Stephen Johnson Field

“ When, therefore, under the advice of the attorney general, the board of railroad commissioners treated as invalid the direction of the statute that the value of embankments, tunnels, cuts, ties, trestles, and bridges should not be included in the estimate of the railroad track, it obeyed the constitution rather than the legislature. It may not be a wide thing, as a rule, for subordinate, executive or ministerial officers to undertake to pass upon the constitutionality of legislation prescribing their duties, and to disregard it if in their judgment it is invalid. ”

“ An unconstitutional act is not a law; it binds no one, and protects no one. Here the conflict between the constitution and the statute was obvious, and the board had the advice of the highest legal officer of the state; and his conclusion was sustained by the judgment of the supreme court of the state. The unconstitutional part of the statute was separable from the remainder. The statute declared that, in making its statement of the value of its property, the railroad company should omit certain items ”

“ It is only when different clauses of an act are so dependent upon each other that it is evident the legislat re would not have enacted one of them without the other-as when the two things provided are necessary parts of one system-that the whole act will fall with the invalidity of one clause. ”