126 Ala. 600 | Ala. | 1899
The two acts passed by the General Assembly during its sessions of 1898-99—'one approved November-30, 3898 (Acts 1898-99, p. 8) entitled an act, “To provide for the permanent location of -the county site of Calhoun county by a vote -of the qualified electors of -said county;” the other, approved February 1, 3899 (lb. p. 494) entitled an act “To amend an act, entitled ‘An act to provide for the permanent location of the county site of Calhoun -county, by a vote of the qualified electors -of -said 'county,’ approved November 30, 3898”—embody all the provisions necessary for the making of a choice between the two places named in the acts, to wit, Anniston and Jacksonville, as the site for the county court house of Calhoun county by an election 'to he held thereunder. To particularize, they provide for the ordering of the. election by a hoard of commissioners named, at which persons are to be allowed to vote possessing certain qualifications therein
Objections are taken to these acts upon grounds involving their constitutionality, and, really, these objections constitute and present the only questions for consideration. Instead of garnering them out of the allegations of the petition for ourselves, we will state them,• substantially, as they are.set out in appellant’s counsel’s argument.
It is urged in support of the three first’bbjections that the act requires the numbering of the ballot, thereby destroying its secrecy, that the system of registration provided by it disfranchises some persons who ‘are otherwise entitled to exercise the privilege of the electoral franchise conferred by Article VIII of the Constitution, and the method of voting and the scheme of the conduct and certification thereof is entirely variant from the existing election laws of the State. All this may be conceded for the purposes of this case and yet it does not follow that the act is subject to the objections. It might well be doubted whether the provisions of Art. VIII of the Constitution which relate exclusively to suffrage and elections, have reference to any election by the people other than those held to elect public officers. Hanna v. Young, 34 L. R. A. (Md.) 55 and authorities cited. It is unnecessary, however, to decide this question. The subject matter of the act finder consideration was clearly one within the power of the legislature, without limitations or restraint to deal with.—7 Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law (2d. ed.) pp. 1019, 1020 and notes. It could have directed the court house to be re
Under the Constitution of 1819, which was in force until the adoption of the Constitution of 1865, every white male person of the age of twenty-one years or upwards, who was a citizen of the United States and shall have resided in this State one year next preceding an election and the last three months within the county, city or town, in which he offered to vote, was a qualified elector, etc. While this constitutional provision was in force, the act of the legislature, which by its several sections provided that before the corporation of
It is clear to our minds that these objections are not well founded.—Ex parte Hill, 40 Ala. 121; Clarke v. Jack, 60 Ala. 271; Leigh v. The State, 69 Ala. 261; Moulton v. Reid, 54 Ala. 320; McCraw v. County Commissioners of Greene County, 87 Ala. 407; Stanfil v. Court of County Rev. of Dallas County, 80 Ala. 287; 6 Am. & Eng. Ency. Law (2d. ed.) pp. 1024, 1025 and notes; Mobley v. Police Jury, 41 La. Ann. 821; Bew v. The State, 71 Miss. 1; Plummer v. Yost, 144 Ill. 68.
The numerous eases cited in appellant’s brief to sustain his contention, in seeming conflict with the views we here express, are based upon constitutional limitations of the authority of the legislature of those States to order a removal or a selection of a county site without first submitting the question of removal or selection to the electors of the county. The case of Gandy v. The State, in 82 Ala. 61, is not in conflict with what we have' said. All that was held in that case, upon the point under consideration, was that the general penal statute was broad enough in its language to embrace any election held in this State, whether under the general or a special law. The election may he a legal one under a special law authorizing it, there being no constitutional inhibition against the passage of such a law, although it is- not such an election, as is contemplated by Art. VIII of the Constitution.
The remaining question is tin; one raised by the objection to the title of the act. It will be well to observe, before entering upon a consideration of this question, that the general statutes providing for and regulating elections apply only to elections of public officers and not to elections to- be held of the character of
It cannot be said that the title contains more than one -subject. For it needs no argument to show that the words “of the qualified electors of said county” when read in connection with the words which precede them, “to provide for the permanent location of the •county site of Calhoun county by a vote” are germane •to the subject expressed and are expressive -of a part of the means to be employed to a full -accomplishment of the purposes sought, to wit: “To provide for the permanent location of the county site of Calhoun county.” As said in State v. Street, 117 Ala. 208, and quoted approvingly in A. G. S. R. R. Co. v. Reed, 124 Ala. 253; 27 So. Rep. 10, “When the title of an act expresses but one general -subject, and all its provisions are allied to the subject expressed or, as is usually said, germane or cognate to it, all the purposes of the limitation are satisfied. 'This is the real test in each particular case: When the title expresses one general subject, however broad and ■comprehensive the subject may be, whether the act includes provisions which by no fair intendment can be •considered as having connection or relation to the subject expressed.” Or, as said in Ex parte Pollard. 40 Ala. 99, “The question must always be, whether, taking from the title the subject, we can find anything in the bill which cannot be referred to that subject. If we do, the law embraces a subject not described in the title. But this conclusion 'Should never be attained, except by argument characterized by liberality of -construction and freedom from all nice verbal criticism.”
But to go back to the position contended for in this case, which, in its last analysis, is, that the words “qualified electors” as used in -the title must be held to be referable to those persons Who are electors under the Constitution and statutes of the 'State; that this is the sense in Avhich they would he understood to be used by the members of the General Assembly when the title to the act is read, and therefore the General Assembly and the public were misled by those words into the belief that the bill or act provided that all persons residing in Calhoun county entitled under the Constitution and general laws to vote would be permitted to do so, whereas it excluded a certain class of them by the system of registration, etc., provided for in- the act. If they stood alone they would mean “persons who are legally qualified to vote.”-—Bouv. Law Die. 800. And
Affirmed.