4G3 



Mr. Justice Folger, so fully meets the many objections that 

 were urged when the matter was open for public discussion, by 

 persons interested in defeating the sale as well as by others 

 who are entitled to a more respectful consideration, that the 

 Commissioners deem it advisable in this connection to refer to 

 some of the more prominent of those objections, in order to 

 show how fully they were considered and disposed of by the 

 court in giving its decision. 



It was insisted by some of the objectors, that the practical 

 effect of these two acts of the Legislature, when taken to- 

 gether, was to take the property of one individual and trans- 

 fer it to another, for the benefit of the city. But the court 

 say there is no foundation for such an inference, that the act 

 of 1861 was passed in good faith by the Legislature, to meet 

 a then public emergency ; that the necessity of exercising the 

 power of taking private property for public use rests with 

 that branch of the government, and that there is no restraint 

 upon its power, save that of requiring compensation to be 

 made. But if the Legislature erred in 1861, in the exercise 

 of this power, and mistook a seeming for a real necessity, its 

 further action in 1870 was not thereby rendered invalid. 

 LTnder the act of 1861, all the steps were taken that were 

 legally required for the appropriation of these lands, and the 

 payment therefor. At once, on the appropriation of the lands, 

 the owner became entitled to his compensation, and as soon as 

 that was paid, the land became the absolute property of the 

 city, and there was no reverter. The Legislature could at any 

 time afterwards relieve the city from the trust to hold for the 

 purposes of a park, and empower it to sell. This was done 

 by the act of 1870, and, so far as any express limitation in our 

 State constitution is concerned, the court declares that the 

 Legislature had full power in the premises. 



It was also claimed that the city, by laying out a park, and 

 filing maps thereof, was estopped by its own acts, from selling 1 

 any part of the land embraced within the park, for as much, 

 as such acts of the city had created a species of contract be- 

 tween the city and adjacent owners, that the land should 

 always remain a park ; and that the value of neighboring 

 property having been increased in anticipation of the creation 

 of this park, and greater assessments and taxes having, in con- 



