New-York tribune., 1874-02-14

Congress to provide for bringing s certain suits
in which the corporation has interest in the name
of the United States Of officer of the Govern
ment Even if the United States have no legal IN
erest or in the restoration Of the scattered
capital to the treasury of the road and its future
application TO the purposes of the grant, they may
provide that all future suits all suits OF spechc
character shall be brought in behalf OF the corpora
tion by the United States as a next friend.
The second objection, though specious. disappears
on careful consideration. 1t is undoubtedly true
that citizen can be deprived OF ms property py
special legislation or by special process of law which
is not applicable TO all like cases or to all his fellow
citizens under the same circumstances; but 1t Is
equally true that in providing judicial process Con-
eTess or State Legislatures may properly provide
speca process for classes of persons corporations
Congress may lawfully provide special process ior
winding up the affairs of insOlvent National banks,
and exempt them from the provisions OF the geheri
Bankrupt law; may say that National DanAs Ialiihg
to meet their obligations shall be wound up py
process in eouitv TO he instituted by the Attorney
General or by the Controller of the Currency; and
NAV provide that In such cases all persons creditors
or debtors of the bank shall be summoned in at one
! time and at one place, and the whole process OF
houidation be completed by single suit. 80 therc
are certain single corporations which properly con-
|
of which, or for the protection of the public against
which special process may be lawfully and consti-
tutionally prescribed
IL is no violation of Magma Charta to provide spe-
cial penalties for the counterfeiting of Bank OF
\ ENGLAND notes. The Bank of the United States,
| where the moneys of the Government were depos-
! ited which was chartered by the Government
which had its branches all over the country, when
furnished national currency to tho people, which
had vast and intimate relations to the business OF
the whole country, certainly constituted class by
| itself 1t would have been violation of the Con-
stituton to provide special process for the lquda-
ton Of the affairs of the Bank of the United States
| to which ordinary individuals or ordinary cor
| pOrations were not subject 80 IL the direct
| ors or stockholders Of the Bank ol the
| United States had fraudulently or uniaw-
fully withdrawn its capital or scattered
or divided it among themselves, the Government,
| believing that the stOppage or bankruptcy of that
great institution would be irrepaTable national
| calamity, might have provided a special process
which should compel the restoration of that capital
and compel the bank to proceed in the discharge OF
the great public functions for which it was created
Suppose by such legislation every debtor OF the
bank whose liability resulted from his fraudulent
reception Of share in such capital had been re-
qured TO appear to answer process brought IN
district selected by the AttOrney-General. Such
debtor could not properly have defended himself by
suggesting that such law as we have supposed
was special law, to which other citizens of the
| United States not subject. The case would
have been sal generiS-a class by itself.
SO the Union Pacific Railroad "a corporation
chartered by the Government, endowed by the Gov
ernment designed to perform the great public func-
ton of connecting the railroad systems of the At
lantic and Pacific coasts declared by its act of in
corporation to be created for the purpose of " pro
noting the public interest and welfare by the con-
struction of said railroad and telegraph line and
keeping the same in working order, and to TO
the Government at all times, but especially i'll time
of war; the use and benefit of the same for postal,
military, and other purposes in the government OF
which the United States reserves large share i'll the
annual profits of which the United States has an
| interest like that of a partner, and to the whole
! property of which, in certain contingency, the
people of the United States are to succeeds the inter
ruptOn Of whose business, or the subsection OF
whose business to private interests, would be ca
lamty to the whole people-certainly constitutes a
class by itself quite as much did the old Bank of
| the United States.
The object of the pending suit is not to settle
individual questions of creditor and debtor arising
in the ordinary course of the business of the rail-
road it is restore to the treasury of the road the
| endowment which the United States bestowed upon
it, and to compel the performance of the obligation
resting upon individual stockholders to pay in the
capital stock in full in cash, without which they
have no title to take any share whatever in the man.
| agement of the concern. 1t may be that Congress
| was mistaken in the opinions above expressed, on
| the sOundness of which rests the validity OF the
| legislation Of last year. No intelligent lawyer will
deny that the questions above stated are questions
| e 4ba cha hat
| was wise which removed their discussion from the
newspapers and from political bodies to the judicial
tribunals Of the country, which alone competent
to decide tbem and with whom all rights, both OF
| individuals and the Government are presumed to
be safe.
The opinion Of Mr. Justice Hunt, il would be
hardly becoming here to discuss. Whether it ex-
presses his own convictions or whether he resorted
to his Judgment sustaining the demurrer as the most
convenient mode of presenting the questions
promptly to the Supreme Court of the United States,
does not appear. He does not seem TO have an
swered OF indeed to have considered the grounds
and reasons above stated but has contented himself
with the restatement of well-setted and familiar
principles of constitutional law which no respect
able lawyer in the country questioned and the
application of which to the complicated case before
him he seems without consideration or examination
to have taken for granted The people of the United
States will await patiently and with confidence the
| Judgment of their highest tribunal. The entire
country awaits with great anxiety the determina-
ton of the question whether the Government is dis
posed to demand and the Court able to afford a
remedy adequate to protect the public from frauds
| like those charged upon these corporations.
| HQshiagton, Jan. 90 1873. LEX.
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| c1r .xsrDu