majority of votes in any county should be cast against license, it should not thereafter be lawful for any person to retail intoxicating liquors within such county; but if the majority should be cast in favor of license, then licenses might be granted in the county so voting, in the manner and under the regulations in said act prescribed. The Court of Errors and Appeals of that State held this act void, as an attempted delegation of the trust to make laws, and upon the same reasons which support the cases before cited, where acts have been held void which referred to the people of the State for approval a law of general application.1 The same de cision was made near the same time by the Supreme [* 125] * Court of Pennsylvania,2 followed afterwards in an elaborate opinion by the Supreme Court of Iowa.3 By statute in Indiana it was enacted that no person should retail spirituous liquors, except for sacramental, mechanical, chemical, medicinal, or culinary purposes, without the consent of the majority of the legal voters of the proper township who might cast their votes for license at the April election, nor without filing with the county auditor a bond as therein provided; upon the filing of which the auditor was to issue to the person filing the same a license to retail spirituous liquors, which was to be good for one year from the day of the election. This act was held void upon similar reasons to those above quoted. This case follows the decisions in Pennsylvania and Delaware, and it has since been followed by another decision of the Supreme Court of that State, except that while in the first case only that portion of the statute which provided for submission to the people was held void, in the later case that unconstitutional provision was held to affect the whole statute with infirmity, and render the whole invalid." Irrepealable Laws. Similar reasons to those which forbid the legislative department of the State from delegating its authority will also forbid its passRice v. Foster, 4 Harr. 479. 2 Parker v. Commonwealth, 6 Penn. St. 507. 3 Geebrick v. State, 5 Iowa, 495. 4 Maize v. State, 4 Ind. 342. Parker v. Commonwealth, 6 Penn. St. 507; Rice v. Foster, 4 Harr. 479. See also State v. Field, 17 Mo. 529; Commonwealth v. McWilliams, 11 Penn. St. 61; State v. Copeland, 3 R. I. 33. • Meshmeier v. State, 11 Ind. 484. ing any irrepealable law. The constitution, in conferring the legislative authority, has prescribed to its exercise any limitations which the people saw fit to impose; and no other power than the people can superadd other limitations. To say that the legislature may pass irrepealable laws, is to say that it may alter the very constitution from which it derives its authority; since in so far as one legislature could bind a subsequent one by its enactments, it could in the same degree reduce the legislative power of its successors, and the process might be repeated until, one by one, the subjects of legislation would be excluded altogether from their control, and the constitutional provision, that the * leg- [*126] islative power shall be vested in two houses, would be to a greater or less degree rendered ineffectual.1 "Acts of Parliament," says Blackstone, "derogatory to the power of subsequent Parliaments, bind not; so the statute 11 Henry VII. c. 1, which directs that no person for assisting a king de facto shall be attainted of treason by act of Parliament or otherwise, is held to be good only as to common prosecutions for high treason, but it will not restrain or clog any parliamentary attainder. Because the legislature, being in truth the sovereign power, is always of equal, and always of absolute authority; it acknowledges no superior upon earth, which the prior legislature must have been if its ordinances could bind a subsequent Parliament. And upon the same principle, Cicero, in his letters to Atticus, treats with a proper contempt those restraining clauses which endeavor to tie up the hands of succeeding legislatures. When "Unlike the decision of a court, a legislative act does not bind a subsequent legislature. Each body possesses the same power, and has a right to exercise the same discretion. Measures, though often rejected, may receive legislative sanction. There is no mode by which a legislative act can be made irrepealable, except it assume the form and substance of a contract. If in any line of legislation, a permanent character could be given to acts, the most injurious consequences would result to the country. Its policy would become fixed and unchangeable on great national interests, which might retard, if not destroy, the public prosperity. Every legislative body, unless restricted by the constitution, may modify or abolish the acts of its predecessors; whether it would be wise to do so, is a matter for legislative discretion." Bloomer v. Stolley, 5 McLean, 161. See this subject considered in Wall v. State, 23 Ind. 150. In Kellogg v. Oshkosh, 14 Wis. 623, it was held that one legislature could not bind a future one to a particular mode of repeal. you repeal the law itself,' says he, 'you at the same time repeal the prohibitory clause which guards against such repeal.'"1 Although this reasoning does not in all its particulars apply to the American legislatures, the principle applicable in each case is the same. There is a modification of the principle, however, by an important provision of the Constitution of the United States, forbidding the States from passing any laws impairing the obligation of contracts. Legislative acts are sometimes in substance contracts between the State and the party who is to derive some right under them, and they are not the less under the protection of the clause quoted because of having assumed this form. Charters of incorporation, except those of a municipal character,— and which as we have already seen are mere agencies of [*127] government,-* are held to be contracts between the State and the corporators, and not subject to modification or change by the act of the State alone, except as may be authorized by the terms of the charters themselves.2 And it now seems to be settled, by the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, that a State, by contract to that effect, based upon a consideration, may exempt the property of an individual or corporation from taxation for any specified period or permanently. And it is also settled, by the same decisions, that where a charter containing an exemption from taxes, or an agreement that the taxes shall be to a specified amount only, is accepted by the corporators, the exemption is presumed to be upon sufficient consideration, and consequently binding upon the State.3 1 1 Bl. Com. 90. Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. 518; Planters Bank v. Sharp, 6 How. 301. 3 Gordon v. Appeal Tax Court, 3 How. 133; New Jersey v. Wilson, 7 Cranch, 164; Piqua Branch Bank v. Knoop, 16 How. 369; Ohio Life Ins. and Trust Co. v. Debolt, 16 How. 416, 432; Dodge v. Woolsey, 18 How. 331; Mechanics and Traders Bank v. Debolt, 18 How. 381; Jefferson Branch Bank v. Skelly, 1 Black, 436. See also Hunsaker v. Wright, 30 Ill. 146; Spooner v. McConnell, 1 McLean, 347. The right of a State legislature to grant away the right of taxation, which is one of the essential attributes of sovereignty, has been strenuously denied. Debolt v. Ohio Life Ins. and Trust Co. 1 Ohio, N. s. 563; Mechanics and Traders Bank v. Debolt, ib. 591; Brewster v. Hough, 10 N. H. 143; Mott v. Pennsylvania Railroad Co. 30 Penn. St. 9. And see Thorpe v. Rutland and B. Railroad Co. 27 Vt. 146. In Brick Presbyterian Church v. Mayor, &c., of New York, 5 Cow. 538, it was held that a municipal corporation had no power, Territorial Limitation to State Legislative Authority. The legislative authority of every State must spend its force within the territorial limits of the State. The [128] legislature of one State cannot make laws by which people outside the State must govern their actions, except as they may have occasion to resort to the remedies which the State provides, or to deal with property situated within the State. It can have no authority upon the high seas beyond State lines, because there is the point of contact with other nations, and all international questions belong to the national government.1 It cannot provide for the punishment as crimes of acts committed beyond the State boundary, because such acts, if offences at all, must be offences against the sovereignty within whose limits they have been done.2 But if the consequences of an unlawful act committed outside the State have reached their ultimate and injurious result within it, it seems that the perpetrator may be punished as an offender against such State.3 as a party, to make a contract which should control or embarrass its discharge of legislative duties. And see post, p. 206. In Coats v. Mayor, &c., of New York, 7 Cow. 585, it was decided that though a municipal corporation grant lands for cemetery purposes, and covenant for their quiet enjoyment, it will not thereby be estopped afterwards to forbid the use of the land, by by-law, for that purpose, when such use becomes or is likely to become a nuisance. See also, on the same subject, Morgan v. Smith, 4 Minn. 104; Hamrick v. Rouse, 17 Geo. 56, where it was held that the legislature could not bind its successors not to remove a county seat; Bass v. Fontleroy, 11 Texas, 698; Shaw v. Macon, 21 Geo. 280; Regents of University v. Williams, 9 G. & J. 390; Mott v. Pennsylvania Railroad Co. 30 Penn. St. 9. In Bank of Republic v. Hamilton, 21 Ill. 53, it was held that, in construing a statute, it will not be intended that the legislature designed to abandon its right as to taxation. This subject is considered further, post, pp. 280–284. 11 Bish. Cr. Law, § 120. State v. Knight, 2 Hayw. 109; People v. Merrill, 2 Park. Cr. R. 590; Adams v. People, 1 N. Y. 173; Tyler v. People, 8 Mich. 320; Morrissey v. People, 11 Mich. 327; Bromley v. People, 7 Mich. 472; State v. Main, 16 Wis. 398. In Tyler v. People, 8 Mich. 320, it was held constitutional to punish in Michigan a homicide committed by a mortal blow in Canadian waters, from which death resulted in the State. In Morrissey v. People, 11 Mich. 327, the court was divided on the question whether the State could lawfully provide for the punishment of persons who, having committed larceny abroad, brought the stolen Other Limitations of Legislative Authority. Besides the limitations of legislative authority to which we have referred, others exist which do not seem to call for special remark. Some of these are prescribed by constitutions,1 but [* 129] *others spring from the very nature of free government. The latter must depend for their enforcement upon legislative wisdom, discretion, and conscience. The legislature is to make laws for the public good, and not for the benefit of individuals. It has control of the public moneys, and should provide for disbursing them only for public purposes. Taxes should only be levied for those purposes which properly constitute a public burden. But what is for the public good, and what are public purposes, and what does properly constitute a public burden, are questions which the legislature must decide upon its own judgment, and in respect to which it is vested with a large discretion which cannot be controlled by the courts, except perhaps where its action is clearly evasive, and where, under pretence of a lawful authority, it has assumed to exercise one that is unlawful. Where the power which is exercised is legislative in its character, the courts can enforce only those limitations which the constitution imposes, and not those implied restrictions which, resting in theory only, the people have been satisfied to leave to the judgment, patriotism, and sense of justice of their representatives. property within the State. And see Bromley v. People, 7 Mich. 472; State v. Main, 16 Wis. 398. 1 The restrictions upon State legislative authority are much more extensive in some constitutions than in others. The Constitution of Missouri has the following provision: "The General Assembly shall not pass special laws divorcing any named parties, or declaring any named person of age, or authorizing any named minor to sell, lease, or encumber his or her property, or providing for the sale of the real estate of any named minor or other person laboring under legal disability, by any executor, administrator, guardian, trustee, or other person, or establishing, locating, altering the course, or effecting the construction of roads, or the building or repairing of bridges, or establishing, altering, or vacating any street, avenue, or alley in any city or town, or extending the time for the assessment or collection of taxes, or otherwise relieving any assessor or collector of taxes from the due performance of his official duties, or giving effect to informal or invalid wills or deeds, or legalizing, except as against the State, the unauthorized or invalid acts of any officer, or granting to any individual or company the right to lay down railroad tracks in the streets of any city or town, or exempting any property of any named person or corporation from taxation. The General |