Rufus Wheeler Peckham

“ Whether a general law can be made applicable to the subject-matter in regard to which a special law is enacted by a territorial legislature is a matter which, we think, rests in the judgment of the legislature itself. ”

“ The territorial legislature at least had the same authority as that possessed by congress to recognize claims of the nature described. It is a legislative power, and it was granted to the territorial legislature by the acts already referred to. A city is a municipal corporation and a political subdivision of the state, and, what the state could do itself, it has the power to direct its agent, the municipality, to do. ”

“ It creates a special tribunal for hearing and deciding upon claims against a municipal corporation which have no legal obligation, and which therefore could not be enforced in a court, but which the legislature thinks have sufficient equity, and are based upon a sufficiently strong moral obligation, to make it proper for it to provide for their investigation, and for the payment of such as are decided to be proper, by taxation upon the property situated in the city. ”