2150                                      Vetoes

terms, and by the use of exact language, the General Assembly
committed to boards that were called into corporate existence
expressly to conduct the school system. As we have pointed out
already there is not conferred upon the members of these boards
a single power to be exercised by them personally, save the right
to administer an oath in matters relating to the schools. A com-
missioner can do nothing but that which a majority of the board
orders, and no matter what his individual views or judgment
may dictate he is powerless to put those views or that judgment
in force if he happens to be in the minority. Alone he can do
nothing—he has no power whatever. The scheme of this legisla-
tion was designed to make the management of the schools im-
personal; and in no better way could that end have been reached
than by creating a body corporate which, and which only was
clothed, not only with the title to the school funds and property,
but was invested with all the authority needed to make the system
harmonious and effective. It could not have been contemplated
that the members of the boards were to be independent civil offi-
cers or the Legislature would scarcely have disregarded sec. 13
of Art. 2 of the Constitution, and made the tenure six years and
fixed the beginning of the term in August.

"But, when, superadded to all this, it is remembered that the
county school boards are, themselves, subject, in many respects,
to the control of the State Board of Education, which, under sec.
11, Art. 77 of the Code, as amended by the Act of 1898, ch. 221,
has power to enact by-laws for the administration of the public
school system and to suspend or remove an examiner elected by
the county boards, and which, also, under sec. 12 has the general
care and supervision of the public school interests of the State;
it becomes apparent that the agents or individuals selected to be
members of these subordinate local school boards were never
intended to be, and do not in fact become civil officers, as that
term must have been understood by those who adopted the or-
ganic law."

This reasoning was followed in Clark v. Harford Agri. & Breed.
Assoc, 118 Md. 608 (1912), in reaching the conclusion that members
of the Racing Commission of Harford County were not persons
elected or appointed to an "office of profit or trust" within the mean-
ing of Article I, Section 6 of the State Constitution. However, How-
ard County Comm. v. Westphal, 232 Md. 334 (1963), held that mem-
bership on the Howard County Metropolitan Commission was an
"office of profit or trust" within the meaning of Article 35 of the Dec-
laration of Rights. The argument was made in Westphal that, based
on the holding of Goldsborough, the members of the Commission are
not public officers because they corporately exercise the sovereign
powers of government entrusted to them as a body corporate rather
than in their individual capacities as members of the Commission. In
rejecting the argument, the Court of Appeals stated as follows (232
Md. at 340-341) :

"The essential question in Goldsborough was whether or not a
member of a board of county school commissioners was a civil
officer subject to removal by the Governor under § 15 of Article
II of the Constitution. The holding was that a school commis-
sioner was not such an officer. Insofar as the reasoning in that
case rested on the premise that a member of a school board is