Section 67. The property of a municipal corporation owned and used for public purposes is not subject to seizure under judicial process.11

9 Adams vs. Memphis, etc., R. Co.,

2 Coldw. (Tenn.), 645.

10 Choquette vs. Barada, 33 Mo.

249; Dillon Mun. Corp. (4th Ed.), Par. 581. "Thus where a resolution of the city council directed the mayor to execute a deed to the legal representatives of L. and he made the conveyance to C. without stating that C. was the legal representative of L., but the deed recited that it was made under a compromise sale, in pursuance of the resolution of the city council, naming the date when the resolution was approved, it was held that the deed must be considered prima facie evidence of title." Jamison vs. Fopiana, 43 Mo., 565. 11 "This is so, because municipal corporations, being the local agencies of the government creating them, and their powers being such as belong to sovereignty, their property and revenues necessary for the exercise of these powers become a part of the machinery of government, and to permit a creditor to seize and sell them to collect his debt would be to permit him in some degree to destroy the government itself." See Am. and Eng. Ency. of Law, Vol. 15, page 1070 and cases cited.

The private property of a municipal corporation, however, which is owned for profit, and charged with no public trust or uses, may be levied on and sold to satisfy a judgment against it.12

In other jurisdictions, either by statute or on general principles, it is held that judgments against municipal corporations cannot be enforced by ordinary writs of execution, and that the only remedy of the creditor is by mandamus to compel payment, or the levy of a tax for that purpose. In the case of City of Chicago vs. Hasley, 25 III., 489, the court said: "It is true, by the charter of the city it can sue and be sued, but it is not an inference, that if sued and a judgment passes against it, an ordinary writ of fieri facias can issue, under which its corporate property can be seized and sold. Nor is there any necessity for such writ. On a debt being ascertained by judgment against the city, and a refusal to pay it, a mandamus can issue to compel payment or to compel a levy of taxes sufficient to discharge the judgment. This is the only legal way in which judgment can or ought to be enforced."

The reasoning in this case appears very clear and cogent. Municipal corporations are both public and political bodies. They are the embodiment of so much political power, as may be adjudged necessary, by the legislature granting the charter, for the proper government of the people within the limits of the city incorporated, and for the due and efficient administration of their local affairs. For these purposes, the authorities can raise revenue by taxation, make public improvements, and defray the expenses thereof by taxation, and act generally within their limited spheres and restrained only by the charters creating them.

12 New Orleans vs. Morris, 3 Wood (U. S.), 103.

This power of taxation is plenary, and furnishes, ordinarily, the only means such corporations possess, by which to pay their debts. They cannot be said to possess property liable to execution, in the sense an individual owns property so subject, for they have the control of the corporate property only for corporate purposes, and to be used and disposed of to promote such purposes, and such only. Levying on and selling such property, and removing it, would work the most serious injury in any city.13