USA > Kentucky > A history of Kentucky and Kentuckians; the leaders and representative men in commerce, industry and modern activities, Volume I > Part 72
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Section 240. The Governor shall have power, after five years from the time of the offense, to par- don any person who shall have participated in a duel as principal, second or otherwise, and to restore him to all the rights, privileges and immunities to which he was entitled before such participation. Upon presentation of such pardon the oath pre- scribed in section two hundred and twenty-eight shall be varied to suit the case.
Section 241. Whenever the death of a person shall result from an injury inflicted by negligence or wrongful act, then, in every such case, damages may be recovered for such death, from the corpora- tions and persons so causing the same. Until other- wise provided by law, the action to recover such damages shall in all cases be prosecuted by the per- sonal representative of the deceased person. The General Assembly may provide how the recovery shall go and to whom belong: and until such pro- vision is made the same shall form part of the per- sonal estate of the deceased person.
Section 242. Municipal and other corporations, and individuals invested with the privilege of taking private property for public use, shall make just compensation for property taken, injured or de- stroyed by them; which compensation shall be paid before such taking, or paid or secured, at the elec- tion of such corporation or individual, before such injury or destruction. The General Assembly shall not deprive any person of an appeal from any pre- liminary assessment of damages against any such cor- poration or individual made by Commissioners or otherwise; and upon appeal from such preliminary assessment, the amount of such damages shall, in all cases, be determined by a jury, according to the course of the common law.
Section 243. The General Assembly shall, by law, fix the minimum ages at which children may be employed in places dangerous to life or health, or injurious to morals; and shall provide adequate pen- alties for violations of such law.
Section 244. All wage-earners in this State em- ployed in factories, mines, workshops, or by cor- porations, shall be paid for their labor in lawful money. The General Assembly shall prescribe ade- quate penalties for violations of this section.
Section 245. Upon the promulgation of this Con- stitution, the Governor shall appoint three persons, learned in the law, who shall be Commissioners to revise the statute laws of this Commonwealth, and prepare amendments thereto, to the end that the statute laws shall conform to and effectuate this Constitution. Such revision and amendments shall be laid before the next General Assembly for
adoption or rejection, in whole or in part. The said Commissioners shall be allowed ten dollars each per day for their services, and also necessary sta- tionery for the time during which they are actually employed; and upon their certificate the Auditor shall draw his warrant upon the Treasurer. They shall have the power to employ clerical assistants, at a compensation not exceeding ten dollars per day in the aggregate. If the Commissioners, or any of them, shall refuse to act, or a vacancy shall occur, the Governor shall appoint another or others in his or their place.
Section 246. No public officer, except the Gov- ernor, shall receive more than five thousand dollars per annum, as compensation for official services, in- dependent of the compensation of legally authorized deputies and assistants, which shall be fixed and pro- vided for by law. The General Assembly shall pro- vide for the enforcement of this section by suitable penalties, one of which shall be forfeiture of office by any person violating its provisions.
Section 247. The printing and binding of the laws, journals, department reports, and all other pub- lic printing and binding, shall be performed under contract, to be given to the lowest responsible bid- der, below such maximum and under such regula- tions as may be prescribed by law. No member of the General Assembly, or officer of the Common- wealth, shall be in any way interested in any such contract ; and all such contracts shall be subject to the approval of the Governor.
Section 248. A grand jury shall consist of twelve persons, nine of whom concurring, may find an indictment. In civil and misdemeanor cases, in courts inferior to the Circuit Courts, a jury shall consist of six persons. The General Assembly may provide that in any or all trials of civil actions in the Circuit Courts, three-fourths or more of the jurors concurring may return a verdict, which shall have the same force and effect as if rendered by the entire panel. But where a verdict is rendered by a less number than the whole jury, it shall be signed by all the jurors who agree to it.
Section 249. The House of Representatives of the General Assembly shall not elect, appoint, employ or pay for, exceeding one Chief Clerk, one Assistant Clerk, one Enrolling Clerk, one Sergeant-at-Arms, one Door-keeper, one Janitor, two Cloak-room Keepers and four Pages; and the Senate shall not elect, appoint, employ or pay for, exceeding one Chief Clerk, one Assistant Clerk, one Enrolling Clerk, one Sergeant-at-Arms. one Door-keeper, one Janitor, one Cloak-room Keeper and three Pages; and the General Assembly shall provide, by general
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law, for fixing the per diem or salary of all of said employes.
Section 250. It shall be the duty of the General Assembly to enact .such laws as shall be necessary and proper to decide differences by arbitrators, the arbitrators to be appointed by the parties who may choose that summary mode of adjustment.
Section 251. No action shall be maintained for possession of any lands lying within this State, where it is necessary for the claimant to rely for his recovery on any grant or patent issued by the Com- monwealth of Virginia, or by the Commonwealth of Kentucky prior to the year one thousand eight hun- dred and twenty, against any person claiming such lands by possession to a well-defined boundary, under a title of record, unless such action shall be insti- tuted within five years after this Constitution shall go into effect, or within five years after the occu- pant may take possession; but nothing herein shall be construed to affect any right, title or interest in lands acquired by virtue of adverse possession under the laws of this commonwealth.
Section 252. It shall be the duty of the General Assembly to provide by law, as soon as practicable, for the establishment and maintenance of an institu- tion or institutions for the detention, correction, in- struction and reformation of all persons under the age of eighteen years, convicted of such felonies and such misdemeanors as may be designated by law. Said institution shall be known as the "House of Reform."
Section 253. Persons convicted of felony and sentenced to confinement in the penitentiary shall be confined at labor within the walls of the peniten- tiary; and the General Assembly shall not have the power to authorize employment of convicts else- where, except upon the public works of the Com- monwealth of Kentucky, or when, during pestilence or in case of the destruction of the prison buildings, they cannot be confined in the penitentiary.
Section 254. The Commonwealth shall maintain control of the discipline, and provide for all sup- plies, and for the sanitary condition of the convicts, and the labor only of convicts may be leased.
Section 255. The seat of government shall con- tinne in the city of Frankfort, unless removed by a vote of two-thirds of each House of the first Gen- eral Assembly which convenes after the adoption of this Constitution.
MODE OF REVISION.
Section 256. Amendments to this Constitution may be proposed in either House of the General Assembly at a regular session, and if such amend-
ment or amendments shall be agreed to by three- fifths of all the members elected to each House, such proposed amendment or amendments, with the yeas and nays of the members of each House taken thereon, shall be entered in full in their respective journals. . Then such proposed amendment or amend- ments shall be submitted to the voters of the State for their ratification or rejection at the next general election for members of the House of Representa- tives, the vote to be taken thereon in such manner as the General Assembly may provide, and to be certified by the officers of election to the Secretary of State in such manner as shall be provided by law, which vote shall be compared and certified by the same board authorized by law to compare the polls and give certificates of election to officers for the State at large. If it shall appear that a majority of the votes cast for and against an amendment at said election was for the amendment, then the same shall become a part of the Constitution of this Common- wealth, and shall be so proclaimed by the Governor, and published in such manner as the General As- sembly may direct. Said amendments shall not be submitted at an election which occurs less than ninety days from the final passage of such proposed amendment or amendments. Not more than two amendments shall be voted upon at any one time. Nor shall the same amendment be again submitted within five years after submission. Said amendments shall be so submitted as to allow a separate vote on each, and no amendment shall relate to more than one subject. But no amendment shall be proposed by the first General Assembly which convenes after the adoption of this Constitution. The approval of the Governor shall not be necessary to any bill, order. resolution or vote of the General Assembly, pro- posing an amendment or amendments to this Con- stitution.
Section 257. Before an amendment shall he sub- mitted to a vote, the Secretary of State shall cause such proposed amendment, and the time that the same is to be voted upon, to be published at least ninety days before the vote is to be taken thereon in such manner as may be prescribed by law.
Section 258. When a majority of all the mem- bers elected to each House of the General Assembly shall concur, by a yea and nay vote, to be entered upon their respective journals, in enacting a law to take the sense of the people of the State as to the necessity and expediency of calling a convention for the purpose of revising or amending this Constitu- tion, and such amendments as may have been made to the same, such law shall be spread upon their respective journals. If the next General Assembly
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shall, in like manner, concur in such law, it shall provide for having a poll opened in each voting precinct in this State by the officers provided by law for holding general elections at the next ensuing regular election to be held for State officers or mem- bers of the House of Representatives, which does not occur within ninety days from the final passage of such law, at which time and places the votes of the qualified voters shall be taken for and against calling the Convention, in the same manner pro- vided by law for taking votes in other State elcc- tions. The vote for and against said proposition shall be certified to the Secretary of State by the same officers and in the same manner as in State elections. If it shall appear that a majority voting on the proposition was for calling a Convention, and if the total number of votes cast for the calling of the Convention is equal to one-fourth of the num- ber of qualified voters who voted at the last pre- ceding general election in this State, the Secretary of State shall certify the same to the General As- sembly at its next regular session, at which session a law shall be enacted calling a Convention to re- adopt. revise or amend this Constitution, and such amendments as may have been made thereto.
Section 259. The Convention shall consist of as many delegates as there are members of the House of Representatives ; and the delegates shall have the same qualifications and be elected from the same dis- tricts as said Representatives.
Section 260. Delegates to such convention shall be elected at the next general State election after the passage of the act calling the convention, which does not occur within less than ninety days; and they shall meet within ninety days after their elec- tion at the Capital of the State, and continue in session until their work is completed.
Section 261. The General Assembly, in the act calling the convention, shall provide for comparing the polls and giving certificates of election to the delegates clected, and provide for their compensation.
Section 262. The convention, when assembled, shall be the judge of the election and qualification of its members, and shall determine contested elec- tions. But the General Assembly shall, in the act calling the convention, provide for taking testimony in such cases, and for issuing a writ of election in case of a tie.
Section 263. Before a vote is taken upon the question of calling a convention, the Secretary of State shall cause notice of the election to be pub- lished in such manner as may be provided by the act directing said vote to be taken.
SCHEDULE.
That no inconvenience may arise from the alter- ations and amendments made in this Constitution, and in order to carry the same into complete oper- ation. it is hereby declared and ordained :
First: That all laws of this Commonwealth in force at the time of the adoption of this Constitui- tion, not inconsistent therewith, shall remain in full force until altered or repealed by the General As- sembly; and all rights, actions, prosecutions, claims and contracts of the State, counties, individuals or bodies corporate, not inconsistent therewith, shall continue as valid as if this Constitution had not been adopted. The provisions of all laws which are in- consistent with this Constitution shall cease upon its adoption, except that all laws which are inconsistent with such provisions as require legislation to enforce them shall remain in force until such legislation is had, but not longer than six years after the adop- tion of this Constitution, unless sooner amended or repealed by the General Assembly.
Second: That all recognizances, obligations and all other instruments entered into or executed before the adoption of this Constitution, to the State, or to any city, town, county or subdivision thereof, and all fines, taxes, penalties and forfeitures due or owing to this State, or to any city, town, county or subdivision thereof; and all writs, prosecutions, actions and causes of action, except as otherwise herein provided, shall continue and remain unaf- fected by the adoption of this Constitution. And all indictments which shall have been found, or may hereafter be found, for any crime or offense com- mitted before this Constitution takes effect, may be prosecuted as if no change had taken place, except as otherwise provided in this Constitution.
Third: All circuit, chancery, criminal, law and equity, law, and Common Pleas Courts, as now con- stituted and organized by law, shall continue with their respective jurisdictions until the Judges of the Circuit Courts provided for in this Constitution shall have been elected and qualified, and shall then cease and determine; and the causes, actions and proceedings then pending in said first named courts, which are discontinued by this Constitution, shall be transferred to, and tried by, the Circuit Courts in the counties, respectively, in which said causes, actions and proceedings are pending.
Fourth: The Treasurer, Attorney-General, Audi- tor of Public Accounts, Superintendent of Public In- struction, and Register of the Land Office, elected in eighteen hundred and ninety-one, shall hold their offices until the first Monday in January, eighteen
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hundred and ninety-six, and until the election and qualification of their successors. The Governor and Lieutenant-Governor elected in eighteen hundred and ninety-one shall hold their offices until the sixth Tuesday after the first Monday in November, eigh- teen hundred and ninety-five, and until their suc- cessors are elected and qualified. The Governor and Treasurer elected in eighteen hundred and ninety- one shall be ineligible to the succeeding term. The Governor elected in eighteen hundred and ninety- one may appoint a Secretary of State and a Com- missioner of Agriculture, Labor and Statistics, as now provided, who shall hold their offices until their successors are elected and qualified, unless sooner removed by the Governor. The official bond of the present Treasurer shall be renewed at the expiration of two years from the time of his qualification.
Fifth: All officers who may be in office at the adoption of this Constitution, or who may be elected before the election of their successors, as provided in this Constitution, shall hold their respective offices until their successors are elected or appointed and qualified as provided in this Constitution.
Sixth: The quarterly courts created by this Con- stitution shall be the successors of the present statutory Quarterly Courts in the several counties of this State; and all suits, proceedings, prosecu- tions, records and judgments now pending or being in said last named courts shall, after the adoption of this Constitution, be transferred to the Quarterly Courts created by this Constitution, and shall pro- ceed as though the same had been therein instituted.
ORDINANCE.
We, the representatives of the people of Ken- tucky, in Convention assembled, in their name and by their authority and in virtue of the power vested in us as Delegates from the counties and districts respectively affixed to our names, do ordain and pro- claim the foregoing to be the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Kentucky from and after this date.
Done at Frankfort this twenty-eighth day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and ninety-one, and in the one hun- dredth year of the Commonwealth.
CHAPTER LX.
INJURIOUS TAXING SYSTEM-KENTUCKY AND PENNSYLVANIA SYSTEMS COMPARED-BURDEN ON WIDOWS AND ORPHANS-PREVENTS PRACTICAL DEVELOPMENT.
The new Constitution of Kentucky given in the preceding chapter has proven, in the main, acceptable to the people, but there is an ex- ception which has been the subject of much discussion-the system of taxation which has been characterized by high authority as "one of the crudest and most defective systems" in all the States. The system under which Kentucky labors known as the "general prop- erty tax" or "uniform advalorem tax" pro- vides that every species of property visible or invisible, real or personal, must pay an annual tax at the same rate to the state, to the county, and to the city, based on its cash value. This is without regard to the income which it pro- duces, or to the benefits which it derives from public improvements made out of the revenue raised by taxation and without deduction for debts owed upon any property or for any personal indebtedness of the taxpayer. It is, in brief, a tax on the gross assets and not on what the taxpayer actually owns in his own right. The result is that it paralyzes effort and is doubly hard on the poor man whose property, as a rule, is in such form that it cannot escape taxation, whereas the invisible and intangible property of the richer man does escape taxation. The system is inequitable and unfair. So high an authority as the su- preme court of the United States has con- demned the system as "destructive of the prin- ciple of uniformity and equality in taxation," stating with emphasis: "This court has re- peatedly laid down this doctrine."
A State Revenue Revision committee through its chairman, Judge Cammack, in 1896, made this report: "After gathering to- gether the revenue laws of nearly every state and territory we were astonished to learn that Kentucky possessed one of the crudest and most defective revenue systems of them all. Our laws relating to the assessment of prop- erty and the collection of taxes are abomin- able." The Taxation Revision committee, in 1909, pointed out, with great clearness and force, the injury the system is working to the commonwealth, and the absolute need of a change, indicating the method by which it could be effected. The report of the com- mission was approved by the governor, the lieutenant governor, the attorney general, the president of the State Farmer's Institute, by the leading business men of the state, and by the most prominent lawyers, one of whom had been a member of the constitutional convention which had inaugurated the system. The state senate acted upon the suggestions of the com- mission and, by a unanimous vote, adopted an amendment to the I7Ist section of the con- stitution, with a view to changing the system of taxation to one which should give equal and exact justice to the taxpayers, rich and poor alike. The senate also adopted a resolu- tion providing for the appointment of a tax commission of eleven members, six from the house and five from the senate, with the presi- dent of the latter body and the speaker of the house, as ex officio members, whose duty it
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Kentucky State Capitol, Frankfort, Ky.
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should be to thoroughly investigate the sys- tem of taxation and report the result of their investigation.
For some inexplicable and indefensible rea- son, the house of representatives refused to concur in the action of the senate. By a vote of fifty-three in the negative, to twenty-five in the affirmative, the house declined to submit to the people, who are popularly supposed to be supreme, the amendment adopted by the senate. Twenty-two members of the house, through absence or otherwise, were not re- corded as voting upon the proposed amend- ment, the most important subject, then and now, upon which the general assembly is called upon to vote. For this failure to safeguard the interests of their constituents, the people themselves are equally to blame with their representatives. Until better men, more rep- resentative men, are elected as members of the general assembly, better laws will not be enacted. So long as the best men of each of the parties remain away from the primaries or conventions, leaving the choice of their representatives to the professional politician, so long will mediocrity rule in the legislature. There are honorable exceptions in a few coun- ties, but these send not enough leaven to leaven the whole loaf.
Comparison of the Kentucky system with that under which other states prosper, is proof conclusive of the need for a revision of the tax laws of the state. From the Lexington Herald, the following statistics are obtained : "Taking Fayette county as an illustration, the tax on each hundred dollars' worth of prop- erty is fifty cents for the state tax, fifty cents for the county tax, and one dollar and seventy- five cents for the city tax, a total of two dol- lars and seventy-five cents, irrespective of the tax-producing quality of the property assessed.
"In all the counties of the state the state tax is fifty cents, the average county tax from thirty to fifty cents, and the average tax in
the cities is from one dollar and fifty cents to one dollar and ninety cents, a total of from two dollars and a half to three dollars on the property of those who reside in cities, and from eighty cents to a dollar or more on those who live in the country. All the property in Fayette county which is assessed pays taxes at the rate of one per cent. All the property in the city of Lexington pays taxes at the rate of two dollars and seventy-five cents."
For comparison it may. be stated that in Pennsylvania there is no state tax whatever. In Allegheny county, in which is situated the city of Pittsburg, the county tax is twenty- seven cents on the hundred dollars. In Pitts- burg the city tax is one dollar and twenty-five cents, and there is no state or county tax upon the property within the city limits. In Mary- land the state tax is sixteen cents on the hun- dred dollars on real property. In Lexington, Kentucky, the state, county and city tax on manufactories is two dollars and seventy-five cents on the hundred dollars. In Pennsyl- vania there is no tax upon factory business, but a local tax on the real estate only as on all other real estate. The result is that in a decade Pennsylvania increased the output of her factories five hundred million dollars per year, and is now producing two thousand mil- lion dollars per annum, figures so startling as to be almost beyond belief. The total output of all factories in Kentucky, according to the last available report, is about $160,000,000 per year, about one-half of which is produced by factories in the county of Jefferson. Yet there are men biennially elected to the legis- lature of Kentucky who cannot see that the taxing system is a bad one, or that it is their duty to take steps for its improvement. Ken- tucky should be a great furniture, automobile and carriage manufacturing state, yet the timber cut from her yet-remaining great for- ests goes to Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and other more distant states, to be manufactured, and then shipped back here to be bought by the
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