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Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1872
Volume 190, Page 1946   View pdf image (33K)
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340 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [Mar. 5,
a Court House in said county, and appointing Commissioners
to contract and erect the same, from which I feel constrained.
to withhold my approval.
The general provisions of the bill are, in my judgment, at
war with the fundamental principle of local self-government.
The Constitution in Article VII., section 1, proving for the
election of County Commissioners for each county, whose
power and duties shall be "such as are now or may be here-
after prescribed by law." The 1st section of Article XXVIII.
of the amended Code of Public General Laws, declares, that
the County Commissioners shall have "charge of and control
over the property owned by the county."
The Constitution and the laws now in force place the
"grounds owned by Washington county," on which the
Court House, recently destroyed by fire, was erected, in the
possession and charge of the County Commissioners, elected
by the people, while this bill directs that the new Court
House shall be erected by persons, not chosen by the people
of that county, but appointed by representatives from other
localities, who have no local interest in Washington county
and are to contribute no part of the money to be expended in
the erection of the building. It is time that the difficulty
arising from the attempt to oust the constitutional custodians
of the county property, is supposed by the framers of this
bill to be met by a quasi repeal of that part of the 8th section
of Article XXVIII. of the Code, above referred to (so far as
it applies to Washington county,) by the 13th section of this
till, which repeals that part of the 8th section "until the
Court House to be erected under the provisions of this Act is
completed;" but this is an anomaly in legislation.
Who is to determine when the Court House is "completed"
and when the County Commissioners are to resume control
of the county property ?
There may be one or two precedents for this sort of legisla-
tion, but in my judgment, it is a practice which would "be
honored more in the breach, than the observance."
The provision also, that directs, that the bonds to be issued
shall bear interest at the rate of seven per cent. seems to be
in conflict with section 57, of Article III. of the Constitu-
tion.
That section provides, that the "legal rate of interest shall
lie six per cent. per annum," of course this means the rate of
interest over the whole State, and the subsequent clause,
'unless otherwise provided by the General Assembly" evi-
dently has reference to the same rate of interest for the whole
. State and was not intended to allow the legal rate in one

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Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1872
Volume 190, Page 1946   View pdf image (33K)
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