receivership dissolved. The motion came up for hearing before Judge Edwin H. East, the successor of Chancellor Shackelford. Judge East had been the private secretary of President Johnson, and had taken a leading part in the reorganization of the State.
In arguing against the motion to dissolve, Col. Colyar took the ground that a municipal corporation was not a political body, but simply a business corporation whose officers were amenable to the courts for the proper discharge of their functions. Judge East concurred in this view, and upheld the receivership. In his opinion, he used the following language: "The functions of a municipality are twofold: first, political, discretionary, legislative; secondly, ministerial. While acting within the sphere of the former, they are exempt from liability inasmuch as the corporation is a part of the government, to that extent, and its officers are to the same extent public officers, and as such entitled to the protection of this principle; but within the sphere of the latter (ministerial duties), they drop the badge of governmental officers, and become, as it were, the representatives of a private corporation in the exercise of private functions. The distinction between these legislative powers which it holds for public purposes as a part of the government of the country, and those public franchises which belong to it as creation of law, is well taken."
The receivership was of short duration. In August the regular city election occurred. Mr. Morris, a wealthy citizen, was elected mayor. Immediately after the election, the affairs of the city were again placed in the hands of its ordinary officials.
Several years after the occurrence of these extraordinary proceedings, Col. Colyar, in a speech delivered at Buffalo, N. Y., explained the legal theory on which he placed the application for the receivership. "I took the ground," he said, "that, while in England, cities were in a sense political,
