law. The Legislature shall provide by law for an annual tax sufficient, with other sources of revenue, to defray the estimated ordinary expenses of the State for each fiscal year. And for the purpose of paying the State debt, if there be any, the Legislature shall provide for levying a tax annually, sufficient to pay the annual interest and principal of such debt within twenty years from the final passage of the law creating the debt.

Sec. 2. The Legislature shall provide by law a uniform and equal rate of assessment and taxation on all property in the State, according to its value in money, and shall prescribe such regulations by general law as shall secure a just valuation for taxation of all property, so that every person and corporation shall pay a tax in proportion to the value of his, her or its property: Provided, that a deduction of debts from credits may be authorized: Provided further, that the property of the United States, and of the State, counties, school districts and other municipal corporations, and such other property as the Legislature may by general laws provide, shall be exempt from taxation. Sec. 3. The Legislature shall provide by general law for the assessing and levying of taxes on all corporation property as near as may be by the same methods as are provided for the assessing and levying of taxes on individual property.

Sec. 4. The power to tax corporations and corporate property shall not be surrendered or suspended by any contract or grant to which the State shall be a party.

Sec. 5. No tax shall be levied except in pursuance of law; and every law imposing a tax shall state distinctly the object of the same to which only it shall be applied.

Sec. 6. All taxes levied and collected for State purposes shall be paid in money only into the State treasury.

Sec. 7. An accurate statement of the receipts and expenditures of the public moneys shall be published annually in such manner as the Legislature may provide.

Sec. 8. Whenever the expenses of any fiscal year shall exceed the income, the Legislature may provide for levying a tax for the ensuing fiscal year, sufficient, with other sources of income, to pay the deficiency, as well as the estimated expenses of the ensu ing fiscal year.

Sec. 9. The Legislature may vest the corporate authorities of cities, towns and villages with power to make local improve

ments by special assessment, or by special taxation of property benefited. For all corporate purposes, all municipal corporations may be vested with authority to assess and collect taxes, and such taxes shall be uniform in respect to persons and property within the jurisdiction of the body levying the same.

ARTICLE VIII.

State, County and Municipal Indebtedness.

Section 1. The State may, to meet casual deficits or failures in revenue, or for expenses not provided for, contract debts, but such debts, direct and contingent, singly or in the aggregate, shall not at any time exceed four hundred thousand dollars ($400,000), and the moneys arising from the loans creating such debts shall be applied to the purpose for which they were obtained or to repay the debts so contracted, and to no other purpose whatever.

Sec. 2. In addition to the above limited power to contract debts, the State may contract debts to repel invasion, suppress insurrection, or to defend the State in war, but the money arising from the contracting of such debts shall be applied to the purpose for which it was raised, and to no other purpose whatever.

Sec. 3. Except the debts specified in sections one and two of this article, no debts shall hereafter be contracted by, or on behalf of this State, unless such debt shall be authorized by law for some single work or object to be distinctly specified therein, which law shall provide ways and means, exclusive of loans, for the payment of the interest on such debt as it falls due, and also to pay and discharge the principal of such debt within twenty years from the time of the contracting thereof. No such law shall take effect until it shall, at a general election, have been submitted to the people and have received a majority of all the votes cast for and against it at such election, and all moneys raised by authority of such law shall be applied only to the specific object therein stated, or to the payment of the debt thereby created, and such law shall be published in at least one newspaper in each county, if one be published therein, throughout the State, for three months next preceding the election at which it is submitted to the people.

Sec. 4. No moneys shall ever be paid out of the treasury of this State, or any of its funds or any of the funds under its

management, except in pursuance of an appropriation by law; nor unless such payment be made within two years from the first day of May next after the passage of such appropriation act, and every such law making a new appropriation, or continuing or reviving an appropriation, shall distinctly specify the sum appropriated, and the object to which it is to be applied, and it shall not be sufficient for such law to refer to any other law to fix such sum.

Sec. 5. The credit of the State shall not, in any manner, be given or loaned to, or in aid of, any individual, association, company or corporation.

Sec. 6. No county, city, town, school district or other municipal corporation, shall for any purpose become indebted in any manner to an amount exceeding one and one-half per centum of the taxable property in such county, city, town, school district or other municipal corporation, without the assent of three-fifths of the voters therein, voting at an election to be held for that purpose, nor in cases requiring such assent shall the total indebtedness at any time exceed five per centum on the value of the taxable property therein, to be ascertained by the last assessment for State and county purposes previous to the incurring of such indebtedness; except that in incorporated cities the assessment shall be taken from the last assessment for city purposes: Provided, that no part of the indebtedness allowed in this section shall be incurred for any purpose other than strictly county, city, town, school district or other municipal purposes: Provided further, that any city or town, with such assent may be allowed to become indebted to a larger amount, but not exceeding five per centum additional, for supplying such city or town with water, artificial light and sewers, when the works for supplying such water, light and sewers shall be owned and controlled by the municipality.

Sec. 7. No county, city, town or other municipal corporation shall hereafter give any money or property, or loan its money or credit, to or in aid of any individual, association, company or corporation, except for the necessary support of the poor and infirm, or become directly or indirectly the owner of any stock in or bonds of any association, company or corporation.

ARTICLE IX.

Education.

Section 1. It is the paramount duty of the State to make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders, without distinction or preference on account of race, color, caste or sex.

The Legislature shall provide for a general and uniform system of public schools. The public school system shall include common schools, and such high schools, normal schools and technical schools as may hereafter be established. But the entire revenue derived from the common school fund, and the State tax for common schools, shall be exclusively applied to the support of the common schools.

Sec. 3. The principal of the common school fund shall remain permanent and irreducible. The said fund shall be derived from the following named sources, to wit: Appropriations and donations by the State to this fund; donations and bequests by individuals to the State or public for common schools; the proceeds of lands and other property which revert to the State by escheat and forfeiture; the proceeds of all property granted to the State, when the purpose of the grant is not specified, or is uncertain; funds accumulated in the treasury of the State for the disbursement of which provision has not been made by law; the proceeds of the sale of timber, stone, minerals or other property from school and State lands, other than those granted for specific purposes; all moneys received from persons appropriating timber, stone, minerals or other property from school and State lands, other than those granted for specific purposes, and all moneys other than rental, recovered from persons trespassing on said lands; five per centum of the proceeds of the sale of public lands lying within the State, which shall be sold by the United States subsequent to the admission of the State into the Union as approved by section 13 of the act of Congress enabling the admission of the State into the Union; the principal of all funds arising from the sale of lands and other property which have been, and hereafter may be granted to the State for the support of common schools. The Legislature may make further provisions for enlarging said fund. The interest accruing on said fund together with all rentals and other revenues derived therefrom and from lands and other property devoted to the common school

fund, shall be exclusively applied to the current use of the common schools.

Sec. 4. All schools maintained or supported wholly or in part by the public funds shall be forever free from sectarian control or influence.

Sec. 5. All losses to the permanent common school or any other State educational fund, which shall be occasioned by defalcation, mismanagement or fraud of the agents or officers controlling or managing the same, shall be audited by the proper authorities of the State. The amount so audited shall be a permanent funded debt against the State in favor of the particular fund sustaining such loss, upon which not less than six per cent. annual interest shall be paid. The amount of liability so created shall not be counted as a part of the indebtedness authorized and limited elsewhere in this Constitution.

ARTICLE X.
Militia.

Section 1. All able bodied male citizens of this State between the ages of eighteen (18) and forty-five (45) years, except such as are exempted by laws of the United States or by laws of this State, shall be liable to military duty.

Sec. 2. The Legislature shall provide by law for organizing and disciplining the militia in such manner as it may deem expedient, not incompatible with the Constitution and laws of the United States. Officers of the militia shall be elected or appointed in such manner as the Legislature shall from time to time direct, and shall be commissioned by the Governor. The Governor shall have power to call forth the militia to execute the laws of the State, to suppress insurrections and repel invasions.

Sec. 3. The Legislature shall provide by law for the maintennance of a soldiers' home for honorably discharged Union soldiers, sailors, marines and members of the State militia disabled while in the line of duty and who are bona fide citizens of the State.

Sec. 4. The Legislature shall provide by law for the protec tion and safe keeping of the public arms.

Sec. 5. The militia shall, in all cases except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at musters and elections of officers, and in going to and returning from the same.