The Bay State Monthly — Volume 2, No. 4, January, 1885Various
History
The Bay State Monthly — Volume 2, No. 4, January, 1885
Various
Massachusetts -- Periodicals; New England -- Periodicals
The question, how far this qualifying clause limits the proceeding
prohibition, arose first in the Court of Common Pleas, and afterwards in
the Court of Appeals, in the case of the Shepherd's Fold of the
Protestant Episcopal Church _vs_. The Mayor, Aldermen and Commonalty of
the City of New York.[A] The Attorney-General of the State had given an
official opinion, tending to the conclusion that the prohibition is
almost entirely neutralized by the modification. The Judges of the Court
of Common Pleas, and the lawyers who argued this case in either court,
differed widely upon the question, whether money raised by local
taxation by the City of New York, under the authority of the State law,
for the maintainance of the children of the Shepherd's Fold, was, or was
not, "money of the State," and therefore included in the terms of this
prohibition; and when one sees how much is done in the discussions of
the able counsel before the Court of final resort, and by the learned
opinion of Judge Rapello, to reconcile these differences, one can not
but wish that the Old Bay State had a similar Court of Appeals, to
revise and clarify the decisions of her Supreme Court. About twenty-five
per cent, of all the decisions of the General Terms of the Supreme
Court, Superior Court, and Court of Common Pleas, which are carried to
the Court of Appeals, are there reversed; and can any lawyer doubt that,
at least, as large a proportion of the decisions of our Supreme Judicial
Court ought also to be revised and reversed?
[Footnote A: See 10 Daly's Reports, 319; and 96 New York Reports. 137.]
The Court of Appeals says: "It seems to us that that section [to wit,
the prohibition above quoted] had reference to money raised by general
taxation throughout the State, or revenues of the State, or money
otherwise belonging to the State treasury, or payable out of it."
The money claimed by the Shepherd's Fold being raised by local taxation
for a local purpose in the city of New York, and not "by general
taxation throughout the State," the Court of Appeals holds that it is
not within the terms of the Constitutional prohibition, and therefore
reverses the decision of the Court of Common Pleas on that particular
point, while agreeing with it on the main question.
As the money, appropriated to the Roman Catholic Protectory, was
unquestionably money of the State, "being raised by general taxation
throughout the State," that appropriation was unquestionably in conflict
with the prohibition of the Constitution, which the Governor was sworn
to support.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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