Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/477

 UNITED STATES V. JUSTICES OF LAUDERDALE COUNTT. 465 �least, not with us, — but is the imposition of a public trust by agree- ment between the state and the officeholder. Why may not the state attach as a condition to the bestowal of the honors and compensation growing out of the trust, that it shall not be surrendered until the state has desigaated a successor, so that the public interests shall not suffer? It must be admitted that under our free American in- stitutions there has grown up a tendency to recognize such unre- strained personal liberty that the citizen has acquired a sort of right to refuse to serve the state in any officiai capacity, and it is often said that no man can be compelled to hold an office against his will ; but non constat that the state may not reasonably restrain this right for the public good. There can be no more reason for requiring an officer, whose term has expired, to hold till his successor is qualiaed, than for making the same requirement of one who resigns ; one is as great a burden as the other. Counsei say this is a "momentous question;" but, reduced to its exact dimensions, it is simply a defence by these respondents of the right to retire from their offices some 10 days sooner than under this construction of the constitution and iaws of the state they would be permitted to do; and in furtherance of their rights to do this they insist that the words of the provision should be restricted so as to exclude them from its operation. It is no great hardship to say to a justice of the peace that he shall con- tinue in office until his successor is elected and qualified, when that process, in due course of law, can be consummated in some 15 days. And it will be found that, as to all offices, the constitution and stat- utes make abundant provision for very speedily supplying a succes- sor to a resigning officer, and ordinarily there is no lack of patriotic citizens ready to take advantage of the rare opportunity of becoming a successor to one resigning. On the other hand, it may be said, as it has been argued here, that this abundant provision for supplying successors is the only remedy the law has afforded for the evil of having an office vacant, and that the law-makers considered that speedy process of filling vacancies an ample guaranty against the mischief. But this case illustrates the contrary. Where there is an epidemie of resignations, caused by a conspiracy to defeat the law, which will, and has in this case, destroyed the machinery of local government, and paralyzed all governmental functions so far as they pertain to those assumed by these respondents, the wisdom of the common-law rule becomes obvions. Here, although the sherifF or coroner is required, by fair implication, to give immediate notice of V.10,no.4— 30 ��� �