Page:Address of Frederick V. Holman at Oregon Bar Association annual meeting.djvu/39

 Salem could repeal the law of the Legislature, as indicated in Straw v. Harris, has not yet been decided.

If a municipality can give itself the right to condemn property outside its limits we may well consider what would be the effect if one municipality tried to appropriate the property of another, for, while it is the law that, without previous authority so to do, one corporation, public or private, cannot appropriate property already devoted to another public use, a municipality might give itself this power, under these initiative amendments of 1906.

Section 2 of Article XI, as amended, of the Oregon Constitution provides that the legal voters may "enact and amend their charter."

What is a charter? In Oregon, prior to these amendments, there were as many charters as there were cities and towns, and no two charters alike. Some of them gave the right to exercise, in a limited way, the power of Eminent Domain, and to grant franchises, some did not. In the use in statutes, wills, conveyances, etc., of technical words they are supposed to be used according to their legal meaning.

At the time these initiative amendments of 1906 were adopted, some of the legal definitions of a municipal charter were as follows:

"An Act of Parliament, of Congress or of a State Legislature, creating a corporation, is called the charter of the corporation.

'Abbott's Law Dictionary. A municipal charter can emanate only from sovereign power, which alone can delegate faculties and functions of government. In England it may be granted by the King or by Parliament; in the United States it is solely an act of sovereign legislative power.

28 Cyclopedia of Law and Procedure, 120."

In ''Cooley on. Constitutional Limitations,'' page *191, it is said:

The people of the municipalities, however, do not define for themselves their own rights, privileges, and powers. * * * The municipalities must look to the State for such charters of government