tionary duties under no control of either the courts or the legislature except in cases of fraud or gross and wanton abuse of authority. In succeeding sections will be considered briefly the three-fold division.2 § 497. Legislative. A legislature or general assembly, as the term is variously used by the different state constitutions, exercises for the state, either considered as an independent sovereign or as a public corporation of the highest grade or class, its legislative functions. State constitutions following the Federal constitution designate the legislative and executive powers.' In other words, that 'the union of these two powers is tyranny;' or, as Mr. Madison observes, may justly be 'pronounced the very definition of tyranny,' or in the language of Mr. Jefferson 'is precisely the definition of despotic government.'" Warner v. People, 2 Denio (N. Y.) 272, 43 Am. Dec. 740. ""The legislature being sovereign, possesses all powers over the subject not taken from it by the constitution, and, when the legislature acts, a court must see its way clear before they will pronounce its acts void for transcending its powers.' The sovereignty of the legislature is, however, not without its limitations, else of what avail are written constitutions, on whose provisions the legislative power may trample whenever it may think fit? Of what value are the most important franchises, involving great public interests, even when protected by the solemn guaranties of the constitution, if they may be invaded and disregarded whenever the increase of population or business, as argued in this case, may seem to render it expedient? The mischievous effects of the principle contended for by the plaintiff in error have been already felt in reference to such interests, and it becomes essential to their security that our judicial tribunals should interpose their authority to guard against this wanton abuse of power." Wanser v. Hoos, 60 N. J. Law, 482; People v. Coler, 32 Misc. 78, 66 N. Y. Supp. 163. It is a valid exercise of the legislative power to determine the amount of wages to be paid by the municipality to those in its employ. Fergus v. City of Columbus, 6 Ohio N. P. 82; Nottage v. City of Portland, 35 Or. 539. A legislature may cure defective proceedings for the making of street improvements. City of Reading v. Savage, 120 Pa. 198; McCarthy v. Com. 110 Pa. 243; State v. Spears (Tenn. Ch. App.), 53 S. W. 247. Courts are not bound by the construction of a state constitution placed upon it by the legislature. 2 Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch (U. S.), 137; Weimer v. Bunbury, 30 Mich. 201. "Such summary process, it is said, which gives the party whose property is seized no opportunity to contest the claim set up against him, cannot be due process of law. There is nothing in these with particularity the powers such a body is legally capable of exercising and the manner and time of the exercise. To determine the legality of legislative action, the nature and character of the duties they should perform must be considered and the constitutional limitations controlling them.* words, however, that necessarily implies that due process of law must be judicial process. Much of the process by means of which the government is carried on and the order of society maintained is purely executive or administrative. Temporary deprivations of liberty or property must often take place through the action of ministerial or executive officers or functionaries, or even of private parties, where it has never been supposed that the common law would afford redress." Bebee v. Bank of New York, 1 Johns. (N. Y.) 529; Andrews' American Law, § 229. "It is not within the plan of government that each department should be entirely separate, distinct and independent. On the contrary, they are co-ordinate and mutually dependent members of one system intended to aid and control each other. Thus, the veto power of the chief executive, and the supervisory power of the judiciary, are examples of the system of checks and balances which pervades the whole plan, and prevents the supremacy of any department." 1 Wilson's Works, 367. "We are now led to discover that between these three great powers of government there ought to be a mutual dependency, as well as a mutual independency. We have described their independency; let us now describe their dependency. It consists in this: that the proceedings of each when they come forth into action and are ready to affect the whole, are liable to be examined and controlled by one or both of the others." It 1 Story, Const. (5th ed.) § 525. "But when we speak of a separation of the three great departments of government, and maintain that that separation is indispensable to public liberty, we are to understand this maxim in a limited sense. is not meant to affirm that they must be kept wholly and entirely separate and distinct and have no common link of connection or dependence, one upon the other, in the slightest degree. The true meaning is that the whole power of one of these departments should not be exercised by the same hands which possess the whole power of either of the other departments, and that such exercise of the whole would subvert the principles of a free constitution." 3 Allen v. McKean, 1 Sumn. 276, Fed. Cas. No. 229; Cheaney V. Hooser, 48 Ky. (9 B. Mon.) 330; Town of Berlin v. Town of Gorham, 34 N. H. 266; City of Paterson v. Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures, 24 N. J. Law (4 Zab.) 385. 4 Horn v. Lockhart 84 U. S. (17 Wall.) 570. "We admit that the acts of the several states in their individual capacities, and of their dif ferent departments of government, executive, judicial and legislative, during the war, so far as they did not impair or intent to impair the supremacy of the national author Membership. The number of members, their qualifications, and the distirets from which elected,' are questions for determination by a state constitution or general laws passed un ity, or the just rights of citizens under the Constitution, are, in general, to be treated as valid and binding. The existence of a state of insurrection and war did not loosen the bonds of society, or do away with civil government or the regular administration of the laws. Order was to be preserved, police regulations maintained, crime prosecuted, property protected, contracts enforced, marriages celebrated, estates settled, and the transfer and descent of property regulated precisely as in times of peace. No one, that we are aware of, seriously questions the validity of judicial or legislative acts in the insurrectionary States touching these and kindred subjects, where they were not hostile in their purpose or mode of enforcement to the authority of the National Government, and did not impair the rights of citizens under the Constitution." Home Ins. Co. v. United States, 8 Ct. Cl. 449; Watson v. Stone, 40 Ala. 451; Hawkins v. Filkins, 24 Ark. 286; Gormley v. Taylor, 44 Ga. 76; Snow v. Hudson, 56 Kan. 378. Kan. Laws 1861, c. 17, directing the convening of the state legislature in joint session is directory only. Lafon v. Dufrocq, 9 La. Ann. 350; Davis v. State, 7 Md. 151; Burnham v. Morrissey, 80 Mass. (14 Gray) 226. The Massachusetts house of representatives has the power to compel witnesses to attend and testify before the house or its committees. Shattuck v. Daniel, 52 Miss. 834; Hill v. Higdon, 5 Ohio St. 248; People v. Hurlbut, 24 Mich. 44, 9 Am. Rep. 103. Abb. Corp. Vol. II-20. 5 Opinion of Justices, 20 Mass. (3 Pick.) 517; Morris v. Wrightson, 56 N. J. Law, 126, 22 L. R. A. 548; State v. Perry, 18 R. I. 276, 22 L. R. A. 65. 6 Scott v. Strobach, 49 Ala. 477; People v. Markham, 96 Cal. 262; State v. Coombs, 32 Me. 526; Opinion of Justices, 68 Me. 594; Opinion of Justices, 20 Mass. (3 Pick.) 517; Opinion of Justices, 122 Mass. 594; Thomas v. Taylor, 42 Miss. 651; State v. Orr, 61 Ohio St. 384, 56 N. E. 14. "Section 1680, Revised Statutes, provides that, 'a member of the council or board of aldermen must be a resident of the corporation for which he is elected and if the corporation is divided into wards or districts, then a resident of the ward or district for which he is elected.' This seems to mean that a member of council must be a resident of his ward, not only when elected, but also that he must remain such resident; and then the statute is supplemented by the ordinance of the city, which provides that a councilman who removes without his ward shall be deemed to have resigned his office. It being conceded in this case that Mr. Crow had removed out of his ward, it must follow that he thereby ceased to be a member of the council, the same as if he had resigned." In re Grand Jury, R. M. Charlt. (Ga.) 149; 2 Am. Rep. 625. 7 Denney v. State, 144 Ind. 503, 42 N. E. 929, 31 L. R. A. 726; Opinion of Justices, 18 Me. 458; Miller v. Chosen Freeholders of Cumberland County, 58 N. J. Law, 501, 33 Atl. 948; People v. Green, 58 N. Y. der the authority of some of its provisions. It is well known that no portion of a community can be deprived of its right of representation in any fixing or readjusting of the lines of such representative districts." Statutory or constitutional provisions establishing districts and apportioning members should be phrased so as to secure districts nearly equal in number of inhabitants and composed of convenient and contiguous territory and in as compact form as practicable;10 the purpose of such requirements be 295; In re Smith, 90 Hun, 568, 36 N. Y. Supp. 40; People v. Westchester County Sup'rs, 147 N. Y. 1, 30 L. R. A. 74; State v. Orr, 61 Ohio St. 384, 56 N. E. 14. 8 People v. Markham, 96 Cal. 262; State v. Coombs, 32 Me. 526. 9 Sabin v. Curtis (Idaho), 32 Pac. 1130; Opinion of Justices, 18 Me. 458; People v. Maynard, 15 Mich. 463; Bay County v. Bullock, 51 Mich. 544, 16 N. W. 896; People v. Hull, 64 Hun, 638, 19 N. Y. Supp. 536; Lanning v. Carpenter, 20 N. Y. 447; State v. Dudley, 1 Ohio St. 437. 10 People v. Hill, 7 Cal. 97; Ballentine v. Willey, 3 Idaho, 496; People v. Thompson, 155 Ill. 451; Parker v. State, 133 Ind. 178, 18 L. R. A. 567; Denney v. State, 144 Ind. 503, 31 L. R. A. 726; Opinion of Justices, 18 Me. 458; Houghton County Sup'rs v. Blacker, 92 Mich. 638, 16 L. R. A. 432; Giddings v. Blacker, 93 Mich. 1, 16 L. R. A. 402. The court say: "It (the law) requires the exercise on the part of the legislature of an honest and fair discretion in apportioning the districts so as to preserve as nearly as may be the equality of the representation. This constitutional discretion was not exercised in the apportionment act of 1891. The facts themselves demonstrate this beyond any controversy, and no language can made the demonstration plainer. There is no difficulty in making an apportionment which shall justify the demand of the constitution. It is not the purpose or province of this court to inquire into the motives of the legislation. Courts will not discuss the moves of legislative bodies except as they appear in the public acts or journals of such bodies. The validity of an act does not depend upon the motive for its passage. The duty of the court begins with the inquiry into the constitutionality of the law, and ends with a determination of that question." People v. Aldermen of New York, 14 Misc. 105, 35 N. Y. Supp. 259; In re Smith, 90 Hun, 568, 36 N. Y. Supp. 40. "Apprehending that errors such as have been disclosed in the present case would probably arise in the apportionment of assembly districts, the constitution expressly provides that the act of apportionment 'shall be subject to review by the supreme court at the suit of any citizen, under such reasonable regulations as the legislature may prescribe, and any court before which a cause may be pending involving an apportionment shall give precedence thereto over all other causes and proceedings, and if said court be not in session, it shall convene promptly for the disposition of the same.' This provision of the constitution illustrates the high importance attached by the people of this state ing to prevent manipulation of the state by one political party for the purpose of perpetuating itself in power politically; this salutary and fundamental principle is constantly violated, however, in practice to a greater or less extent in many states of the union. § 498. Municipal councils. A municipal corporation proper, it will be remembered, is not only a public corporation in the sense that it is an agent of the state or the sovereign and performing its delegated governmental duties or functions, but also an organization of the people of a particular locality for their better comfort, convenience and wel to a fair, just and exact performance of the duties intrusted to the boards of supervisors and common councils in the performance of this function; a solicitude which is most natural when we consider that the act to be performed is one affecting the people in their representation in the state legislature. It is, therefore, the plain duty of the court, where it finds such a condition of things, as is disclosed upon the papers in this case, to set aside the apportionment and direct the board to reconvene and properly perform its duties in the manner prescribed in the constitution." State v. Cunningham, 81 Wis. 440, 15 L. R. A. 561; Id., 83 Wis. 90, 17 L. R. A. 145, 35 Am. St. Rep. 27. People v. Rice, 135 N. Y. 473, 16 L. R. A. 836. Where the court in the opinion of Mr. Justice Peckham say in part: "We start then with the proposition that to the legislature is intrusted some discretion in the matter of apportionment. Is the court to interfere with such power whenever it thinks that the legislature might possibly have come nearer to an equality *** ? We do not believe in the propriety or necessity of any such rule. On * the contrary, we think that the courts have no power in such case to review the exercise of a discretion intrusted to the legislature by the constitution, unless it is plainly and grossly abused. The expression 'as nearly as may be' when used in the constitution with reference to this subject, does not mean as nearly as a mathematical process can be followed. It is a discretion addressed to the legislature in the way of a general statement of the principles upon which the apportionment shall * be made. The legislative purpose should be to make a district of an equal number of inhabitants as nearly as may be, and how far that may be carried out in actual practice must depend generally upon the integrity of the legislature. We do not intimate that in no case could the action of the legislature be reviewed by the courts. Cases may easily be imagined where the action of that body would be so gross a violation of the constitution that it could be seen that it had been entirely lost sight of, and an intentional disregard of its commands, both in the letter and in the spirit, had been indulged in." State v. Cunningham, |