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Chapter XVI

Incorporation and Government of Cities, Villages, &c.

§1. Cities and incorporated villages have governments peculiar to themselves. Places containing a large and close population need a different government from that of ordinary towns or townships. Many of the laws regulating the affairs of towns thinly inhabited, are not suited to a place where many thousand persons are closely settled. Besides, the electors in such a place would be too numerous to meet in a single assembly for the election of officers or the transaction of other public business.

§2. Whenever, therefore, the inhabitants of any place become so numerous as to require a city government, they petition the legislature for a law incorporating them into a city. The law or act of incorporation is usually called a _charter_. The word _charter_ is from the Latin _charta_, which means paper. The instruments of writing by which kings or other sovereign powers granted rights and privileges to individuals or corporations, were written on paper or parchment, and called _charters_. In this country, it is commonly used to designate an act of the legislature conferring privileges and powers upon cities, villages, and other corporations.

§3. The chief executive officer of a city is a _mayor_. A city is divided into wards of convenient size, in each of which are chosen one or more _aldermen_, (usually two,) and such other officers as are named in the charter. The mayor and aldermen constitute the _common council_, which is a kind of legislature, having the power to pass such laws, (commonly called _ordinances_,) and to make such orders and regulations, as the government of the city requires. The mayor presides in meetings of the common council, and performs also certain judicial and other duties. There are also elected in the several wards, assessors, constables, collectors, and other necessary officers, whose duties in their respective wards are similar to those of like named officers in country towns, or townships.

§4. The inhabitants of cities, however, are not wholly governed by laws made by the common council. Most of the laws enacted by the legislature are of general application, and have the same effect in cities as elsewhere. Thus the laws of the state require, that taxes shall be assessed and levied upon the property of the citizens of the state to defray the public expenses; and the people of the cities are required to pay their just proportion of the same; but the city authorities lay and collect additional taxes for city purposes.

§5. In cities there are also courts of justice other than those which are established by the constitution or general laws of the state. There is a court for the trial of persons guilty of disturbing the peace, and of such other minor offenses as are usually punishable by imprisonment in the county jail, called _police court_. It is held by a _police justice_, elected by the people, or appointed in such manner as the law prescribes. In some of the larger cities, there are courts of _civil_ as well as criminal jurisdiction, differing from those which are common to counties generally.

§6. The government of incorporated _villages_ is not in all respects like that of cities. The chief executive officer of such a village is, in some states, called _president_. The village is not divided into wards; the number of its inhabitants being too small to require such division. Instead of a board of aldermen, there is a board of _trustees_ or _directors_, who exercise similar powers. The president of a village is generally chosen by the trustees from their own number. In some states, incorporated villages are called _towns_; and their chief executive officer is called _mayor_.

§7. The necessity and effect of incorporating a village may not yet clearly appear to every reader. Let us illustrate. By a general law of the state, or by a vote of the electors of a township in pursuance of such law, cattle may run at large in the highways. This might be to many persons in a village, a great annoyance, which can be prevented or abated only by confining the cattle. Or, sidewalks may need to be made. Or, it may be deemed necessary to provide means for extinguishing fires, by purchasing fire-engines and organizing fire companies. In an unincorporated village there is no power to compel the citizens to do these things. Those, therefore, who desire that the citizens should have power to make all needful regulations for the government of the village, petition the legislature for an act of incorporation granting the necessary powers.

§8. The constitutions of some states require the legislature to pass a general law prescribing the manner in which the people of any village may form themselves into a corporation, with the necessary powers of government, with out a special law for that purpose.

§9. Besides these _territorial_ corporations for purposes of government, as counties, towns, cities, &c., there are _incorporated companies_ for carrying on business of various kinds, as turnpike and rail-road companies, and companies for the purposes of banking, insurance, manufacturing, &c. These kinds of business, to be carried on successfully, sometimes require a larger amount of money than one man possesses. A number of persons, therefore, unite their capital under an act of incorporation granting them power to manage their business which they could not have in an ordinary business partnership. Besides, a common partnership must end on the death of any one of the partners; but an incorporated company is not thus affected by the death of its members.

§10. It is in the nature of corporations to have a perpetual existence. A corporation may live after the persons who first composed it are all dead; for those who come after them have the same powers and privileges. A town or city incorporated a hundred years ago, is the same town or city still, although none of its first inhabitants are living. So a railroad or banking corporation may exist after the death of many, or even all of the original corporators.

§11. But there are certain particulars in which all corporations are not the same. A state has been defined to be a body politic, or corporation. (Chap. I. §10; III, §5.) But it differs from other government corporations, as counties, towns, cities, &c., in this: the latter are formed by acts of the legislature; but a state is formed by the people in their political capacity in establishing the constitution.

§12. Again, all these government corporations differ from incorporated business companies. In forming a town or city, many persons are brought into the corporation against their wishes or consent; because, in governments, all who live within certain prescribed bounds must come under the same laws; but of an incorporated business association, as of a common business partnership, none become members but by their own act or choice. There is another difference: The latter are what are called _stock_ companies; and although they may be continued after the death of the first corporators, those who afterward come into the association, do so by becoming owners of the capital stock of those who preceded them. This latter difference will more clearly appear from the more particular description, elsewhere given, of the incorporated companies, and of the manner in which the stock is transferred. (Chap. XXIII, §11--15.)