Page:Fletcher v. Oliver.pdf/10

298Rh object of this clause was to prevent combinations, by which various and distinct subjects of legislation should gain support, which they could not if presented separately. Is there a power conferred, or a duty enjoined, by any of the sections of the law of 1868, which, if left out, would not have retarded and delayed the construction of roads and highways? In order to have a perfect system of roads and highways, road districts, overseers, timber, stone, gravel, labor and money would be required. Now, here are seven separate and distinct things or subjects that must be employed to accomplish the "opening and regulating roads and highways." Now, the complainant contends that, under the provisions of the Constitution, seven separate and distinct acts of the Legislature must be passed to accomplish this one purpose.

It is claimed that bridges are not a necessary part of a highway; that building bridges and making roads and highways are separate and distinct acts, and so repugnant to the Constitution that the law must be declared a nullity. We have before stated that, in our opinion, the clause under consideration, Art. V., sec. 22, was intended to prevent the Legislature from passing what are commonly known as "omnibus bills." Now the mere fact that "bridges" happened to be enumerated as among the necessary adjuncts of a highway, does not, in our opinion, render this law open to any such charge, any more than the fact that the fees of certain officers are therein prescribed. It could be claimed with equal gravity that the law is unconstitutional because it prescribes the fees of certain officers, and that that fact is not expressed in the title.

It is the bounden duty of courts not to defeat the will of the people, expressed through their representatives in the legislative halls, unless it is clearly manifest that some vested right or provision of the Constitution has been invaded. If the validity of every law is to depend upon the mere fact that the judiciary, if they had been legislating, would not have so arranged the law, we think that the Constitutional Convention reposed more confidence in the judicial department than sound discretion would warrant.