Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar

“ Mississippi, 101 U.S. 814, 820, considering the power of a legislature to grant an irrepealable charter, for a consideration, to a lottery company, the court said: 'The power of governing is a trust committed by the people to the government, no part of which can be granted away. The people, in their sovereign capacity, have established their agencies for the preservation of the public health and the public morals, and the protection of public and private rights. ”

“ That was a controversy over the projected removal of a county-seat; and the statute relied on by the objectors provided that, before the seat of justice should be considered as permanently established at the town of Canfield, the citizens thereof should do certain things, all of which were admitted to have been duly done. The objectors therefore claimed a contract right that the county-seat should remain at Canfield. This court said: 'The legislative power of a state, except so far as restrained by its own constitution, is at all times absolute with respect to all offices within its reach. ”

“ Such a power is indispensable for the preservation of the body politic, and for the safety of the individuals of the community. It is true that this power, or the extent of its exercise, may be controlled by the higher organic law or constitution of the state, as is the case in some instances in the state constitutions, and as is exemplified in the provision of the federal constitution relied on in this case by the plaintiffs in error, and in some other clauses of the same instrument ”

“ The selection of officers, who are nothing more than agents for the effectuating of such public purposes, is matter of public convenience or necessity, and so, too, are the periods for the appointment of such agents ”

“ This must necessarily be so, in the nature of things. It is vital to the public welfare that each one should be able at all times to do whatever the varying circumstances and present exigencies touching the subject involved may require. ”

“ This, we think, it had the power to do. We think, too, that the appellant came within the terms of the act of 1882. There is a very plain distinction between this case and that of a cadet engineer, fully explained in U.S. v. Redgrave, 116 U.S. 474, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 444. The statute in express terms provides that 'the academic course of cadet midshipmen shall be six years.' If the navy department had assumed to make any regulations by which the final graduation shall take place in less time, such regulations would have been void. ”