Lovingston v. Wider

Citations

• 53 Ill. 302

Syllabus

<p>1. Taxation for corfprate purposes—by whom the power may be exercised—constitutionality of the act of 1867, “to establish a police for the city of Bast St. Louis.” That act provides for the appointment by the governor, with the consent of the senate, of three commissioners, who were to control the police department of the city, and in case of a failure of the city council to appropriate money according to their annual estimate of the amount required, the commissioners were given the unlimited power to issue certificates of indebtedness in the name of the city, which should be receivable in payment of city taxes, and by an amendatory act, these certificates are made convertible into city bonds on demand of the holder: Held, this act is in violation of the fifth section of the ninth article of the constitution of 1848, authorizing the legislature to give the corporate authorities of cities and towns the right of taxation for corporate purposes.</p> <p>3. That clause of the constitution is a limitation upon the power of the legislature to grant the right of corporate or local taxation to any other persons than the corporate or local authorities.</p> <p>3. Same—who are “ corporate authorities'” By corporate authorities, as used in this clause of the constitution, must be understood those municipal officers who are either directly elected by the people of the municipality, or appointed in some mode to which they have given'their assent.</p> <p>4. These police commissioners are not corporate authorities of the city over whose police affairs they are, by the act creating them, given the control, because by that act they are forced upon the people of the municipality, without reference to their wishes or consent.</p> <p>5. Same—power to create a debt against the city. While the act creating these commissioners does not, in terms, give them the right to impose a direct tax, yet it does give them the power to create a debt against the city; and the power to impose a tax an