The State ex rel. v. Co. Com'rs Sumter Co.-Opinion of Court. vide suitable offices for all county officers as are required to keep their offices at the county site. The other facts are sufficiently stated in the opinion. Cockrell & Walker and Hocker & Mabry for Respondents. THE CHIEF-JUSTICE delivered the opinion of the court. There are but two questions legitimately arising upon the pleadings and the facts therein stated. The first is whether the act of the Legislature, approved August 3, 1868, Chap. 1668, locating the county site of Sumter county at Leesburg, is constitutional; and the other is whether the elections alleged in the return of the respondents to have been held since the passage of that act, under the general law providing for the location of county sites, were held and conducted in accordance with law so as to effect. change of the location of the county site of Sumter county. We consider first the question of the constitutionality of the act of 1868. Section 17, Article IV, of the Constitution of 1868, provides that "the Legislature shall not pass special or local laws in any of the following enumerated cases, that is to say,✶✶✶ regulating county, township and municipal business," &c. * * * Section 18 reads: "In all cases enumerated in the preceding section, and in all other cases where a general law can be made applicable, all laws shall be general and of uniform operation throughout the State." The Constitution of Indiana, from which these sections were substantially copied, was adopted in 1851. The Constitution of Nevada, adopted in 1864, contains the same provisions. Similar provisions are found in the The State ex rel. v. Co. Com'rs Sumter Co.-Opinion of Court. Constitutions of Missouri, Iowa, Kansas and some others of the Western States. We proceed to examine some of the cases in several States where the precise question has been repeatedly considered and adjudicated. Decisions of the courts of States from which constitutional provisions and states are coped, are entitled to great weight as authorities in construing them. In the case of Thomas vs. The Board of Commissioners of Clay County. 5 Ind., 4, it was held that an act of the Legislature of that State "to authorize the re-location of the seat of justice of the county of Clay was in conflict with Sections 22 and 23 of Article 4 of the Constitution of Indiana." (These sections correspond with Sections 17 and 18 of Article 4 of the Constitution of Florida.) After brief argument the court puts the whole matter in the form of question and answer as follows: "Can a general law be applied to the case under discussion? We must answer in the affirmative, and therefore decide the act in question to be unconstitutional and void." The court say: "Assuming that the removal of county seats is not within the restrictive provisions of the 22d section, then the inquiry results, Can such a case be made the subject of a general law? *** Let any one at all acquainted with the forms of legislation attempt to draw up a general law on the subject, and he will soon find that the thing can certainly be done. It is, however, insisted that the Legislature have decided a general law to be inapplicable to the case under consideration; that from this decision there is no appeal, and that, therefore, it is not competent for this court to decide upon the validity of the law in question. If that position be correct, the 23d section has no vitality; nor is there any reason why it should have a place in the Constitution. It would impose no restriction upon the action of the Leg The State ex rel. v. Co. Com'rs Sumter Co.-Opinion of Court Islature, nor confer any power which that body would not possess in the absence of such a provision." The Supreme Court of Iowa, in cases presenting the same or similar questions, has followed or approved the decision of the Indiana case referred to. Town of McGregor vs. Baylies, 19 Iowa, 43. But subsequently the Supreme Court of Indiana had the question before it in the case of Gentile vs. The State, 29 Ind., 409, and referring to the Clay county seat case, (5 Ind.) it says that the correctness of the ruling in that case may be seriously doubted. "The reasoning upon which it is based is regarded as unsound, and does not, therefore, support the conclusion reached. The object of the provision was not to confer any power on the Legislature, but to restrain that body in the exercise of an inherent power of sovereignty, which, in the absence of such a restriction, it would possess. But the restriction is not specific as to the particular cases to which it applies, and hence it requires the exercise of legislative judgment in determining the question of its application in each case as it may arise. * It is, therefore, an error to say that the restriction is of no validity unless the correctness of the legislative judgment is subject to revision by the courts.. But that provision does not involve any question of the power of the Legislature to enact a law on any particular subject. It involves the question of fact whether the subject of the act is such that a general law could be made applicable. It is a question which, as said before, the Legislature must of necessity determine; and it may be pertinently asked what possible benefit could arise from the power of the courts to call in question the correctness of such legislative decisions? We are far from claiming that the Legislature is omnipotent, but on the other hand we are not sure that the superior wisdom of the courts would, The State ex rel. v. Co. Com'rs Sumter Co.-Opinion of Court in such cases, enable them to judge more accurately than the Legislature. The question is one which from its very nature peculiarly addresses itself to the legislative judgment, and if a local law be enacted the reasons upon which the Legislature adjudged that a general law could not be made applicable however satisfactory they may appear to the members of that body, may not appear on the face of the law, and the courts are left in ignorance of them, and if permitted to review the legislative decision must act upon such reasons and facts as may suggest themselves to the mind; and thus the Legislature and courts would be liable to be brought into frequent conflict, to no beneficial purpose. The decision in the case referred to (5 Ind.) is in conflict with other adjudications on a kindred subject which seems to involve the same principle." The court refers to Carpenter vs. Montgomery, 7 Blackf., 415. where it was held by the same court that the Legislature must necessarily be the judge of the existence of the emergency where the Constitution declaring that no act of the Legislature should be in force until published in print, "except in cases cf emergency," and though an act was passed declaring in terms that it should be in force from its passage, without expressly declaring the emergency. The courts could not determine that the emergency did not exist against the implied opinion of the Legislature that it did exist. Both involve the same principle in requiring the exercise of legislative judgment. The Supreme Court of Illinois would not look into the constitutionality of certain acts of a local character because of the long continued practice of the Legislature, and the wide ruin it would produce to declare them void. Johnson vs. Joliet & Chi. R. R. Co., 23 Ill., 207. In Missouri the Supreme Court decided that an act creating a Probate Court for Boone county was not obnoxious The State ex rel. v. Co. Com'rs Sumter Co.-Opinion of Court. * to the Constitution containing a section corresponding to Section 18, Article IV., of the Constitution of Florida, The State of Missouri vs. County Court of Boone County, 50 Mo., 317. That court uses this language: "Either class of enactments might be supplied by general laws, but the special laws are deemed much better, and therefore are considered necessary. Who is to decide when such necessity arises? * But a special law is scarcely absolutely necessary in any case, as in almost every case the particular end in view might be attained by a general law. The Supreme Court of Indiana, in Thomas vs. B'd Com., 5 Ind.,. 4, stood upon the superlative degree and required the strictest construction of a similar clause in the Constitution of that State, and said that in no case could a special law be resorted to where a general law would cover the case. I cannot see the force of the reasoning of the Indiana court in that case, and indeed the authority of the case is very much shaken, if not entirely set aside, in a subsequent case where an act creating a new Judicial Circuit was upheld.. 7 Ind., 328. * * In speaking of the law creating the Judicial Circuit the court said: This does not seem to us to be such a case, and even if we doubted we should be bound to throw the benefit of our doubt in favor of the constitutionality of the law. If the court had been governed by the reasoning in the fifth volume this law would have been set aside as unconstitutional, because there is not doubt the new Circuit could have been provided for by framing a general law. But who is to decide when a general. or a special law will answer the best purpose? It strikes me that this rule, in reference to general or special laws, is laid down as a guide for the Legislature, and the Legislature is to judge of the necessity of the particular case. The Legislature is quite as able to do this as the courts. The Legislature must, in the first instance, exercise their * |