Joseph P. Bradley

“ A municipal corporation is a subordinate branch of the domestic government of a State. It is instituted for public purposes only; and has none of the peculiar qualities and characteristics of a trading corporation, instituted for purposes of private gain, except that of acting in a corporate capacity. Its objects, its responsibilities, and its powers are different. As a local governmental institution, it exists for the benefit of the people within its corporate limits. The legislature invests it with such powers as it deems adequate to the ends to be accomplished. ”

“ Such a power does not belong to a municipal corporation as an incident of its creation. To be possessed it must be conferred by legislation, either express or implied. It does not belong, as a mere matter of course, to local governments to raise loans. Such governments are not created for any such purpose. Their powers are prescribed by their charters, and those charters provide the means for exercising the powers; and the creation of specific means excludes others. Indebtedness may be incurred to a limited extent in carrying out the objects of the incorporation. ”

“ If in the exercise of their important trusts the power to borrow money and to issue bonds or other commercial securities is needed, the legislature can easily confer it under the proper limitations and restraints, and with proper provisions for future repayment. Without such authority it cannot be legally exercised. It is too dangerous a power to be exercised by all municipal bodies indiscriminately, managed as they are by persons whose individual responsibility is not at stake. ”

“ If he had authority to sell them for one price, he had authority to sell them for another; and there is no limit to which he would thus have power to involve the city in debt. Nor can the purchaser waive his claim to recover the amount of the checks, and demand a reimbursement of the money which he actually paid. Considered as a money transaction, and not as a purchase of the paper, it would amount to a loan and borrowing of money on the city account. And where can authority be found for the treasurer of the board of education to borrow money on account of the city? ”

“ The power of taxation is usually conferred for the purpose of enabling it to raise the necessary funds to carry on the city government and to make such public improvements as it is authorized to make. ”

“ There are cases, undoubtedly, in which it is proper and desirable that a limited power of this kind should be conferred, as where some extensive public work is to be performed, the expense of which is beyond the immediate resources of reasonable taxation, and capable of being fairly and justly spread over an extended period of time. ”

“ They are invested with public trusts of a governmental and administrative character; they are the local governments of the people, established by them as their representatives in the management and administration of municipal affairs affecting the peace, good order, and general well-being of the community as a political society and district; and invested with power by taxation to raise the revenues necessary for those purposes. ”

“ As this is a power which immediately affects the entire constitutency of the municipal body which exercises it, no evil consequences are likely to ensue from its being conferred; although it is not unusual to affix limits to its exercise for any single year. The power to borrow money is different. When this is exercised the citizens are immediately affected only by the benefit arising from the loan ”

“ It has the effect of converting a municipal organization into a trading company, and puts it in the power of corrupt officials to involve a political community in irretrievable bankruptcy. No such power ought to exist, and in our opinion no such power does legally exist, unless conferred by legislative enactment, either express or clearly implied. ”

“ The officers of the city have no authority to issue it for any illegal or improper purpose, and their acts cannot create an estoppel against the city itself, its taxpayers, or people. Persons receiving it from them know whether it is issued, and whether they receive it, for a proper purpose and a proper consideration. ”

“ Because I think the opinion restricts quite too much the powers of municipal corporations; and (2) , because the doctrines of the opinion, as applied to negotiable securities of a commercial character, are repugnant to the well-settled rules of law established by the repeated decisions of this court.
Mr. Justice SWAYNE and Mr. Justice STRONG also dissented. ”