Commissioners of Richmond County v. Farmers Bank

67 S.E. 969, 152 N.C. 387, 1910 N.C. LEXIS 286

• Court: Supreme Court of North Carolina
• Decided: April 20, 1910
• Status: Published

Opinion

Hoke, J.,

after stating the case: Our State Constitution, Article II, sec. 14, provides as follows: “No law shall be passed to raise money on the credit of the State or to pledge the faith of the State, directly or indirectly, for the payment of any debt, or to impose any tax upon the people of the State, or to allow the counties, cities and towns to do so, unless the bill for the purpose shall have been read three several times in each House of the General Assembly, and passed three several readings, which readings shall have been on three different days, and agreed to by each House respectively, and unless the yeas and nays on the second and third readings of the bill shall have been entered on the journal.”

Construing this section, the Court has repeatedly held that its provisions are mandatory, and that a statute of'this character which has failed to comply with its requirements is not a valid law. Cotton Mills v. Waxhaw, 130 N. C., 293, and authorities cited.

In the present case it appears that all of the requirements in question have been complied with, except that by inadvertence the clerk of the Senate failed to note that the bill passed its third reading in that body and to enter the “yeas and nays” upon such reading on the Senate journal. At the special session of the same Legislature, in 1908, the defect in question having been called to the attention of the Senate, the matter was referred to the “Committee on the Journal,” and it was ascertained and declared, on a report duly made, that the bill in question did pass its third reading, the report setting forth the Senators present by name and showing that forty-seven Senators were present and all voted for the bill, and recommending that the journal be amended so as to show the facts. The report was adopted and the journal corrected, and, as it now stands, shows that the' act passed its third reading; that forty-seven Senators Avere present and voted for same on such reading, giving the names of the Senators, and showing that all voted for the bill: “Those voting in the negative, none.” Senate Journal, Extra Session, 1908, p. 21; Commissioners v. Trust Co., 143 N. C., 110.

It' is an accepted principle that the same Legislature has power to correct its records or journals so as to make them speak the truth, and, when corrected, the journal shall stand as if it was so originally made. This' is true on general principles applicable to the amendment of records, certainly where no adversary rights of innocent third parties have intervened (26 A. and E., 503), and there are decisions more directly apposite to the same effect. Railway v. Black, 119 Ill., 207; Turley v. County of Logan, 17 Ill., 151; Village of Gilbert v. Rabe, 49 Ill. App., 418; Leighton et al. v. Ossipe School District, 66 New Hampshire, 548, and see Black on Constitutional LaAV, 266.

This provision of our Constitution was no doubt established Avith a Anew chiefly of obtaining more careful deliberation on these important measures, and by a lawful quorum of each of the legislative bodies, and, further, that responsibility for the' enactment of such measures might be properly placed.

Every purpose of these requirements has been met by the deliberation and care with which the journal in the present case has been dealt Avith and corrected, and, both on reason and authority, we are of opinion that the act in question has been properly passed and that the same is a Adalid law.

There is no error, and the judgment beloAv is

Affirmed.