This being the case disclosed by the record, we proceed in our examination of such matters involved in the certified questions as are presented with sufficient distinctness to require notice at our hands.
The county insists that the bonds in question were issued in violation of the 14th section of article 2 of the Constitution of the state, which is in these words: 'No law shall be passed to raise money on the credit of the state, or to pledge the faith of the state, directly or indirectly, for the payment of any debt, or to impose any tax upon the people of the state, or allow the counties, cities, or towns to do so, unless the bill for the purpose shall have been read three several times in each house of the general assembly, and passed three several readings, which readings shall have been on three different days, and agreed to be each house respectively, and unless the yeas and nays on the second and third readings of the bill shall have been entered on the journal.'
In support of the above proposition, reliance is placed upon the cases named in the first of the certified questions.
We are asked whether the circuit court was bound to follow those decisions when considered in connection with prior decisions of the supreme court of North Carolina and with the above and other provisions of the state Constitution, by one of which it is declared that 'each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings, which shall be printed and made public immediately after the adjournment of the general assembly.' Art. 2, § 16.
Premising that the journals of the two houses were put in evidence, and that it did not appear therefrom that the yeas and nays, on the second and third readings of the acts of 1868, 1879, and 1881, respectively, were entered on the legislative journals, let us inquire as to the scope of the decisions in the above cases.