Cases argued and decided in the Supreme Court of the State of Texas, during the Tyler term, 1877, and embracing the cases decided during the first part of the Galveston term, 1878. Volume 48. Page: 440

                                
440               Ex PARTE TOWLES.        [Tyler Term,
Opinion of the court.
is the superior, and as to it the other is the inferior court. The
superior revises and corrects, and sends back its corrected
judgments to the inferior to be executed. The transmission
of a case from such inferior to sucl superior court, in the
mode prescribed by law for correction of errors therein, is
properly an appeal. There is no such relation as this prescribed
in the Constitution, nor, as it is believed, contemplated
by it, between the Commissioner's Court and the District
Court, or any other court. The objects of its action and
mode of proceeding are more nearly legislative than judicial
in their character, and have no similarity to suits in law or
equity in courts of record. It is not made dependent in its
action upon the revision or supervision of any other court.
Should its action inflict a legal injury, by violating the laws
under which it acts, there may be a remedy found in some
of the other courts, but not in the way of altering, modifying,
correcting, or setting aside its judgment or determination,
which is peculiarly the province of an appeal. If the Legislature
can make a law to so change the constitutional relation
of the courts as to give an appeal in this case, why not
also in the levy of county taxes, the laying off of roads, provisions
for the indigent, and the like, and thereby transfer in
effect the whole jurisdiction of the Commissioner's Court to
the District Court of the county ? Such a thing could hardly
have been contemplated by the framers of the Constitution
in the distribution of the judicial powers of the State.
In addition to these objections to this act, as furnishing a
proper remedy for changing the county-seat of a county, there
is still another. The act of 1838 provided, that the chief
justice of the county should order an election, when, in his
opinion, he was applied to for that purpose by the necessary
number of inhabitants. (Pasehal's Dig., art. 1068.)
This was a very important delegation of authority, personal
in its character, as it was merely on his opinion, which could
not well be controverted, that the initiatory step was to be
taken for the removal of the county-seat. At a time when