Wiggins Ferry Co. v. City of East St. Louis

Citations

• 102 Ill. 560
• 1882 Ill. LEXIS 65

Syllabus

<p>1. License—power of the legislature—license fee as distinguished from a tax—application of the rule of uniformity. The constitution of 1870 has in nowise limited the power of the legislature to impose, or to authorize the imposition of, the duty upon natural persons or corporations to procure a license to pursue any calling. In this respect the power of the legislature is the same as it has ever been since the organization of the State government, to require persons engaged in various avocations to procure a license for the purpose, and thus to regulate the exercise of the vocation.</p> <p>2. A license fee, when applied to any proper subject, is not a “tax,” in the sense of that clause of the constitution prescribing the rule of uniformity in levying taxes.</p> <p>3. Perry license—the rule applied thereto. So, it is competent for the legislature to authorize a municipal corporation to demand a license fee from the keeper of a ferry, for the privilege of carrying on the business of ferrying within its jurisdiction.</p> <p>4. Same—as applied to the Wiggins Ferry Company in the exercise of its franchise upon the Mississippi river. The city of East St. Louis, under a general authorization in its charter “to license, tax and regulate ferries,” imposed a license fee, by ordinance, upon the keepers of ferries, for each boat ferrying between that city and the opposite bank of the Mississippi river. The Wiggins Perry Company, which was organized for the purpose of running a ferry between the city of East St. Louis and the opposite bank of the Mississippi river, resisted the collection of this license fee. The original grant of the ferry privilege was to Samuel Wiggins, in 1819, it being provided in the grant that the ferry thereby established should be subject to the same taxes as should be imposed on other ferries in the State, and “under the same regulations and forfeitures.” In 1853 the present corporation-—the Wiggins Perry Company—was organized under an act of the Ge