.The opinion of the Court was delivered by
The General Assembly, by an act approved March 26, 1923 (33 Stat. at Large, 758), authorized and empowered the board of County Commissioners of Marion County to issue and sell bonds “for and on behalf of Reaves Township of said county, * * * for the purpose of purchasing a site, erecting and equipping a hospital in said township to be located at Mullins, South Carolina,” etc. For the purpose of carrying out the provisions of the act certain designated persons are constituted a hospital com
At an election duly held pursuant tO' the terms of the act it appears that a large majority of the votes were cast in favor of the issuance of the bonds. Thereupon the plaintiffs, residents and taxpayers of Reaves Township brought this action to enjoin thé issuance and sale of the bonds upon the ground that the act of March 26, 1923, above referred to, is unconstitutional. From a decree of Judge Shipp sustaining the validity of the statute, refusing the injunction, and dismissing the complaint, the plaintiffs appeal.
The consttutionality of the act is questioned upon three grounds. These questions, which will be considered in the order presented by counsel, are to be resolved in the light of the familiar and well-settled general rule that every presumption must be indulged in favor of the constitutionality of an act of the Legislature, and that Courts “should not declare a statute unconstitutional unless the invalidity is manifest beyond a reasonable doubt.” State v. Hammond, 66 S. C., 219, 227; 44 S .E., 797; 800. Massey v. Glenn, 106 S. C., 53; 90 S. E., 321. City of Columbia v. Smith, 105 S. C., 348; 89 S. E., 1028. Lillard v. Melton, 103 S. C., 10; 87 S. E., 421.
1. Appellants’ first contention is that the act is in contravention of Section 5 of Article 10 of the Constitution of 1895, in that the bonds are not sought to be issued for a corporate purpose. It is argued that,
Page 504“The point of invalidity was found in the nondescript character of the township corporation, which had not been created for any purpose whatever except the issuance of the bonds.”
Without pausing fully to review and analyze those decisions, we are of the opinion that the provisions of the Constitution of 1895 relating to townships must be held sufficiently to have supplied that element of .“corporate purpose” upon the absence of which those decisions were predicated.
In Gallishaw v. Jackson, 99 S. C., at page 348; 83 S. E., 454; 456, this Court said:
“A township is a body politic under the Constitution (Article 7, § 11) ; it is a division of the county, made for governmental purposes.”
'In the same language that counties are erected into bodies “politic and corporate” (Article 7, § 9), townships are also constituted bodies “jpolitic and corporate” (Article 7, § 11). The corporate purposes of the county as such are not expressly defined and set forth either by the Constitution or by statute. That the object or purpose of constituting townships bodies politic and corporate is essentially identical in character with that contemplated in. making counties bodies politic and corporate would seem to be obvious. That corporate purpose, broadly speaking, is the object sought to be attained by the creation of all subordinate governmental agencies or municipal corporations, viz., the promotion of the public good through the exercise by these agencies or bodies politic of such powers as may be delegated to them by competent authority. Hence we can see no necessity for any express declaration or definition by the General Assembly, either by general law or in a special act conferring a particular power, of the corporate purpose or purposes a township is intended to promote. That purpose is sufficiently disclosed by the nature of the entity created by the Constitution and by the character of any power con
It is true the corporate purpose of a governmental agency may be limited, either expressly or by clear implication, to a special field of public service or to the promotion of a particular object. Of that class, for example, are school districts, drainage districts, etc. Thus it has been held that a tax levied by a school district or township to pay for a subscription to a railroad was invalid because it was not for a corporate purpose, that is, not germane to the “school purposes” for which the corporation was created. Weightman v. Clark, 103 U. S., 256; 26 L. Ed., 392. And so, if a drainage district should attempt to levy taxes to build a schoolhouse, it is quite apparent that the tax levied might be invalid because not for a corporate purpose. But under our Constitution the -only delimitation upon the corporate purpose of a township as a subordinate governmental agency is that embraced in the limitation as to territory. As a subdivision of the county, erected into a body corporate for governmental purposes, the corporate purpose of the township is to carry into effect the principle of local self-government,, to the extent the Legislature may authorize, by performing such functions and promoting such objects of local public interest as are of immediate concern to the people within the territorial limits of the particular township. To that end the Constitution (Section 11, Art. 7) vests the General Assembly with discretionary power to “provide such system of township government as it shall think proper in any and all the counties,” and further expressly declares in that connection that it “may make special provision for municipal government.” The power of the General Assembly to make “special provision” for the discharge by a township “in any county” of such particular governmental function or functions as it may think proper to commit to such township is, we think, not open to serious question. See Grocery Co. v. Burnet, 61 S. C., 213; 39 S. E., 381; 58 L. R. A.,
We do not understand that it is contended in this connection that the erection and maintenance of a hospital is not a legitimate function of government, or that an enterprise of that character may not properly be held to subserve a public purpose within the meaning of the right to tax. That, in the light of modern knowledge as to the intimate relation of the public health to the public welfare, whether regarded from a social, economic, or moral standpoint, a hospital is such air institution or utility as directly subserves a public use within the meaning of the governmental power to tax for a public purpose, is, as we apprehend, not open to serious question. 26 R. C. L., 48; 49, § 32; 19 R. C. L., 716, § 25. Our state government has for many years maintained at public expense hospitals and similar institutions for the care and treatment of patients afflicted with diseases and infirmities, both physical and mental. What the state may directly do in furtherance .of such objects the' subordinate governmental agency or municipal corporation, clothed with a delegated power from the state, may also lawfully perform. Baltimore v. Fairfield Improv. Co., 87 Md., 352; 39 Atl. 1081; 40 L. R. A., 494 ; 67 Am. St. Rep., 344. Since the corporate purpose of a township, as we have seen, is primarily to perform such governmental functions as may be committed to it by the General Assembly, in delegating to Reaves Township the power to erect and maintain a public hospital we are clearly
2. Appellants’ second contention is that the act is in contravention of Section 6, Art. 10, of the Constitution, in that the hospital building in question is not such a public building as is contemplated by that section, and hence that the Legislature had no> authority to empower the township to issue bonds for that purpose. The constitutional provision here invoked is a limitation upon the power of the General Assembly “to authorze any county or township to levy a tax or issue bonds for any purpose except for educational purposes, to build and repair public roads, buildings and bridges,” etc. The learned Circuit Judge held that the term “public buildings,” within the purview of this section of the Constitution, “should be taken to include such buildings as may be fairly deemed to’ promote a public purpose,” citing in support of that conclusion the California case of Yole v. Barney, 79 Cal., 375; 21 Pac., 833; 12 Am. St. Rep., 152, in which “a hospital is specifically designated as a public building.” 'If, as we have concluded in the consideration of appellants’ first contention, the erection and maintenance of a hospital may be lawfully undertaken by the township as a governmental function, under a plenary grant of power from the General Assembly, it would seem clear that the building essential to the discharge of that function would be, as the Circuit Judge correctly held, a public building in the sense that it would promote a public purpose or subserve a public use.
But the building here in question may be classified as a public building from another viewpoint. The bonds are to be issued “for and on behalf of Reaves Township,” and the control and management of the hospital are vested in public officers holding office for limited terms, whose successors are to be chosen from the qualified electors of the
3. The third proposition advanced by appellants is that the act is in contravention of subdivision 3, § 34, of Article 3 of the Constitution, “in that the same is in effect an attempt to incorporate and create a hospital by special law.” The views stated in disposing of appellants’ first and second contentions render unnecessary any extended discussion of this proposition. The act merely confers certain powers upon an existing body politic and corporate, and vests the administration of those powers in a commission composed, as above noted, of officers who are officials of the public corporation, the township. In no sense that we can perceive is there an attempt, directly or indirectly, to erect the hospital commission into a separate and distinct corporate entity.
The exceptions are overruled, and the decree of the Circuit Court affirmed.