within the territorial limits of the State. The 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

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, but

* 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 property within the State. And see Bromley v. People, 7 Mich. 472; State v. Main, 16 Wis. 398.

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

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.

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 Assembly shall pass no special law for any case for which provision can be made by a general law, but shall pass general laws providing, so far as it may deem necessary, for the cases enumerated in this section, and for all other cases where a general law can be made applicable." Constitution of Missouri, art. 4, § 27: See Thomas v. Board of Commissioners, 5 Ind. 4, for a decision under a similar clause. We should suppose that so stringent a provision would, in some of these cases, lead to the passage of general laws of doubtful utility in order to remedy the hardships of particular cases. As to when a general law can be made applicable, see Thomas v. Board of Commissioners, 5 Ind. 4; Johnson v. Railroad Co. 23 Ill. 202. In State v. Hitchcock, 1 Kansas, 178, it was held that the constitutional provision, that "in all cases where a general law can be made applicable, no special law shall be enacted," left a discretion with the legislature to determine the cases in which special laws should be passed.

9

CHAPTER VI.

OF THE ENACTMENT OF LAWS.

WHEN the supreme power of a country is wielded by a single man, or by a single body of men, few questions can arise in the courts concerning the manner of its exercise, and any discussion of rules by which it is to be governed, in the enactment of laws, can be of very little practical value. For whenever the sovereign power expresses its will that a certain rule shall be established, that expression must be conclusive, whether such forms have been observed in making the declaration as are customary and proper or not. We may query whether the will has been declared; we may question and cross-question the words employed, to ascertain the real sense that they express; we may doubt and hesitate as to the intent; but when discovered, it must govern, and it is idle to talk of forms that should have surrounded the expression, but do not. But when the legislative power of a State is to be exercised by a department composed of two branches, or as, in most of the American States, of three branches, and these branches have their several duties marked out and prescribed by the law to which they owe their origin, and which provides for the exercise of their powers in certain modes and under certain forms, there are other questions to arise than those of the mere intent of the law-makers, and sometimes forms become of the last importance. For not only is it essential that the will of the law-makers be expressed, but it is also essential that it be expressed in due form of law; since nothing is law simply and solely because the legislators will that it shall be, unless they have expressed their determination to that effect, in the mode pointed out by the instrument which invests them with the power, and under all the forms which that instrument has rendered essential. And if, when the constitution was adopted, there were known and settled rules and usages, forming a part of the law of the country, in reference to which the constitution has evidently been framed, and these rules and usages required the observance of particular forms, the constitution itself must also be understood as requiring them, because, in assuming the existence of such laws and usages, and being

framed with reference to them, it has in effect adopted them as a part of itself, as much as if they were expressly incorporated in its provisions. Where, for an instance, the legislative power is to be exercised by two houses, and by settled and well-understood parliamentary law, these two houses are to hold separate sessions for their deliberations, and the determination of the one upon a proposed law is to be submitted to the separate determination of the other, the constitution, in providing for two houses, has evidently spoken in reference to this settled custom, incorporating it as a rule of constitutional interpretation; so that it would require no prohibitory clause to forbid the two houses from combining in one, and jointly enacting laws by the vote of a majority of all. All those rules which are of the essentials of law-making must be observed and followed; and it is only the customary rules of order and routine, such as in every deliberative body are always understood to be under its control, and subject to constant change at its will, that the constitution can be understood to have left as matters of discretion, to be established, modified, or abolished by the bodies for whose government in nonessential matters they exist.

Of the two Houses of the Legislature.1

In the enactment of laws the two houses of the legislature are of equal importance, dignity, and power, and the steps which result in laws may originate indifferently in either. This is the general rule; but as one body is more numerous than the other and more directly represents the people, and in many of the States, is renewed more often by elections, the power to originate all money bills, or bills for the raising of revenue, is left exclusively, by the constitutions of some of the States, with this body, in accordance with the custom in England which does not permit bills of this character to originate with the House of Lords.2 To these

1 The wisdom of a division of the legislative department has been demonstrated by the leading writers on constitutional law, as well as by general experience. See De Lolme, Const. of England, b. 2, ch. 3; Federalist, No. 22; 1 Kent, 208; Story on Const. §§ 545-570. The early experiments in Pennsylvania and Georgia, based on Franklin's views, for which see his Works, vol. 5, p. 165, are the only ones made by any of the American States with a single house.

There are provisions in the constitutions of Alabama, Massachusetts, Delaware, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Vermont, Indiana, Oregon, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Maine, requiring

bills, however, the other house may propose alterations, and they require the assent of that house to their passage, the same as other bills. The time for the meeting of the legislature will be such time as is fixed by the constitution or by statute; but it may be called together by the executive in special session as the constitution may prescribe, and the two houses may also adjourn any general session to a time fixed by them for the holding of a special session, if an agreement to that effect can be arrived at; and if not, power is conferred by a majority of the constitutions upon the executive to prorogue and adjourn them. And if the executive in any case undertake to exercise this power to prorogue and adjourn, on the assumption that a disagreement exists between. the two houses which warrants his interference, and his action is acquiesced in by those bodies, who thereupon cease to hold their regular sessions, the legislature must be held in law to have adjourned, and no inquiry can be entered upon as to the rightfulness of the governor's assumption that such a disagreement existed.1

revenue bills to originate in the more popular branch of the legislature, but allowing the Senate the power of amendment usual in other cases. In England the Lords are not allowed to amend money bills, and by resolutions of 5th and 6th July, 1860, the Commons deny their right even to reject them.

1 This question became important and was passed upon in People v. Hatch, 33 Ill. 9. The Senate had passed a resolution for an adjournment of the session sine die on a day named, which was amended by the house by fixing a different day. The Senate refused to concur, and the House then passed a resolution expressing a desire to recede from its action in amending the resolution, and requesting a return of the resolution by the Senate. While matters stood thus, the governor, assuming that such a disagreement existed as empowered him to interfere, sent in his proclamation, declaring the legislature adjourned to a day named, and which was at the very end of the official term of the members. The message created excitement; it does not seem to have been at once acquiesced in, and a protest against the governor's authority was entered upon the journal; but for eleven days in one house and twelve in the other no entries were made upon their journals, and it was unquestionable that practically they had acquiesced in the action of the governor, and adjourned. At the expiration of the twelve days, a portion of the members came together again, and it was claimed by them that the message of the governor was without authority, and the two houses must be considered as having been, in point of law, in session during the intervening period, and that consequently any bills which had before been passed by them and sent to the governor for his approval, and which he had not returned within ten days, Sundays excepted, had become laws under the constitution. The Supreme Court held that, as the two houses had practically asquiesced in the action of the governor, the session had come to an end, and that the mem