The Midnight Death of Seattle’s Charter

In deciding the case of the City of Seattle vs. H. L. Yesler, involving the validity of the assessment of property damaged by the Front Street grade, Judge Lewis took it upon himself to pronounce the act incorporating our city null and void. This opinion is based upon a strained interpretation of the wording of Section 1,839 of the U.S. Revised Statutes—a law having reference to private corporations and having for its object to deny to the Territorial Legislature any power to create private corporations or confer upon individuals any special privileges or immunities which would result in injustice or robbery upon the people. In so doing, he has not only perverted the plain meaning, but also the very language of the Statutes. The case in a nutshell is that the Act of the legislature incorporating this city was not a private charter within the purview of the U.S. statute, and hence it is not invalidated by that statute. Aggregations of several thousand people in one place must have some kind of a municipal organization. The city’s complex organization requires a system of its own, and in the case of institutions that have grown and developed, and where the property and security of our people are involved, it will require very expansive law—law that is founded in reason and common sense to effect the overthrow of the city’s life, and replace existing order by gratuitous anarchy.