistaken, and there is nothing in the language employed, when justly interpreted, that requires the courts to decide anything hostile to that great purpose, but, if there were detached or isolated clauses that opposed the principal purpose, it would be our dutyj under long settled rules, to make them yield to the plain intention of the framers of the Constitution. The closest analysis will fail to discover a word- that clouds or obscures the controlling purpose of the instrument. The provision reads thus: “Knowledge and learning, generally diffused throughout a community, being essential to the preservation-of a free government, it shall be the duty of the General Assembly to encourage, by all suitable means, moral, intellectual, scientific, and agricultural improvement, and to provide, by law, for a general and uniform system of common schools, wherein tuition shall be without charge and equally open to all.” The provision that the Legislature shall “provide, by law, for a general and uniform system of common schools” does not mean ■that the Legislature must directly, and by a statute, levy all taxes for each locality, nor that they shall prescribe rules for every school district in the State. The reasonable interpretation of this language is, that the Legislature shall, by a general law, provide for conducting schools and securing revenues from taxation for their support through the instrumentalities of government. These instrumentalities are such political subdivisions as townships, towns and cities, and they are instrumentalities to which local governmental powers maybe delegated. There is nothing in the language used that forbids the Legislature from employing these instrumentalities in securing revenues for the support of the common schools, for there is not a word in the entire article of
We have ascertained and decided that when the Legislature makes provision for the government and support of the common schools by providing suitable machinery and committing the details of its operation to local officers, they do- “ provide by law ” for a system of schools, and all that remains is to ascertain and determine whether the system provided is a “ general and uniform ” one.
A system which grants to all the various subdivisions of the State equal and uniform rights and privileges, leaving only to the local authorities the right to govern the local affairs, is-a general and uniform system. The system itself is general and uniform, although the local officers of different localities.
In the City of Richmond v. Scott, supra, this was the language of the court: “The constitution, article 10,section 1, provides, that ‘ the General Assembly shall provide by law for ■si uniform and equal rate of assessment and taxation; and shall prescribe such regulations as shall secure a just valuation for taxation of all property, both real and personal/ etc. Without •deciding whether this provision of the constitution, if it applied to municipal taxation, would be violated by the law in •question, we are of opinion that the provision can have no reference to municipal taxation. There can not, in the nature of things, be a uniform rate of taxation for municipal purposes. Taxes for corporate purposes can not be equal. The wants and necessities of towns and cities can not be ■equal. Some require a higher and some a lower rate of tax
More directly applicable to the case under examination is the reasoning in Kent v. Town of Kentland, 62 Ind. 291, where it was said: “ The main question presented — indeed the only one discussed in the appellant’s brief — -is the constitutionality of .the law under which the tax is sought to be collected. The constitution requires, that ‘ the General Assembly shall. provide by law for -a uniform and equal rate of assessment and taxation.’ Art. 10, sec. 1. It is contended by the appellant, that the law in question does not provide a ‘ uniform and equal rate of assessment and taxation.’ The law under which the tax is assessed, cited above, provides, that ‘persons residing outside of any such city or town and electing to be transferred to such town or city for educational purposes, or who shall send their children to the school taught in any such building, shall, with their property, be liable to such tax as if they resided in such city or town, on all property owned by said person in the township where such city or town is located.’ The 16th section of the common school act provides, that, when .persons can be better accommodated at the. school of an adjoining township, incorporated town or city, they may, upon request, be transferred for educational purposes to such adjoining school. Section 17 provides, that each person so transferred may be taxed for the benefit of the school they so enjoy, points out the method by which he may be so taxed, and declares .that the payment of such tax shall ‘ release his property from special school tax, in the township in which he resides.’ 1 R. S. 1876, p. 785. The later law, above quoted, under which the tax in question was levied, provides, that those who send their children to such adjoining school shall be so taxed, as well as those who are transferred for educational purposes. We can see nothing unconstitutional in any of these acts. They are ‘ uniform and equal ’ in the rate of assessment ánd taxation, operate throughout the State, and upon all persons in the same circumstances,
The Constitution declares in very emphatic terms the duty of the Legislature respecting common schools, and the failure of that body to use all suitable means to build up and maintain the system would unquestionably be a grave breach of duty; but the Constitution does not deny the right to the Legislature to select the means of building up and encouraging schools. The provision of the Constitution is that “ it. shall be the duty of the General Assembly to encourage, by all suitable means, moral, intellectual, scientific, and agricultural improvement, and to provide, by law, for a general and uniform system of common schools.”’ This provision imperatively enjoins the general duty upon the Legislature, but leaves to them much discretion as to the selection of means, for the efficient performance of that duty, and if the local agencies of government are employed to assist in building up the school system, there is no evasion of duty by the Legislature. The Legislature may, in their discretion, support alL the schools of the State by means of a general levy directly made by a legislative act, or they may thus' provide for part of the expense of maintaining the schools, or they may delegate to local officers the power to levy such taxes as in their judgment may be needed to supply the wants of the local schools and make them useful and effective. The duty rests. on the Legislature to adopt the best system that can be framed; but they, and not the courts, are to judge what is the best-system. There is this limitation on the legislative power, the system must be “ a general and uniform one,” and tuition must be free and open to all; but the extent of this limitation is this, and nothing more: The Legislature can not make an unequal distribution of money derived from a general levy, make an unequal general levy, or grant to some school corporations benefits or rights withheld from others. This is the general and uniform system contemplated by the Constitution.
Here we are not embarrassed by the consideration that property rights have been acquired on the faith of the decision in Greencastle Township v. Black, supra, for it is now more than eighteen years since the statute under examination was enacted, and for all these years it has stood as the unquestioned law of the land. Much greater disturbance would be produced in returning to the decision in that case than in acquiescing in the decision of the executive and legislative -departments of the government so long approved by our people. But more than this, we have had since 1857 a decision .adverse in principle to the doctrine of Greencastle Township v. Black, supra, and many other decisions of more modern -date clearly hostile to it. In truth, an assertion now of the doctrine of that case would unsettle the law upon the subject of drainage, of roads, of courts, and upon a great many other subjects, for, in deciding constitutional questions involving the meaning of provisions of a similar import to the phrase “ a general and uniform system,” the court has taken a very 'different view from that asserted in the case of Greencastle Township v. Black, supra. We can not cite all of the cases
It will be clear to any one who studies our cases that the decision in Greencastle Township v. Black, supra, has long since been overruled in so far as it denies the power of the Legislature to empower school corporations to levy what is called a tuition tax, and all that it is incumbent upon us to do here is to announce as the result of these decisions, that it is overruled in so far as it asserts a doctrine inconsistent with them. If, however, the decision was not in principle overruled by the cases to which we have referred, we should nevertheless feel it our duty to overrule it now, because we are convinced that in the respect indicated it was not well decided, and for the reason that the statute now in force has been so long and uniformly acquiesced in that we ought not to return to the doctrine of that case unless quite well satisfied of its soundness; nor, as we have shown, are we embarrassed by any of the considerations which generally make courts reluctant to depart from former decisions. There is another point in Greencastle Township v. Black, supra, which was the controlling one, and upon which the conclusion might perhaps have been rested, and it was really not necessary to the decision of the case before the court to decide the question which is here the dominating one. The point to which we refer was that decided in Maize v. State, 4 Ind. 342, namely : “ The law-making power being vested by the Constitution of 1851 in the General Assembly, the exercise, by any other
Judgment reversed, with instructions to sustain the demurrer to the complaint.