Page:Fletcher v. Oliver.pdf/4

292Rh alike, and the principle of construction of a statute and a Constitution are the same; that is, where a State has adopted a clause of the Constitution of another State, which clause had received a judicial interpretation by the courts of that State, it is presumed to have been adopted with its interpretation. 3 Scam., 288; 2 Peters, 1; 13 Ill., 15.

The road law of 1868 is not a revenue law. Harper v. Town of Elberton, 23 Ga., 570. Neither does it violate sec. 26 of Art. 5, of the Constitution. People v. Mahoney, 13 Mich., 481. An unconstitutional act does not repeal a former one. 14 Mich., 285; 26 Ala., 165; 11 Wis., 51.

MCCLURE, J.

Fletcher, on behalf of himself and all other tax-payers of the city of Little Rock, filed his bill in the Pulaski chancery court, praying for a perpetual injunction restraining Oliver, as ex-officio collector of taxes, and all his deputies, from attempting to or collecting a certain road tax assessed and  levied by the county court of Pulaski county, on the property in said county, lying within the limits of the city of Little Rock.

Fletcher alleges that said injunction ought to be granted on the following grounds:

First. That said road tax is levied without authority of law, and in violation of the 39th section of the charter of the city of Little Rock, which declares that "the inhabitants of Little Rock are hereby exempted from working upon any road beyond the limits of the city, and from paying any tax to procure laborers to work upon the same."

Second. That the act of July 16, 1868, is unconstitutional, because said law was not passed in the manner prescribed by the Constitution, in this: that said law is a revenue law, and that the Constitution requires that all revenue bills must originate in the House of Representatives, whereas the act complained of originated in the Senate.

The defendant, Oliver, answers and denies that the property of the inhabitants of the city of Little Rock is exempt from