or indirectly, under the forms and restrictions prescribed by the legislature for reasons of general State policy, the officers of local administration, and the board that is to make the local laws. This is a right which of late has sometimes been encroached upon under various plausible pretences, but almost always with the result which reasonable men should have anticipated from the experiment of a body at a distance attempting to govern a local community of whose affairs or needs they could know but little, except as they should derive information from sources likely to have interested reasons for misleading. Another is the right of the local community to determine what pecuniary burdens it shall take upon its shoulders. But here from the very nature of the case there must be some limitations. The municipalities do not exist wholly for the benefit of their corporators, but as a part of the machinery of State government, and they cannot be permitted to decline a performance of their duties or a discharge of their obligations as such. They cannot abolish local government; they cannot refuse to provide the conveniences for its administration; they cannot decline to raise the necessary taxes for the purpose; they cannot repudiate pecuniary obligations that justly rest upon them as a local government. Over these matters the legislature of the State must have control, or confusion would inevitably be introduced into the whole system. But beyond this it is not often legitimate for the State to go except in moulding and shaping the local powers, and perhaps permitting the

1 On this subject reference is made to what is said by Campbell, Ch. J., in People v. Hurlbut, 24 Mich. 87 et seq. See also p. 97. Much has been said concerning the necessity of legislative interference in some cases where bad men were coming into power through universal suffrage in cities, but the recent experience of the country shows that this has oftener been said to pave the way for bad men to obtain office or grants of unusual powers from the legislature than with any purpose to effect local reforms. And the great municipal scandals and frauds that have prevailed, like those which were so notorious in New York City, have been made possible and then nursed

and fostered by illegitimate interference at the seat of State government. Some officers, usually of local appointment, are undoubtedly to be regarded as State officers whose choice may be confided to a State authority without any invasion of local right; such as militia officers, officers of police, and those who have charge of the execution of the criminal laws; but those who are to administer the corporate funds and have the control of the corporate property, those who make the local laws and those who execute them, cannot rightfully be chosen by the central authority. Dillon, Mun. Corp. § 33. See People v. Com. Council of Detroit, 28 Mich. 228.

local authorities to do certain things for the benefit of their citizens which under the general grants of power would be inadmissible.1

On this general subject we shall venture to lay down the following propositions as the result of the authorities:

1. That the legislature has undoubted power to compel the municipal bodies to perform their functions as local governments under their charters, and to recognize, meet, and discharge the duties and obligations properly resting upon them as such, whether they be legal, or merely equitable or moral; and for this purpose may require them to exercise the power of taxation whenever and wherever it may be deemed necessary or expedient.2

2. That in some cases, in view of the twofold character of such bodies, as being on the one hand agencies of State government, and on the other, corporations endowed with capacities and permitted to hold property and enjoy peculiar privileges for the benefit of their corporators exclusively, the legislature may permit the incurring of expense, the contracting of obligations, and the levy of taxes which are unusual, and which would not be admissible under the powers usually conferred. Instances of the kind may be mentioned in the offer of military bounties, and the payment of a disproportionate share of a State burden in consideration of peculiar local benefits which are to spring from it.1 [* 231] 3. But it is believed the legislature has no power, against the will of a municipal corporation, to compel it

*

decide what taxes shall be levied for proper purposes of local government. Youngblood v. Sexton, 32 Mich. 406.

1 The subject of military bounties has been sufficiently referred to already. As to the right to permit a municipal corporation to burden itself with a local tax for a State object, we refer to Merrick v. Amherst, 12 Allen, 500; Marks v. Trustees of Pardue University, 37 Ind. 155; Hasbrouck v. Milwaukee, 13 Wis. 37. The first was a case in which, in consideration of the local benefits expected from the location of the State agricultural college in a certain town, the town was permitted to levy a large local tax in addition to its proportion of the State burden for the erection of the necessary buildings. The second case was of a similar nature. The third was the case of permission to levy a city tax to improve the city harbor; a work usually done by the general government. There are cases which go further than these, and hold that the legislature may compel a municipal corporation to do what it may thus permit. Thus, in Kirby v. Shaw, 19 Penn. St. 258, it appeared that by an act of April 3, 1848, the commissioners of Bradford County were required to add $500 annually, until 1857, to the usual county rates

and levies of the borough of Towanda in said county, for the purpose of defraying the expenses of the court house and jail, then in process of erection in that borough. The act was held constitutional on the principle of assessment of benefits. In Gordon v. Cornes, 47 N. Y. 608, a law was sustained which "authorized and required" the village of Brockport to levy a tax for the erection of a State normal school building at that place. It is to be said of this case, however, that there was to be in the building a grammar school free to all the children of proper acquirements in the village; so that the village was to receive a peculiar and direct benefit from it, besides those which would be merely incidental to the location of the normal school in the place. But for this circumstance it would be distinctly in conflict with State v. Haben, 22 Wis. 660, where it was held incompetent for the legislature to appropriate the school moneys of a city to the purchase of a site for a State normal school; and also with other cases cited in the next note. It must be conceded, however, that there are other cases which support it. And see, as supporting the last case, Livingston County v. Weider, 64 Ill. 427; Burr v. Carbondall, 76 Ill. 455.

to contract debts for local purposes in which the State has no concern, or to assume obligations not within the ordinary functions of municipal government. Such matters are to be disposed of in view of the interests of the corporators exclusively, and they have the same right to determine them for themselves which the associates in private corporations have to determine for themselves the questions which arise for their corporate action. The State in such cases may remove restrictions and permit action, but it cannot compel it.1

[* 232] * 4. And there is much good reason for assenting also to what several respectable authorities have held, that

cers to make at the expense of the locality an improvement which it has been customary for the general government to take in charge as one of national concern; but the Supreme Court of the State sustained the act, going farther, as we think, in doing so, than has been gone in any other case. In Hasbrouck v. Milwaukee, 13 Wis. 37, approved and defended in an able opinion in Mills v. Charleton, 29 Wis. 413, the power of the legislature to compel the city of Milwaukee to issue bonds or levy a tax for the improvement of its harbor was distinctly denied, though it was conceded that permission might be given, which the city could lawfully act upon. Compare also Knapp v. Grant, 27 Wis. 147; State v. Tappan, 29 Wis. 664; Atkins v. Randolph, 31 Vt. 226. In People v. Batchellor, 53 N. Y. 128, the Court of Appeals, through an able and lucid opinion by Grover, J., denied the validity of a mandatory statute compelling a town to take stock in a railroad corporation, and to issue its bonds in exchange therefor. The authority to permit the town to do this was not discussed, but, taking that as admitted, it is declared that municipal corporations, in the making or refusing to make arrangements of the nature of that attempted to be forced upon the town in question, were entitled to the same freedom of action precisely which individual citizens might claim. This opinion reviews the prior decisions in the same State, and finds nothing conflicting with the views expressed. In People v. Mayor, &c. of Chicago, 51 Ill. 17, s. c. 2 Am. Rep. 278, it was denied, in an opinion of great force and ability delivered by Chief Justice Breese, that the State could empower a board of park commissioners of State appointment to contract a debt for the

city of Chicago for the purposes of a public park for that city, and without the consent of its citizens. The learned judge says (p. 31): “Whilst it is conceded that municipal corpora tions, which exist only for public purposes, are subject at all times to the control of the legislature creating them, and have in their franchises no vested rights, and whose powers and privileges the creating power may alter, modify, or abolish at pleasure, as they are but parts of the machinery employed to carry on the affairs of the State, over which and their rights and effects the State may exercise a general superintendence and control,Richland County v. Lawrence County, 12 Ill. 8; Trustees of Schools v. Talman, 13 Ill. 30, - we are not of the opinion that that power, vast as it is, can be so used as to compel any one of our many cities to issue its bonds against its will, to erect a park, or for any other improvement, to force it to create a debt of millions; in effect, to compel every property owner in the city to give his bond to pay a debt thus forced upon the city. It will hardly be contended that the legislature can compel a holder of property in Chicago to execute his individual bond as security for the payment of a debt so ordered to be contracted. A city is made up of individuals owning property within its limits, the lots and blocks which compose it, and the structures which adorn them. What would be the universal judgment, should the legislature, sua sponte, project magnificent and costly structures within one of our cities, — triumphal arches, splendid columns, and perpetual fountains, and require in the act creating them that every owner of property within the city limits should give his individual obligation for his proportion of the cost, and impose