Section 14. Many of our State constitutions contain a provision that the legislature shall not abolish, divide, consolidate, or annex territory to counties or change their boundaries without submitting the proposed act to the voters of the territory to be affected for their approval. The III. Const.,

6 See 11 Cyc, page 349, and numerous decisions cited. "Counties are public corporations, and can be changed, modified, enlarged, restrained, or repealed, to suit the ever varying exigencies of the State - they are completely under legislative control. Coles vs. The County of Madison, 1 III., 154.

7 Woods vs. Henry, 55 Mo., 560. Under the III. Const, of 1848, it is provided, that no new county shall be formed by the general assembly, which will reduce the county or counties from which it shall be taken to less than four hundred square miles, nor shall any county be formed of less contents, nor shall any line thereof pass within less than ten miles of any county seat of the county or counties proposed to be divided. People ex. rel. Stephenson vs. Marshall, judge of Twelfth Judicial Circuit, 12 III., 391.

1870, under Article X, contains the following provisions: "Section 2. No county shall be divided, or have any part stricken therefrom, without submitting the question to a vote of the people of the county, nor unless a majority of all the legal voters of the county, voting on the question, shall vote for the same."

"Section 3. There shall be no territory stricken from any county, unless a majority of the voters living in such territory shall petition for such division; and no territory shall be added to any county without the consent of the majority of the voters of the county to which it is proposed to be added." 8