which may be established in pursuance of section one of this Article, and shall fix by law the powers, duties, and responsibilities of the Judges thereof. Court. sioners. SEC. 11. The Legislature shall provide for the election Clerks of of a Clerk of the Supreme Court, County Clerks, District Attorneys, Sheriffs, and other necessary officers, and shall fix by law their duties and compensation. County Clerks shall be ex officio Clerks of the Courts of record in and for their respective counties. The Legislature may also Commisprovide for the appointment by the several District Courts of one or more Commissioners in the several counties of their respective districts, with authority to perform Chamber business of the Judges of the District Courts and County Courts, and also to take depositions, and to perform such other business connected with the administration of justice as may be prescribed by law. the Courts. SEC. 12. The times and places of holding the terms Terms of of the several Courts of record shall be provided for by law. SEC. 13. No judicial officer, except Justices of the Peace, Recorders, and Commissioners shall receive to his own use any fees or perquisites of office. SEC. 14. The Legislature shall provide for the speedy publication of such opinions of the Supreme Court as it may deem expedient; and all opinions shall be free for publication by any person. Fees of officers. Judicial Decisions of Supreme Court. Judicial SEC. 15. The Justices of the Supreme Court, District Salaries of Judges, and County Judges, shall severally, at stated officers. times during their continuance in office, receive for their services a compensation, which shall not be increased or diminished, during the term for which they shall have been elected; provided, that County Judges shall be paid out of the County Treasury of their respective counties. NOTE.-Judicial salaries cannot be increased or reduced during the term of the incumbent.-Johnson vs. Duden, 18 Cal., p. 696. The provisions of this sec Ineligibility of tion do not exempt the officers named from the neces sity of an appropriation by the Legislature.-Myers vs. English, 9 Cal., p. 341. SEC. 16. The Justices of the Supreme Court, and Judges for the District Judges, and the County Judges, shall be ineli other offices. Charge of Judges to juries. Style of Amend- affect official incum bency. gible to any other office than a judicial office during the term for which they shall have been elected. SEC. 17. Judges shall not charge juries with respect to matters of fact, but may state the testimony and declare the law. NOTE. The Judge cannot express an opinion upon the weight of evidence, but may state the evidence and declare the law.-People vs. King, 27 Cal., p. 509; Miller vs. Stewart, 24 Cal., p. 505; Pico vs. Stevens, 18 Cal., p. 376; People vs. Ybarra, 17 Cal., p. 166; People vs. Dick, 34 Cal., p. 663; id., 22 Cal., p. 213; id., 34 Cal., p. 663. The policy of the prohibition against charging juries in matters of fact is discussed and questioned in People vs. Taylor, 36 Cal., p. 255. SEC. 18. The style of, all process shall be: "The People of the State of California," and all prosecutions shall be conducted in their name and by their authority. SEC. 19. In order that no inconvenience may result to the public service from the taking effect of the amend ments proposed to said Article VI, by the Legislature of eighteen hundred and sixty-one, no officer shall be superseded thereby, nor shall the organization of the several Courts be changed thereby, until the election and qualification of the several officers provided for in said amend ments. ARTICLE VII. MILITIA. Organiza tion and SECTION 1. Organization and disciplining of the militia. 2. Officers, how elected or appointed. 3. Governor to call out the militia. SECTION 1. The Legislature shall provide by law for discipline. organizing and disciplining the militia, in such manner as they shall deem expedient, not incompatible with the Constitution and laws of the United States. SEC. 2. Officers of the militia shall be elected or ap- Officers. pointed in such manner as the Legislature shall from time to time direct, and shall be commissioned by the Gov ernor. call out the militia. SEC. 3. The Governor shall have power to call forth Governor to the militia to execute the laws of the State, to suppress insurrections, and repel invasions. ARTICLE VIII. STATE DEBTS. SECTION 1. Restriction on the legislative power to contract debts. on the power to debts. SECTION 1. The Legislature shall not in any manner Restriction create any debt or debts, liability or liabilities, which legislative shall, singly or in the aggregate, with any previous debts contract or liabilities, exceed the sum of three hundred thousand dollars, except in case of war, to repel invasion, or suppress insurrection, unless the same shall be authorized by some law for some single object or work, to be distinctly specified therein, which law shall provide ways and means, exclusive of loans, for the payment of the interest of such debt or liability as it falls due, and also to pay and discharge the principal of such debt or liabil ity within twenty years from the time of the contracting thereof, and shall be irrepealable until the principal and interest thereon shall be paid and discharged; but no such law shall take effect until, at a general election, it shall have been submitted to the people and have received a majority of all the votes cast for and against it at such election; and all money raised by authority of such law shall be applied only to the specific object therein stated, or to the payment of the debt thereby created; and such law shall be published in at least one newspaper in each Judicial District, if one be published therein, throughout the State, for three months next preceding the election at which it is submitted to the people. 1 California, and to provide for the payment of the same, and other matters relating thereto" (Stats. 1863, p. 145), which, as he claims, requires him to apportion the money in question to the Railroad Fund for which that Act provides. That Act authorizes the county to subscribe and take two hundred and fifty thousand dollars of the stock of the railroad company, to be paid for in the bonds of the county. It then makes provisions for the issuing and redemption of the bonds, and to that end creates what is denominated a "Railroad Fund," to which all the dividends, issues, and profits arising from such subscription, "together with the taxes that may be paid by said company to said county from time to time," are apportioned, until such time as the bonds shall be redeemed, after which one half of the dividends, issues, and profits is to be apportioned to the School Fund and the other to the General Fund.Sec. 18. Assuming that "the taxes" here spoken of include all taxes to be paid by the railroad company, irrespective of the purpose for which they may have been levied, it is argued that the statute, so far as it operates upon the school tax, is repugnant to the Constitution. The point is founded chiefly upon Section 2 of Article IX of the Constitution, which provides that "the Legislature shall encourage, by all suitable means, the promotion of intellectual, scientific, moral, and agricultural improvement. The proceeds of all lands that may be granted by the United States to this State for the support of schools, which may be sold or disposed of, and the five hundred thousand acres of land granted to the new States, under an Act of Congress distributing the proceeds of the public lands among the several States of the Union, approved A. D. 1841, and all estates of deceased persons who may have died without leaving a will or heir, and also such per cent as may be granted by Congress on the sale of lands in this State, shall be and remain a perpetual Fund, the interest of which, together with all the rents of the unsold lands, and such other means as the Legislature may provide, shall be inviolably appropriated to the support of common schools throughout the State." The clause of this section upon which the petitioner especially relies is the following: "And such other means as the Legislature may provide, shall be inviolably appropriated to the support of common schools throughout the State." The second section of the Ninth Article of our Constitution is copied from the second section of the Tenth Article of the original Constitution of Iowa, which is the third section of the Ninth Article of the amended Constitution of that State. The meaning of the clause in question arose in the case of The District Township of the City of Dubuque vs. The County Judge of Dubuque County, 13 Iowa, p. 250, and it was held that the expression "and such other means as the General Assembly may provide," ex vi termini, included any other funds than those previously named which the Legislature might provide, and therefore included funds to be raised by taxation. And it was accordingly held that the money in question must be distributed according to another provision of the amended Constitution of that State, which required that the money subject to the support and maintenance of common schools should be distributed to the school districts in proportion to the number of youths between the ages of five and twenty-one years; and further, that a provision of the School Law, which authorized the distribution upon a different principle, was unconstitutional. This case determines that whenever the Legislature raises a fund, by taxation or otherwise, for the support of common schools, it cannot, by contemporaneous or subsequent legislation, divert the fund to a different purpose; and we think no other rational view can be taken of the language of the Constitution. It is suggested, however, on the part of the respondent, that the "means" intended were not such as might be raised by annual taxation, but such as might be made continuing and permanent, like the funds already specified. We are unable to perceive any warrant for such a construction, nor can we adopt it without adding words which the Constitution does not contain. The language is very broad"such other means as the Legislature may provide "and we are not authorized to limit its scope. Under the School Law, the Legislature provided that the Boards of Supervisors should have power to levy a tax, not to exceed a specified sum, for the support of common schools in their respective counties, and, by force of the constitutional provision in question, the money, when collected, becomes "inviolably appropriated" to school purposes. We can draw no other conclusion from the language which has been employed in the Constitution. If, however, it be insisted that 53-VOL. II.-POL. |