(after stating the facts). We do not lay any stress upon the omission, to designate the schools to which the money collected from colored tax-payers as “graded,” as is done in directing the application of the money derived from white tax-payers, but it is quite manifest that the statute means to furnish the increased educational facilities, resulting from the local assessment to the children of both classes resident in that town, and to confine the benefits to them. The departure from this requirement in the distribution of the taxes drawn from colored persons, is, in our opinion, at variance with the language and intent of the enactment. Moreover, the sanction of the voters, on which its efficacy depended, was given to the Act in the form in which it came from the hands of the law-making power, and not as it was interpreted and acted on by those who are charged with the disbursement of the fund.
*804The Judge ruled that the third section of the Act, so far as it discriminates between the l’aces in the apportionment of the fund, was repugnant to the constitution, and that.it was not allowable to use it for any other than graded schools in Durham. But he declared that there was no irregularity or illegality in the mode of levying and collecting the tax, and refused to issue a restraining order to this effect. The ruling as to the discriminative features-of the Act, is fully sustained by the decision of this Court in Puett v. Commissioners, reported at the present Term, and we do-not propose to re-enter upon the discussion of the same matter in the present opinion. If the only purposes for which the taxes are to be levied and used, are condemned by the paramount law of the Constitution, and they cannot, wh en collected, be expended as the statute directs, why should they be raised at all? The moneys thus obtained, are but the means by which some supposed or real useful end is to be obtained; and if the proposed expenditure is forbidden; so must be the provision for raising the money to be thus used. The one is an inseparable incident of the other, and an essential and controlling element in. the enactment. It matters not however regular and free from-objection may be the prescribed method of levying the taxes, if,, when collected, those paid by one race are to be separated and applied exclusively to the schools in which the childi’en of that race are taught, the same discrimination in the disposition of the fund is made, as if the taxes had been raised by separate and distinct assessments upon the races. It is true, as was ruled by the Judge, the present assessment is uniform, and not obnoxious to one of the objections considered in the case referred to, but the essential objection remains, that there is “ a discrimination in favor of, or to the prejudice of” one of the races. Const. Art. 9, §2, which renders the enforcement of the tax for such purposes illegal.
The Judge held, that while the moneys could not be used in the manner pointed out and commanded in the statute, they could nevertheless be collected, acting upon the proposition, that while *805some provisions of an enactment might be void, others might remain and be enforced. The proposition is correct to a limited ■extent, as decided in numerous cases: Berry v. Haines, 2 Car. L. Rep., 428 ; McCubbins v. Barringer, Phill. L., 554; Johnson v. Winslow, 63 N. C., 552.
But it is otherwise when the parts of the statute are so interlaced and dependent one on the other, as uniting and constituting the whole, necessarily conducive to one and the same object, so that the dislocation of the illegal part would so affect its operation, as that the act would fail of its essential object, and could not be supposed, in its mutilated form, to effect the end intended by the enacting power. When such relations exist among the parts, as that they make one consistent whole, and each material-to the efficacy of the statute in subserving its general object, it must stand as a unity, or fail altogether.
Judge Cooley states the proposition to be, that the unconstitutional do not affect the constitutional parts of a statute, “unless all the provisions are connected in' the subject matter, depending on ■each other, operating together for the same purpose, or otherwise •so connected together in meaning, that it cannot be presumed that the Legislature would have passed the one without the ■other.” Const. Lim., 178, 215, with cases cited in notes 2 and 3.
Such is clearly the relation to each other of the several sections which constitute this enactment. The money is raised for ■a specific object — the maintenance of one ov more graded schools within the limits of the town — and it comes, in addition to other public burdens, from the resident tax-payers and taxable property therein. The great bulk of it is appropriated to a graded school for white children, the residue to such a school for colored children. The fund is divided by race distinctions, depending on the source from which the moneys are derived. This, as the ■Judge decides, is forbidden by the constitution, and as the object in view cannot be accomplished by using the funds as directed, ■or for any other purpose under the statutory requirements, it *806clearly ought not to be taken from the tax-payers at all, because this is but a means of effecting an illegal end. We do not advert to the actual misappropriation of the tax from the colored persons to county school districts, since this is the wrongful act of agents employed in disbursing it, and may be corrected without impairing the force of the enactment. But the statute itself directs an illegal and unauthorized disposition of the fund, and and this the popular vote approves, and therefore the restraining order ought to have issued upon the facts shown. In this refusal there is error. Let this be certified to the Court below.
Error. - . Reversed.