# Leeper v. State > Tennessee Supreme Court · November 15, 1899 · 48 L.R.A. 167 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/8299524 ## Case - **Full name:** Leeper v. State - **Court:** Tennessee Supreme Court - **Decided:** November 15, 1899 - **Citations:** 48 L.R.A. 167; 103 Tenn. 500 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Opinion of the court by Wieues - **Judges:** Wieues - **Cited by:** 46 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases. - Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/8299524 ## Opinion text Wieues, execute them. Tbe object of tbe criminal- laws is by punishment to deter others from the commission of crime, and thus preserve the peace, morals, good order, and. well-being of society, and the object of the public school system is to prevent crime by educating the people, and thus, by providing and securing a higher state of intelligence and morals, conserve the peace, good order and well-being of society. > The prevention of crime and preservation of good order and peace is the highest exercise of the police power of the State, whether done by punishing offenders or educating the children. What is ■ the scope and meaning of the term “police power" has never been defined. The Supreme Court of the United States has expressly declined to define its limits. Stone v. Mississippi, 101 U. S., 814 . In Mayor of New York v. Miln, 11 Pet. (U. S.), 139, it is said: “It embraces every law which concerns the welfare of the whole people of the State or any individual within it, whether it relates to their rights or duties, whether it respects, them as' men or citizens of the State, whether in their public or private relations, whether it relates to tbe rights of persons or property of thu whole people of tbe State, or of any individual *532 within it and upon the persons, and things within it.” In Hannibal R. R. Co. v. Husen, 95 U. S., 465 , it is said:. “The police power of á State extends to the protection of the lives, limbs, health, comfort, and quiet of all persons, and to the protection of all property within the State, and hence to the making of all regulations pro-motive of domestic order, morals, health, and safety.” In Smith v. The State, 16 Pickle, 505 , it is said, in substance, that it extends to all questions of health, morals, safety, order, comfort, 'and well-being of the public, and that this enumeration does not make the list complete. Similar language has but recently been used in the case of Harbison v. The Knoxville Iron Co., and this is no new doctrine, either in this. State or in the United States. In Bancroft v. Mayer, 5 Sawyer (U. S.), 502, it has been held that a State may provide by legislation that a designated person shall have the exclusive privilege of . furnishing all the text-books needed for use of the public schools, and the Court said: “To authorize and provide that, by means of contract or legislative grant, a particular person shall have the exclusive right to do or furnish a particular thing upon certain conditions for the use and convenience of the public, has *533 always been a common mode of exercising the police powers o.f the State.” This question of providing a uniform series of text-books and prescribing the manner in which it may • be done, and the procuring, of such books and their distribution, as here done, is not a new one in the United States. It appears that more than twenty States have preceded Tennessee in passing uniform text-book laws. It is said that in some of them it has not resulted favorably, and the system has met with disfavor. How this is, is a matter which addresses itself to the Legislature and not to the Court. With the wisdom and policy of the law we have nothing to do. In some of the States the validity and Constitutionality ' of the Acts have been called in question, and the material provisions of the law have been sustained. The subject is elaborately considered in the case of State v. Haworth, 122 Ind., 462 (S. C., 7 L. R. A., 240), where the constitutionality of an Act very similar to the one now under consideration was involved, and 'the arguments against it were much the same as are now made. The Court very elaborately considered the provisions of the Act and the objections raised, and sustained the Act, citing many authorities in accord, and among them: Cooley’s Constitutional Limitations, 5th Edition, 225, note 1; Curryer v. Merrill, 25 Minn., 1 (S. C., 33 Am. Rep., 450 ); State v. *534 Board of Education, 18 Nevada, 1173; People v. Board of Education, 55 Cal., 33 1; People v. Board of Education, 49 Cal., 684 . See also Baltimore School Coms. v. State Board, 26 Md., 505 ; State v. Blue, 122 Ind., 600 ; State v. Springfield Directors, 74 Mo., 21 ; State v. Webber, 108 Ind., 31 ; 58 Am. Rep., 30 ; Lake View School Trustees v. People, 87 Ill., 303; Jones v. Board of Education, 88 Mich., 371 ; Effingham v. Hamilton, 68 Miss., 523 . The reasoning of the Court in the principal case of State v. Haworth is so satisfactory and conclusive that we cannot, perhaps, do better than give a synopsis of it. It was held that such an Act does not infringe in the slightest degree upon the right of local self-government; that essentially and intrinsically the schools in which are educated and trained children who are to become rulers of the Commonwealth are matters of State, and not local, jurisdiction; that in ' such matters the State is a unit, and the Legislature the source of power; that the establishment and control of public schools is a function of the General Assembly, both under the Constitution and because it is a matter of State concern. Being a matter of legislative control, the Legislature may abandon one plan and try another if it see proper, and the Court cannot interfere. It is further pertinently said that it is impossible to conceive of the existence of a uniform system of public schools *535 without power lodged somewhere to make it uniform, and, in the absence of express constitutional provisions, that power must necessarily reside in the Legislature, and hence it has the power to prescribe the course of study as well, as the books to be used, and how they shall be obtained and distributed, and its discretion as to methods cannot be controlled by the Courts; that such an Act does not provide a benefit for book dealers, but its purpose is to secure such benefits for the public, and such benefits as may arise to any individual are merely incidental; that such statute is not within the constitutional provisions directed against monopolies, but that the purpose of the Act is to secure books for the public schools by means of open competition after full notice; no special privilege is granted, none denied; all are invited to. enter the field. • The Court says: ° “We can find neither reason nor authority that suggests a doubt as to the power of the Legislature to require a designated series of books to be used in the schools, and to require that the books selected shall be obtained from the person to whom the contract for supplying them may be awarded. It is to be remembered that the statute does not command that every person shall buy the books; it confines the requirement to those who receive the benefit of the public schools. These schools are owned and maintained by the State, and the State may pre *536 scribe the terms and conditions upon which pupils may enter them, except that it cannot disregard the constitutional injunction, ‘tuition shall be without charge and equally open to all.5 It may, as we ' have seen,, prescribe the course of study that shall be pursued, and the system of instruction that shall be adopted, and to perfect and complete its control it must have the power to prescribe the books that shall be used and' the mode in which, the books shall be obtained; the Legislature simply commands that those who enjoy the benefits of the schools which it maintains shall secure such boobs as it deems best and in the mode it regards as expedient. Power thus asserted is exercised in a matter which is not of common right, but which concerns institutions founded and fostered by the State. The regulation, in its entire scope, relates exclusively to the enjoyment of the privilege afforded by a áystem of education created and maintained by the State for the general good, and it must- follow that the State does have power to make the regulations effective by prescribing the method which' shall be pursued by those who seek to enjoy the privilege it has created. Certainly no one will deny the existence of such a right, and if it does exist it must reside in the lawmaking power ■ of the State. “The regulation of the. mode of receiving books by the pupils of the common schools is not analogous to a regulation of general property rights, *537 for books are peculiar to schools, and schools are the property of the State. It is no answer to this argument to affirm that the State may not give one person the exclusive privilege of selling fuel, clothing, or the like to a community, for schoolbooks are unlike such property in their chief characteristics, and the Legislature does not assume to declare , that any person may- not sell books to a community; it simply assumes the power of declaring that the person whom the State Board of Education decides is the lowest bidder shall have the exclusive privilege of supplying its schools with books. In doing this it does no more respecting schools than a private citizen dees who contracts with another to furnish him goods for a designated period, nor does it do more regarding schools than it does with respect to all public institutions whose officers are authorized to give the exclusive privilege of furnishing groceries, medicines, or other articles to the person to whom a contract covering • a designated period is awarded, for the State owns and maintains its schools just as much as it does its public institutions of every kind. Eor the reasons stated wo are of opinion the Act is valid ánd constitutional, and there is no error in the judgment of the Court below, and it •is affirmed, with costs. --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/8299524. Public record. Not legal advice.