Page:Address of Frederick V. Holman at Oregon Bar Association annual meeting.djvu/40

 as the Legislature shall see fit to provide; and they cannot prescribe for themselves the details, though they have a right to expect that those charters will be granted with a recognition of the general principles with which we are familiar. The charter, or the general law under which they exercise their powers, is their Constitution, in which they must be able to show authority for the acts they assume to perform. They have no inherent jurisdiction to make laws or adopt regulations of government; they are governments of enumerated powers, acting by a delegated authority; so that while the State Legislature may exercise such powers of government coming within a proper designation of legislative power as are not expressly or impliedly prohibited, the local authorities can exercise those only which are expressly or impliedly conferred, and subject to such regulations or restrictions as are annexed to the grant.

And in Cooley on Constitutional Limitations, at pages *194, *195, it is said:

"The powers of these corporations (municipal corporations) are either express or implied. The former are those which the legislative act under which they exist confers in express terms; the latter are such as are necessary in order to carry into effect those expressly granted, and which must, therefore, be presumed to have been within the intention of the legislative grant. Certain powers are also incidental to corporations, and will be possessed unless expressly or by implication prohibited. Of these an English writer has said: 'A municipal corporation has at common law few powers beyond those of electing, governing, and removing its members, and regulating its franchises and property. The power of its governing officers can only extend to the administration of the by-laws and other ordinances by which the body is regulated.' But without being expressly empowered so to do, they may sue and be sued; may have a common seal; may purchase and hold lands and other property for corporate purposes, and convey the same; may make by-laws whenever necessary to accomplish the design of the incorporation, and enforce the same by penalties; and may enter into contracts to effectuate the corporate purposes. Except as to these incidental powers, and which need not be, though they usually are, mentioned in the charter, the charter itself, or the general law under which they exist, is the measure of the authority to be exercised.

And the general disposition of the Courts in this country has been to confine municipalities within the limits that a strict construction of the grants of powers in their charters will assign to them; thus applying substantially the same rule that is applied to charters of private incorporations. The reasonable presumption that the State has granted in clear and unmistakable terms all it has designed to grant at all."

In proposing and adopting the amendments of 1906, the voters of the State seem to have assumed that to specify that the legal voters of a city or town could enact or amend their