The opinion
Smith, C. J.,
(after stating the facts). The county commissioners are required to meet at the court-house on the first Mondays in December and June, in each year regularly;
The Code,
§706, and on the day first mentioned, proceed “to qualify, and induct into office, the following county officers who have been elected in the previous month: clerks of the Superior and Inferior Courts, sheriff, coroner, treasurer, register of deeds, surveyor and constables; and to take and .approve the official bonds of such officers, which the board shall cause to be registered in the office of the register of deeds,” §707, subdiv. 28. While this is an enjoined duty, and it may be deferred until another day, and time given to an officer elect to fortify his bond, if deemed insufficient, with other sureties or for other sufficient cause, as determined in
Bucknan
v.
Commissioners,
80 N. C., 121 , and in
*365
Jones
v.
Jones,
Ibid., 127, it nevertheless becomes them to pass upon the bond tendered, and if approved, admit the elected or appointed applicant to his office, as early as practicable, and it rests in their discretion to allow or refuse further time under a just sense of their own official responsibilities, and its exercise cannot be corrected upon an appeal of the wronged party aggrieved by their action. In the present case, nearly a month had passed after the result of the vote had been ascertained and declared, during which the bond, with adequate security, could have been prepared and held in readiness for the meeting of the board, and yet that tendered falls so entirely short of the requirements of law, that its rejection was inavoidable, and the action of the commissioners foreseen. The verification of the two sureties was for the sum of 11,000 each, while the statute fixes the penalty at $5,000, and the sureties to justify in this aggregate amount.
The Code,
§§3648 and 1876.
So stringently is the obligation of seeing to the sufficiency of the bond, when accepted, enforced, that the commissioners knowing or believing it insufficient, assume the personal liabilities of a surety. §1879. Their good faith in refusing the bond tendered, is not impugned in the action; but their refusal to prolong the session for a short time, and to postpone the matter until another day, in view of the inclemency and extraordinary condition of the weather at the time, i& urged as an oppressive and uncalled for abuse of power,, which demands a correction from this Court.
While it would be, under the circumstances, a reasonable request to defer final action in the premises, and thus enable the relator to make further efforts to obtain additional security, his claim to such indulgence is not as strong as that' of one, expecting his bond to be received, and who finds it rejected. The relator must have known, and the face of the instrument indicates it, that his bond would not be satisfactory and could not be accepted without gross dereliction of
*366
•duty, and he is not free from blame in not coming prepared, •as the other persons elected were prepared, to comply with the conditions of the law, common alike to them all.
While it is not our province to pass upon the propriety of the course pursued in refusing all delay, the commissioners acted within the limits and according to the directions of the statute, in closing the labors of the session, of which the declaring a vacancy and filling it by the appointment of the ■defendant seem to have been among the last, in a single day.
The argument to support the appeal, proceeds upon the false idea that because the session
may
be prolonged beyond the day, it
must
be so prolonged, although all other business ■has been dispatched.
Nor can the contention be maintained, that the relator is -deprived wrongfully of an office to which he had been elected. Pie cannot take the office, and is not in it until admitted after compliance with the essential conditions required. He has a
right
to be inducted when he gives the bond satisfactory to the commissioners and takes the prescribed oath. Indeed he then is in the office, and can only be deprived of it by a due course of law. The action of the commissioners may have been unwise and hasty — seemingly harsh and unusual, but it was in conformity with the law, and cannot be reversed by any authority conferred upon this Court.
We therefore sustain the ruling and affirm the judgment in the Court below.
No error. Affirmed.