management is as essentially public property as that confided to the administration of similar official agencies in counties and towns. In cities, for reasons partly technical and in part founded upon motives of convenience, the title is vested in the corporate body. It is not thereby shielded from the control of the legislature, as the supreme law-making power of the state. Let us suppose the city to be the owner of a parcel of land not adapted to any municipal use, but valuable only for sale to private persons for building purposes or the like. No one, I think, can doubt but what it would be competent for the legislature to direct it to be sold, and the proceeds to be devoted to some municipal or other public purpose within the city, as a courthouse, a hospital, or the like; and yet, if the argument on behalf of the defendants is sound, it would be the taking of private property for public use without compensation, and the act would be void."

This question has most often arisen in those cases in which the legislature has attempted to provide for the appointment by state officials of a board to take over the administration of matters previously attended to by the city, such as fire and police. The view that the legislature has a free hand unless restrained by some constitutional provision is adopted in Redell v. Moores (11). In that case the state legislature provided for the appointment by the governor of the state of a fire and police board for the city of Omaha. The court upheld the constitutionality of the law, overruling a previous decision based upon the other view (12).

§ 21. Contrary view: Cooley's opinion in Detroit cases. In a very celebrated opinion in the case of People v. Hurlbut (13), Judge Cooley, one of the greatest authorities we have ever had upon constitutional law, argued in favor of the view that the local communities have a constitutional right to local self-government. The legislature of Michigan in that case had transferred to a board of public works appointed by the state legislature all the powers, duties, and responsibilities of the former board of water commissioners, the board of sewer commissioners, and some other minor boards, of the city of Detroit. These city boards had previously been chosen locally. In holding the legislative enactment unconstitutional, Judge Cooley used the following language:

"Our constitution assumes the existence of counties and townships and evidently contemplates that the state shall continue to be subdivided as it has hitherto been; but it nowhere expressly provides that every portion of the state shall have county or township organizations. It names officers which are to be chosen for these subdivisions and confers upon the people the right to choose them; but it does not in general define their duties, nor in terms preclude the legislature from establishing new offices, and giving to the incumbents the general management of municipal affairs. If, therefore, no restraints are imposed upon legislative discretion beyond those specifically stated, the township and county government of any portion of the state might be abolished, and the people be subjected to the rule of commissions appointed

(13) 24 Mich. 44.

at the capital. The people of such portion might thus be kept in a state of pupilage and dependence to any extent and for any period of time the state might choose.

"The doctrine that within any general grant of legislative power by the constitution, there can be found authority thus to take from the people the management of their local concerns, and the choice, directly or indirectly, of their local officers, if practically asserted, would be somewhat startling to our people, and would be likely to lead hereafter to a more careful scrutiny of the charters of government framed by them, lest sometime, by an inadvertent use of words, they might be found to have conferred upon some agency of their own the legal authority to take away their liberties altogether. If we look into the several state constitutions to see what verbal restrictions have heretofore been placed upon legislative authority in this regard, we shall find them very few and simple. We have taken great pains to surround the life, liberty, and property of the individual with guaranties; but we have not, as a general thing, guarded local government with similar protections. We must assume either an intention that the legislative control should be constant and absolute, or, on the other hand, that there are certain fundamental principles in our general framework of government, which are within the contemplation of the people when they agree upon the written charter, subject to which the delegations of authority to the several departments of government have been made. That this last is the case, appears to me too plain for serious controversy. The implied restrictions upon the power of the legislature, as regards local government, though their

limits may not be so plainly defined as express provisions might have made them, are nevertheless equally imperative in character, and whenever we find ourselves clearly within them, we have no alternative but to bow to their authority. The constitution has been framed with these restrictions in view, and we should fall into the grossest absurdities if we undertook to construe that instrument on a critical examination of the terms employed, while shutting our eyes to all other considerations."

§ 22. Comment on latter view. This is perhaps as strong a statement of the doctrine as can be found, but it loses weight when we discover that the Michigan constitution contained a special provision which rendered the law invalid, and so all that is said on the broader question is not in point, and is of value only as expressing the learned writer's opinion. The clause in question provided that "judicial officers of cities and villages shall be elected; and all other officers shall be elected or appointed at such time and in such manner as the legislature may direct." It was conceded by all that elections must be by vote of the people of the locality concerned, and it was a fair inference that appointment meant appointment by some local authority, and not by the central state government. In the Detroit Park cases (14) a legislative enactment which attempted to transfer to a state appointed board the care and management of the park system of Detroit was held unconstitutional. Again, however, the same section of the constitution really forms the basis for the decision. The view contrary to Judge

(14) 28 Mich. 228.

Cooley's finds expression in the recent cases of Van Cleve v. Passaic Valley Commissioners (15) and Newport v. Horton (16).

§ 23. Legislative control of local matters of state importance. A full discussion of this question of the right to local self-government requires us to note the distinction which exists between matters of state concern and those of purely local importance. As pointed out in our first chapter (§ 9, above), the city in our system is both an organ for the satisfaction of local needs and an agent aiding in the administration of the affairs of the central state government. Even adopting Cooley's view that there is an inherent right to local self-government, i. e., a constitutional right to have local officials locally elected or appointed, it seems clear that in so far as the state has used the municipality in administering the state's affairs, it may deprive the city of the right to continue to do so, and vest those powers in centrally appointed officers unless some express constitutional provision forbids. That this is the law Judge Cooley recognized himself in the Detroit Park cases cited and discussed above. As we shall see, there are express constitutional provisions which prevent even this to some extent in some states, but of those we shall treat later (§§ 33-37, below). Confining ourselves to the general question at the present moment, it becomes of importance to determine what are matters of purely local importance and what of state concern. We shall have occasion to work the matter out