Section 49. According to the weight of authority the legislature of a State cannot control the action of municipal corporations by compulsory legislation in respect to their property rights and exclusively local affairs and concerns. In People vs. Hurlburt, 24 Mich., 44, Judge Cooley said: "These municipal corporations are of two-fold character; the one public as regards the State at large, in so far as they are its agents in government, the other private in so far as they are to provide the local necessities and conveniences for their own citizens * * * As to the acquisitions they may make in their latter capacity as mere corporations, it is neither just nor is it competent for the legislature to take away or to deprive the local community of the benefit thereof * * * Conceding to the State the authority to shape the municipal organizations at its will, it would follow that a similar power of control might be exercised by the State as regards the property which the corporation has acquired, or the rights in the nature of property which have been conferred upon it. There are cases which assert such power, but they are opposed to what seem to me the best authorities, as well as the soundest reason. The municipality, as an agent of the government, is one thing; the corporation, as an owner of property, is in some particulars to be regarded in a very different light."

1 "The supremacy of the legislative authority over municipal corporations is not, however, in all respects, unlimited; but the limitations must be sought either in the National or State constitution; and if not there found, in terms or by fair implication, they do not exist." Dillon, Mun. Corp. (3d ed.), Par. 65.

2 Public or municipal corporations are established for the local government of towns or particular districts. The special powers conferred on them are not vested rights as aganist the state, but being wholly political exist only during the will of the general legislature, otherwise there would be numberless petty governments existing within the state forming a part of it but independent of the control of the sovereign power. Such powers may at any time be repealed or abrogated by the legislature, either by general law operating upon the whole state, or by special act altering the powers of the corporation. Sloan vs. State, 8 Blackf. (Ind.), 361.