268 Mo. 598 | Mo. | 1916
— This is an original proceeding by mandamus, the purpose of which is to compel the curators of the University of Missouri to obey an act duly passed by the General Assembly of the State and signed by the Governor, March 23, 1915. [Laws 1915, p. 391.] That act amends sections 11134 and 11141, Revised Statutes 1909, and, with the amendatory matter indicated by italics, reads as follows:
“Sec. 11134. Objects of These Colleges. — The leading objects of said colleges shall be to teach such branches as are related to agriculture and mechanic arts and mining, including military tactics, and without excluding other scientific and classical studies, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life.
“See. 11141. Right to Confer Degrees. — The college of agriculture a,nd the school of mines and metallurgy shall have power to confer degrees suitable to their designs and courses of study; and the school of mines and metallurgy shall provide courses for, and shall confer the bachelor of science and professional degrees in mining engineering, in metallurgy, in mechanical engineering, in electrical engineering, in chemical engineering, in civil engineering, and the degrees of bachelor and master of science in general science.”
So' far as concerns section 11134, the act merely
The unitalicized portion of section 11141,. as above set forth, constituted the entire section 11141 in the Revised Statutes of 1909. The words “college of agriculture” used therein were inserted in 1909 in lieu of the words “the college of agriculture and mechanic arts,” and these, in turn (Sec. 105-05, R. S. 1899), had supplanted the words “the agricultural and' mechanical college” as they appeared in the Act of 1870.
The “colleges” referred to in the Act of 1915 are the College of Agriculture, as it is how called, and the School of Mines and Metallurgy.
The Act of' 1870 (Laws 1870, sec. 1, p. 15) which was in force at the time of the adoption of the Constitution of 1875, upon the interpretation of one of the sections of which Constitution the defense depends, established “the Agricultural and Mechanical College and a School of Mines and Metallurgy, provided for by the grant of the Congress of the United States as a distinct department of the University of the State of Missouri.”
It is unnecessary to set out the pleadings, since no question of consequence is raised in connection with them. It will suffice to say the return admits relator’s capacity to sue, the passage of the Act of March 23, 1915, and respondents’ refusal to obey or permit obedience to its command. It is the command of the General Assembly contained in the amendment made by the Act of 1915 to section 11141 which relator seeks to have enforced and the enforcement of which respondents resist.
No question is raised as to the regularity of the
“The General Assembly shall, whenever the public school fund will permit and the actual necessity of the same may require, aid and maintain the State University, now established,. with its present departments. The government of the State University shall be vested in a board of curators to consist of nine members, to be appointed by the Governor, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.” •.
The question presented is whether this constitutional provision invalidates the Act of March '23, 1915. In order to maintain the affirmative of this it is incumbent upon respondents to convince us beyond a reasonable doubt that the act assailed is not susceptible of any reasonable interpretation consistent with section 5 of article 11, which will leave in it any command to them which is enforeible by mandamus and within the scope of the alternative writ.
It may he conceded the' Constitution of 1875 deprives the General Assembly of the power to disestablish the University or any department thereof in existence when the Constitution was adopted. That matter is not in issue in this case, and in so far as the argument is directed to, that question, save in one particular hereafter noticed, it is not relevant to the question before us. The - rest of this argument, however, requires us to ascertain the meaning of the first sentence of section 5 of article 11 of the Constitution, and a restatement of a fundamental principle or two is pertinent. In interpreting the language of the Constitution, “the thing which we' are to seek is the thought which it expresses. To ascertain this, the first resort in all
There is no impropriety in adding that we see nothing in the differences between the language employed in the Constitution of 1865 and that used' in. section 5 of article 11, Constitution 1875, which aids respondents on this branch of the argument. The one commanded, under stated conditions, the establishment of a State University and made mandatory the inclusion of specified departments. The other, again under named conditions, commands the Gen
Unless the General Assembly is forbidden by the Constitution to establish new departments in the State University, or, at least, to establish courses of study in one department which overlap those offered in another, it retains that power, since all . legislative authority not denied the General Assembly by the Constitution resides in it. Absent a constitutional limitation upon its powers, the General Assembly certainly may legislate as it wills, subject only to the limitations imposed by the Constitution of the United States. The argument is, however, that the limitation upon the power of the General Assembly to establish new departments or courses of study is found in the constitutional command that the General Assembly shall “aid and maintain” the University with its established departments. The position taken is that to establish a department which might attract students who might have attended the established department, to that extent tends to destroy and not to “aid” such department
Further, to indicate to what the argument being considered leads, to adopt counsels’ interpretation would be to preclude the General Assembly from providing in high schools and normal schools courses of
1. The effort to find independent support for this position in the words “vested in” and in the fact that like words are used in the clauses relating to the executive, legislative and judicial departments of the State government fails, of course, since there is nothing “vested in” the board of curators save the “government” of the University, and we are thus brought back to the question as to the meaning of that word.
Several other like arguments are found in respondents’ brief. These need no answer other than that which may be found in what is said upon the principal argument as to the meaning of the word government.
2. Another somewhat similar contention is that the board of curators and the General Assembly derive their powers from the same document and that by it they are created separate and dhtihet constitutional bodies; that a direct power conferred upon one necessarily precludes its existence in the other; that the Constitution vests the government of the University in the board of curators, and, therefore, deprives the General Assembly of' that piower, and, it follows, the Act of lffi.5 is Invalid. This reasoning begs the question. The question is, what does the word “government” mean1? If its meaning is such as to confer upon the hoard of curators the exclusive powers contended for, that ends the matter and the position taken is correct. If ¡suck is not its meaning, then the conduslon does not follow the argument hut results from an unjustifiable assumption of the very thing the argument is offered to es
3. Counsel ground their most earnest effort upon the decision in Sterling v. Regents, 110 Mich. 369. It is necessary to examine this ruling. That case was decided under a provision of the Constitution of Michigan which, so far as relevant, is as follows: “The Board of Regents shall have the general supervision of the University and the direction and control of all expenditures from the University interest fund.” An associated provision required, in effect, that the interest on certain funds should be “inviolably appropriated and annually applied” to the maintenance of the University. At the time these constitutional provisions were adopted in Michigan this interest was the University’s sole source of support. In 1895 the Michigan Legislature passed an act, the purposes of which were to disestablish one of the departments at Ann Arbor, the location of the University, and establish a like department at Detroit. This act was attacked as unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court of Michigan held it invalid on the grounds (1) that the history of the times, the constitutional debates and reports of certain investigating committees indicated the framers of the Constitution intended to exclude the Legislature from all power over the university; (2) that for forty-six years the quoted constitutional provision had been so acted upon and construed; (3) that in a previous case (Weinberg v. Regents, 97 Mich. 246, two of five judges dissenting), involving the liability of the board of regents for failing to require bond of building contractors as provided by statute, the same court had held the board of regents a separate constitutional body and declared that board exempt from the statute; (4) that to
(a) Resort to the history of the times, constitutional debates and the like is justified only when the language whose meaning is sought remains doubtful after it has been read in the light of the whole instrument of which it is a part. [Cooley’s Const. Limitations (7 Ed.), p. 100.] Even when they are relevant under this rule constitutional debates are not the most trustworthy aids, since these in no wise necessarily represent the views of the majority of the convention and less certainly reflect those of the people whose votes adopt the constitution, but who did not hear the debates. In this case we have before us but a fugitive sentence or two uttered in
(b) Practical construction is to be. resorted to only when language is doubtful, in the sense stated in the preceding paragraph. What practical construction there has been runs somewhat contrary to respondents’ contention. The chapter on the State University discloses a number of acts of the General Assembly purporting to affect the University. Two of these were designed to establish departments or chairs in the University. The board of curators rendered obedience to those.
(c) We have no previous decision in this State comparable to the case of Weinberg v. Regents, supra, upon which the Supreme Court of Michigan declared it might have been content to rest its judgment. Nor does that decision advance any reason for the conclusions reached which are not included in the other grounds of decision in Sterling v. Regents.
(d) Our Constitution gives the board of curators no specific control over funds unless such power is given by vesting in the board the “government” of the University. This merely returns us to the question as to the meaning of that word.
(f) With respect to the last (6) argument advanced in Sterling v. Regents, it is to be observed it- is based upon the proposition that the Michigan Constitution invested the board of regents of the University of that State with general powers. The argument, therefore, if applied here, begins by taking as true the only thing in issue in the case before us. We can assume that was well enough under the facts in Sterling v. Regents, but, obviously, a like assumption here again begs the question we are asked to decide. Further, the rule quoted from the Michigan decision (6) we do not regard as unqualifiedly applicable in processes of constitutional construction. It is certainly not available to expand the meaning of words used without appended restrictions and introduce into their meaning something new. The absence of express restrictions upon the meaning of the word .“government” adds nothing to its meaning which we are justified in seizing and using to cut down the General Assembly’s legislative power further than it is diminished, if at all, by the use of the word itself in its natural sense.
Upon the question presented in this case, we do not, for the reasons given, think the decision in Sterling v. Regents, supra, is authority one way or the other.
4. The legislative power, subject to the limitations contained in the Constitution, is vested in the General Assembly of the State of Missouri. The General Assembly retains all legislative power not expressly or by necessary implication forbidden it by the Constitution. On the theory that certain lan
(a) The single question remaining is whether, under the principle stated, the vesting of the “government” of the University in the Board of Curators expressly or by necessary implication limits the General Assembly’s legislative power to such an extent as to render Void the act of March 23, 1915. Obviously, section 5 of article 11 contains no express limitation upon the legislative power of the General Assembly, in the sense that it includes any direct prohibition directed against that body. There are in the Constitution many express limitations (Art. 4, sec. 43, et seq.) but it is not contended any of these lend support to respondents’ position. The real question, therefore, is whether the exclusion of
We repeat what has already been said, i. e., that it may be conceded the General Assembly cannot disestablish the State University or abolish any department of it which was in existence when the Constitution was adopted in 1875; and that it is the General Assembly’s duty, under conditions fixed by the Constitution, to aid and maintain the University and the departments mentioned. These things do not affect the question before us. The act of March 23, 1915, does not,( as pointed out above, conflict with .such a construction of the Constitution or purport to. work disestablishment of anything. In fact, its aim is plainly the contrary, i. e., to add to the University a certain department or courses of study, not to subtract therefrom. This is the.thing, therefore, counsel contend is forbidden by necessary implication arising out of the word government. The natural signification of the word is as the dictionaries quoted give it. Now “exercise of authority in regulating something,” “guidance,” “direction,” “regulation,” “control,” all imply the existence of something subject to such guidance and regulation. They
(b) There is also in the Constitution itself another provision which supports the conclusion stated. Under the head of “Limitations on Legislative Power” it is provided that “all revenue collected and moneys received by the State from any source whatsoever shall go into the treasury, and the General Assembly sháll have no power to divert the same, or to
(c) Again, if extrinsic matter could be said to be pertinent, the act establishing the University is perhaps more relevant to the question before us than is anything else.
What did the word “government” mean used in relation to the subject and standing in the statutes of the State for thirty-seven years before the Constitution of 1875 was adopted! To say the General Assembly by that language intended to devest itself of power to legislate respecting the University would be unreasonable. Such an intent would have met insuperable constitutional obstacles. No General Assembly could, by mere enactment, cut down the legislative power of any of its successors. So to construe the Act of 1839 and later re-enactments of the same thing is to convict the General Assembly of a course so foolish and ridiculous as to render its action absurd. No court would have put such a construction upon the act had its meaning been drawn in question. Such absurdities are never attributed to legislatures unless there is left no rational means of escape. Such being the case and the Constitution having borrowed the very words of the statute upon the subject, it is not far fetched to offer the statute as corroboration of the conclusion already stated' as to the meaning of the word employed in the Constitution.
It is no answer to this to say the statute was and is merely a statute and subject to change by the Legislature. That is true. But that does not justify-a construction of the statute which transforms it into a rank absurdity when there is a reasonable, natural and simple interpretation at hand.
As already stated, other arguments are advanced in the briefs, but, as already pointed out, they are logically included within those specifically considered. The alternative writ is made absolute.