rendered for, and to adjust all claims against their respective Mich. Rep. 475. counties; and the sum so fixed or defined shall be subject to no appeal.

Board of Super

visors to provide

highways, etc.

SEC. 11. The Board of Supervisors of each organized county for laying out may provide for laying out highways, constructing bridges and organizing townships, under such restrictions and limitations as, shall be prescribed by law.

Township offi

cers.

Townships to be bodies corporate.

Impeachments.

How tried.

3 Cowen, 686.

House to elect three members to prosecute.

ARTICLE XI.

TOWNSHIPS.

SECTION 1. There shall be elected annually, on the first Monday of April, in each organized township, one Supervisor, one Township Clerk, who shall be ex-officio School Inspector, one Commissioner of Highways, one Township Treasurer, one School Inspector, not exceeding four Constables, and one Overseer of Highways for each highway district, whose powers and duties shall be prescribed by law.

SEC. 2. Each organized township shall be a body corporate, with such powers and immunities as shall be prescribed by law. All suits and proceedings by or against a township shall be in the name thereof.

IMPEACHMENTS AND REMOVALS FROM OFFICE.

SECTION 1. The House of Representatives shall have the sole power of impeaching civil officers for corrupt conduct in office, or for crimes and misdemeanors; but a majority of the members elected shall be necessary to direct an impeachment.

SEC. 2. Every impeachment shall be tried by the Senate. When the Governor or Lieutenant Governor is tried, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court shall preside. When an impeachment is directed, the Senate shall take an oath or affirmation truly and impartially to try and determine the same according to the evidence. No person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of the members elected. Judgment, in case of impeachment, shall not extend further than removal from office; but the party convicted shall be liable to punishment according to law.

SEC. 3. When an impeachment is directed, the House of Representatives shall elect from their own body three members, whose duty it shall be to prosecute such impeachment. No impeachment shall be tried until the final adjournment of the Legislature, when the Senate shall proceed to try the same.

SEC. 4. No judicial officer shall exercise his office, after an Impeachment of impeachment is directed, until he is acquitted.

judicial officer.

älled.

SEC. 5. The Governor may make a provisional appointment Vacancy; to a vacancy occasioned by the suspension of an officer, until he shall be acquitted, or until after the election and qualification of a successor.

SEC. 6. For reasonable cause, which shall not be sufficient Removal Judge. ground for the impeachment of a Judge, the Governor shall remove him on a concurrent resolution of two-thirds of the members elected to each House of the Legislature; but the cause for which such removal is required shall be stated at length in such resolution.

tain officers.

how

of

SEC. 7. The Legislature shall provide by law for the removal Removal of cer of any officer elected by a county, township, or school district, in such manner and for such cause as to them shall seem just and proper.

ARTICLE XIII.

EDUCATION.

SECTION 1. The Superintendent of Public Instruction shall Education. have the general supervision of public instruction, and his duties shall be prescribed by law.

SEC. 2. The proceeds from the sales of all lands that have been or hereafter may be granted by the United States to the School Fund. State, for educational purposes, and the proceeds of all lands or other property given by individuals, or appropriated by the State for like purposes, shall be and remain a perpetual fund, the interest and income of which, together with the rents of all such lands as may remain unsold, shall be inviolably appropriated and annually applied to the specific objects of the original gift, grant or appropriation.

SEC. 3. All lands, the titles to which shall fail from a defect Escheats.? of heirs, shall escheat to the State; and the interest on the clear proceeds from the sales thereof, shall be appropriated exclusively to the support of primary schools.

SEC. 4. The Legislature shall, within five years from the Free Schools. adoption of this Constitution, provide for and establish a system of primary schools, whereby a school shall be kept without charge for tuition, at least three months in each year, in every school district in the State; and all instruction in said schools shall be conducted in the English language.

SEC. 5. A school shall be maintained in each school district District Schools at least three months in each year. Any school district neglect

Election of Regents of Univer

sity.

Regents body corporate.

President of University.

Board of Education.

Asylums.

Agricultural

School.

ing to maintain such school, shall be deprived for the ensuing year of its proportion of the income of the primary school fund, and of all funds arising from taxes for the support of schools.

SEC. 6. There shall be elected in each judicial circuit, at the time of the election of the Judge of such circuit, a Regent of the University, whose term of office shall be the same as that of such Judge. The Regents thus elected shall constitute the Board of Regents of the University of Michigan.

SEC. 7. The Regents of the University, and their successors in office, shall continue to constitute the body corporate, known by the name and title of "the Regents of the University of Michigan."

SEC. 8. The Regents of the University shall, at their first annual meeting, or as soon thereafter as may be, elect a President of the University, who shall be ex-officio a member of their board, with the privilege of speaking, but not of voting. He shall preside at the meetings of the Regents, and be the principal executive officer of the University. The Board of Regents shall have the general supervision of the University, and the direction and control of all expenditures from the University Interest Fund.

SEC. 9. There shall be elected at the general election in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-two, three members of a State Board of Education, one for two years, one for four years, and one for six years; and at each succeeding biennial election there shall be elected one member of such board, who shall hold his office for six years. The Superintendent of Public Instruction shall be ex-officio a member and secretary of such board. The board shall have the general supervision of the State Normal School, and their duties shall be prescribed by law.

SEC. 10. Institutions for the benefit of those inhabitants who are deaf, dumb, blind or insane, shall always be fostered and supported.

SEC. 11. The Legislature shall encourage the promotion of intellectual, scientific and agricultural improvement; and shall, as soon as practicable, provide for the establishment of an agricultural school. The Legislature may appropriate the twenty-two sections of salt spring lands now unappropriated, or the money arising from the sale of the same, where such lands have been already sold, and any land which may hereafter be granted or appropriated for such purpose, for the

support and maintenance of such school, and may make the same a branch of the University, for instruction in agriculture and the natural sciences connected therewith, and place the same under the supervision of the Regents of the University.

SEC. 12. The Legislature shall also provide for the establish- Town Libraries ment of at least one library in each township; and all fines assessed and collected in the several counties and townships for any breach of the penal laws, shall be exclusively applied to the support of such libraries.

ARTICLE XIV.

FINANCE AND TAXATION.

SECTION 1. All specific State taxes, except those received Specific taxes. from the mining companies of the Upper Peninsula, shall be applied in paying the interest upon the Primary School, Uniniversity and other educational funds, and the interest and principal of the State debt, in the order herein recited, until the extinguishment of the State debt, other than the amounts due to educational funds, when such specific taxes shall be added to, and constitute a part of the Primary School Interest Fund. The Legislature shall provide for an annual tax, sufficient, with other resources, to pay the estimated expenses of the State Government, the interest of the State debt, and such deficiency as may occur in the resources.

SEC. 2. The Legislature shall provide by law a sinking fund Sinking Fund. of at least twenty thousand dollars a year, to commence in eighteen hundred and fifty-two, with compound interest at the rate of six per cent. per annum, and an annual increase of at least five per cent., to be applied solely to the payment and extinguishment of the principal of the State debt, other than the amounts due to educational funds, and shall be continued until the extinguishment thereof. The unfunded debt shall not be funded or redeemed at a value exceeding that established by law in one thousand eight hundred and forty-eight. SEC. 3. The State may contract debts to meet deficits in state may conrevenue. Such debts shall not in the aggregate at any one time exceed fifty thousand dollars. The moneys so raised shall be applied to the purposes for which they were obtained, or to the payment of the debts so contracted.

tract debts, etc.

sions.

SEC. 4. The State may contract debts to repel invasion, To repel inva. suppress insurrection, or defend the State in time of war. The money arising from the contracting of such debts shall be

Money; how I aid out.

State credit, etc.

Berip not to be issued.

State not to subscribe stock.

Not to engage in
Internal improve-

ment.

To collect specific

tax.

applied to the purposes for which it was raised, or to repay such debts.

SEC. 5. No money shall be paid out of the Treasury, except in pursuance of appropriations made by law.

SEC. 6. The credit of the State shall not be granted to, or in aid of, any person, association or corporation.

SEC. 7. No scrip, certificate or other evidence of State indebtedness shall be issued, except for the redemption of stock previously issued, or for such debts as are expressly authorized in this Constitution.

SEC. 8. The State shall not subscribe to, or be interested in, the stock of any company, association or corporation.

SEC. 9. The State shall not be a party to, or interested in, any work of internal improvement, nor engaged in carrying on any such work, except in the expenditure of grants to the State of land or other property.

SEC. 10. The State may continue to collect all specific taxes accruing to the Treasury under existing laws. The Legislature may provide for the collection of specific taxes, from banking, railroad, plank road and other corporations hereafter created. SEC. 11. The Legislature shall provide an uniform rule of taxation, except on property paying specific taxes, and taxes 2 Mich. Rep. 500. shall be levied on such property as shall be prescribed by law.

Uniform rate of taxation.

Assessments.

Equalization.

Laws imposing taxes.

How formed.

Banking law to be

SEC. 12. All assessments hereafter authorized shall be on property at its cash value.

SEC. 13. The Legislature shall provide for an equalization by a State board, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one, and every fifth year thereafter, of assessments on all taxable property, except that paying specific taxes.

SEC. 14. Every law which imposes, continues or revives a tax, shall distinctly state the tax, and the object to which it is to be applied; and it shall not be sufficient to refer to any other law to fix such tax or object.

ARTICLE X V.

CORPORATIONS.

SECTION 1. Corporations may be formed under general laws; but shall not be created by special act, except for municipal purposes. All laws passed pursuant to this section may be altered, amended or repealed.

SEC. 2. No banking law or law for banking purposes, or