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as many classes as require this peculiar legislation. Thus laws relating to the people, for certain purposes, extend to all alike, as for protection of person and property; for other purposes they are divided into classes, as voters, sane and insane persons, minors, husbands and wives, parents and children, etc. Property is subject to division into classes. Nearly every matter of public concern is divisible, and division is necessary to methodical legislation. A statute relating to persons or things as a class is a general law; one relating to particular persons or things of a class is special.'

In Wheeler v. Philadelphia, 77 Pa. St. 338, the court say that the power of classifying subjects for legislation "existed at the time of the adoption of the constitution; it had been exercised by the legislature from the foundation of the government; it was incident to legislation, and its exercise was necessary to the promotion of the public welfare. The true question is not whether classification is authorized by the terms of the constitution, but whether it is expressly prohibited. In no part of that instrument can such prohibition be found. For the purpose of taxation real estate may be classified. Thus, timber lands, arable lands, mineral lands, urban and rural, may be divided into distinct classes, and subjected to different rates. In like manner other subjects, trades, occupations and professions may be classified. And not only things but persons may be so divided. The genus homo is a subject within the meaning of the constitution. Will it be contended that as to this there can be no classification? No laws affecting the personal and property rights of minors as distinguished from adults? Or of males as distinguished from females? Or, in the case of the latter, no distinction between a feme covert and a single woman? What becomes of all our legislation in regard to the rights

of married women if there can be no classification? And where is the power to provide any future safeguards for their separate estate? These illustrations might be multiplied indefinitely were it necessary. But it is contended that even if the right to classify exists, the exercise of it by the legislature, in this instance, is in violation of the constitution, for the reason that there is but one city in the state with a population exceeding three hundred thousand; that to form a class containing but one city is in point of fact legislating for that one city to the exclusion of all others, and constitutes the local and special legislation prohibited by the constitution. This argument is plausible, but unsound. It is is true the only city in the state, at the present time, containing a population of three hundred thousand, is the city of Philadelphia. It is also true that the city of Pittsburg is rapidly approaching that number, if it has not already reached it, by recent enlargements of its territory.

"Legislation is intended not only to meet the wants of the present, but to provide for the future. It deals not with the past, but, in theory at least, anticipates the needs of a state, healthy with a vigorous development. It is intended to be permanent. At no distant day Pittsburg

Laws of a general nature are required to be made in such form that they will have a uniform operation. They must be so framed and so operate on account of being of that general nature. In Cass v. Dillon,' Thurman, J., said: "The origin of this section is perfectly well known. The legislature had often made it a crime to do in one county, or even township, what it was perfectly lawful to do elsewhere; and had provided that acts, even for the punishment of offenses, should be in force or not in certain localities, as the electors thereof respectively might decide. It was to remedy this evil and prevent its recurrence that this section was framed."

2

In Kelley v. State the court say: "Without undertaking to discriminate nicely or define with precision it may be said that the character of a law, as general or local, depends on the character of its subject-matter. If that be of a general nature, existing throughout the state, in every county, a subject-matter in which all the citizens have a common interest if it be a court organized under the constitution and laws within and for every county of the state, and possessing a legitimate jurisdiction over every citizen, then the laws which relate to and regulate it are laws of a general nature, and by virtue of the prohibition referred to must have a uniform operation throughout the state." It is to be inferred from this that a law of a general nature requires a subject-matter of this extensive and all-pervading sort; and that all laws relating to and regulating it are of the same character — of a general nature. If limited in terms, so as not to extend to the whole state; that is, if the court referred to be established in only a

will probably become a city of the first class; and Scranton, or others of the rapidly growing interior towns, will take the place of the city of Pittsburg as a city of the second class. In the meantime, is the classification as to cities of the first class bad because Philadelphia is the only one of the class? We think not. Classification does not depend upon the numbers. The first man, Adam, was as distinctly a class, when the breath of life was breathed into him, as at any subsequent period. The

word was not used to designate num-
bers, but a rank or order of persons
or things; in society it is used to in-
dicate equality, or persons distin-
guished by common characteristics,
as the trading classes, the laboring
classes; in science, it is a division or
arrangement containing the subordi-
nate divisions of order, genus and
species." See People v. Henshaw, 76
Cal. 436; Pritchett v. Stanislaus Co.
73 id. 310.

12 Ohio St. 607, 617.
26 Ohio St. 269.

portion of the state, not in every county, it does not have the uniform operation required. In the subsequent case of McGill v. State,' the subject received thorough reconsideration. The question was on the validity of a law relating to the selection of trial jurors in that court-whether the power to make such selection must be conferred on the same class of men or officers in every county. To the contention that such uniformity was required, the court said: "This position derives some support from what was said in Kelley v. State. But subsequent decisions of this court, and in which the learned judge delivering the opinion in that case concurred, show that the proposition that a law relating to or concerning a general subject-matter is a law of a general nature is not to be taken in an unqualified sense to be true. That a law of a general nature must concern a subject-matter existing and capable of uniform operation throughout the state cannot be denied; for if the law from the nature of its subject-matter is not susceptible of an operation throughout the state, it cannot, within the meaning of the constitution, be a law of a general nature. But it by no means follows that all laws pertaining to a general subject-matter, and susceptible of a uniform operation throughout the state, are laws of a general nature in the constitutional sense of that term." Such differences of details were held not to affect the constitutionality of the law. The requirement was intended by such uniformity of operation to prevent the granting to any citizen or class of citizens of privileges or immunities which upon the same terms shall not belong to all citizens. This language is associated with the provision in question in the Iowa constitution, and as quali- . fied by it was adopted in other states.3

In California the provision was adopted from the constitution of Iowa. In Smith v. Judge,' Baldwin, J., said: “The language must be carefully noted. It is not that laws shall be universal or general in their application to the same subject, nor is it even that all laws of a general nature shall be universal or general in their application to such subjects; but the expression is that these laws shall be uniform in their opera

134 Ohio St. 239.

2 Sec. 6, art. I.

3 McGill v. State, supra.
417 Cal. 554.

2

tion; that is, that such laws shall bear equally in their burdens and benefits upon persons standing in the same category." The same court in a later case held that the provision means that every law shall have a uniform operation upon the citizens or persons or things of any class upon whom or which it purports to take effect, and that it shall not grant to any citizen or class of citizens privileges which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens. In a still later case that court said: "The constitution has not undertaken to declare that all laws shall have a uniform operation. Uniformity in that respect is made requisite only in case the law itself be one of a general nature. The nature of a given statute, as being general or special, must depend in a measure upon the legislative purpose discernable in its enactment. We must not say that a statute, plainly special in its scope, must either have a uniform operation or not operate at all, for this were to add another to the limitations which the constitution has imposed upon the legislative power, and to hold in effect that no special act could be passed at all, at least if uniform' operation means universal operation.3 . Nor are we to say that a special statute-special in its aims and in the object it has in view is by mere construction to be converted into a general statute, because the subject with which it deals might have been made the subject of a general law. It is obvious that every law upon a general subject is not per se, nor by constitutional intendment, necessarily of a general nature. The subject may be general, but the law and the rule it prescribes may be special. Fees of officers, for instance, constitute a general subject, one which pervades the length and breadth of the state, and extends into every political subdivision of which it is composed; yet a statute may prescribe what these fees of office shall be in a particular county. And may declare that they shall differ from fees established for the same official duties performed in another county. Such a

1 French v. Teschemaker, 24 Cal. 544; Brooks V. Hyde, 37 Cal. 375.

2 People v. C. P. R. R. Co. 43 Cal. 432.

3 The provision requiring uniformity in the California constitution of

1849 is that "all laws of a general nature shall have a uniform operation." Art. 1, sec. 11. The words "throughout the state" are omitted. 4 State ex rel. v. Judges, etc. 21 Ohio

St. 1.

law would not be a law of a general nature involving the constitutional necessity of uniform operation; but it would be a special law upon a general subject.”

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§ 122. It is thus apparent that this provision alone does not prevent special legislation, except where, upon a subject of general concern, it would have the effect to make unjust discriminations between people or places in the same condition and circumstances; in other words, have the effect to grant to certain persons or classes privileges or immunities which, upon the same terms, are not made available to all.2

1 Ryan v. Johnson, 5 Cal. 86.

2 In McGill v. State, 34 Ohio St. 246, the court thus discussed this distinction: "In State ex rel. v. The Judges, etc. 21 Ohio St. 1, it was held that an act limiting and regulating the fees of the county officers of Hamilton county was not a law of a general but of a local nature. And in Cass v. Dillon, 2 Ohio St. 617, it was said that a law authorizing and requiring the commissioners to subscribe in behalf of the county to the stock of a railroad company was no more of a general nature than would be an act to authorize the construction of a bridge, or the erection of a poor-house; and yet it is perfectly clear that an act regulating the fees of county officers throughout the state pertains to a general subject-matter existing in every county, and in which all citizens have an interest, as do the general acts authorizing county commissioners to construct bridges, erect poor-houses and other necessary public buildings. And yet who would venture to question the power of the legislature to clothe the commissioners of a county, or the trustees of a township, by local enactment, with authority to provide all public buildings or structures that the local wants of a community might require; or who will contend that the power of the legislature is

so circumscribed and restricted as to prohibit it from requiring a tax to be levied or a court-house to be erected in one county without requiring the same thing to be done in every county in the state? The act authorizing the judges of the court of common pleas to fix the times for holding the terms of court in their respective districts is a general law, the subjectmatter of which concerns all the people throughout the state. Cannot the legislature change by local enactment the term of a court so fixed? If it may do so, it is because the act authorizing the judges to fix the time for holding the courts, although general in its terms, and relating to a subject-matter that pervades all parts of the state, is not, within the meaning and intendment of the constitution, a law of a general nature. Such laws are clearly distinguishable in their nature from those that confer privileges and immunities or impose burdens upon a citizen or class of citizens that are not upon the same terms and conditions conferred and imposed upon all. It is easy to comprehend that a law defining burglary or bigamy, and its penalty, or regulating descent and distribution, or prescribing a rate of interest for the use of money, and others of a similar effect and operation are laws of a general nature, re

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