Synod of Dakota v. State

Citations

• 2 S.D. 366
• 14 L.R.A. 418
• 50 N.W. 632
• 1891 S.D. LEXIS 43

Syllabus

<p>1. Section 3, Art. 6, of the constitution of this state, provides that “no money or property of the state shall be given or appropriated for the benefit of any sectarian or religious society or institution;” and Section 16, Art. 8, provides: “No appropriation of lands, money or credits to aid any sectarian school shall ever be made by the state or any county or municipality within the state, * * * and no sectarian instruction shall be allowed in any school or institution aided or supported by the state.” Held, that these provisions of the constitution were intended to bo and are self-executing, and require no act of the legislature to become operative, but of themselves control all legislation upon the subject of appropriating’ money or other property “for the benefit of” or “to aid” any sectarian school, society, or institution, and control and limit the powers of all state, county, and municipal officers in auditing or paying any such appropriation.</p> <p>2. Held, further, that the prohibition in the constitution of the appropriation of any money or other property “to aid” any sectarian school applies to all appropriations to such schools, whether made as a donation or in payment for services rendered the state by such school.</p> <p>3. The purpose for which the plaintiff corporation was organized and exists was and generally is to maintain and promulgate the doctrine and belief of the Christian religion of the sect known as “Presbyterians, ” and that it has offered and given secular and sectarian instruction to divers • and numerous students in the Pierre University, under its control. Held, that such univei’sity, under the control of plaintiff, and in which a class of students was instructed in the methods of teaching for the state, and for the tuition of which the money sued for in this action is claimed, is a sectarian school, within the meaning of the term “sectarian school” as used in the state constitution.</p> <p>4. By a law of 1887, prior to the adopt