The Morristown gazette. [volume] (Morristown, Tenn.) 1867-1920, 1879-07-30
THE MORRISTOWN GAZETTE GAZETTE
WEDNESDAY, JULY 80, 1879.
Continued from first page.)

of the St&te and saving fabulous
amounts of money to our people IN
-the matter of transportation-eVen
in our country the sum of $27.OO
vaar It is a common error that
these bonds are held exclusively by
rich bankers aud corporations, on
Wall street. No matter where they
are held they are, all the same, the
inst debts of Tennessee, and she Is
this day enjoying the benefit of them
But the fact is that compared to the
whole amount, the number OF our
bonds held north of Baltimore is in
considerable. All the worldly
wealth of many good man IN your
own State, and many a widow aud
orDhan in this and other States, is
invested in these bonds, and beg
oarv awaits them all alike, if this
compromise, by which they give
AWAY half their debt, be rejected. 1t
is an error, also, to suppose that
these railroad bonds are the debt Of
the railroads and not the State. If
the litigation against certain roads
should terminate adversely to the
roads. the roads, 60 Instant, become
the creditors of the State, and the
State is still bound to the roads for
the whole amount they may be COM
pelled to pay the bondhelders, in
every case where the roads have dis
CHARGED their Indebtedness to the
State in substituted bonds. In the
LEGISLATION under which these bonds
were issued, the State became the
sole debtor, and reserved to itself
and to itself alone, statutory mort
gage on the roads, their rolling
stock, fixtures and properties of all
kinds for it's indemnity. The bonds
were issued to bearer and embedy
simply the obligation of the State to
pay them; and nowhere in the vast
body of legislation on the subject is
found a line or word that intimates
a lien or mortgage on the roads for
the benefit of any man or corpora
ton who should become the holders
of these bonds. Indeed, it is i'm
possible to tell from the face of any
of the bonds to what railroad com
pany it was originally issued. In
the original legislation the State re-
served the right to legislate in any
necessary manner for its own pros
lection, and this element inhsres in
the contract itself and is a part of
it, so that all persons who bought
the bonds took them with full notice
that the State reserved to itself a
lien which it might at its option re-
linquish to the railroads in any man.
ner deemed necessary to its own
protection. This reservation in the
original contract, it seems, would
put q finality on the question. The
idea that any bondholder Of this
class has lien upon the railroads
of this State to pay the debt which
the State alone owes, whether press
ed in good faith or held IN terrOrena
over the roads to secure, pro hac
Vice, their powerful aid in having !
the public debt adjusted, is in my
Judgment fallacy which the courts
will in due time explode. It cer-
tainly never entered the mind Of
any Legislature. or Governor, or
or Attorney General of this State,
whose official duties required the
most careful consideration of this
bond question in all its phases, that
any man or corporation held lien,
either equitable or legal, upon the
railroads of this State as the mere
holders of the bonds issued by the
State to its railroads. It is a con-
coded principle under the doctrines
Of equitable liens and subrogations
that when an obligation passed by
assignment all the securities for its
payment pass with it to the assignee.
But suppose the original mortgages
has in his contract stipulated the re.
of right to relipquish his
securities to the debtor-and he does
actually do so--then the lien of the
is forever gone-and upon
what principle can the assignee
evoke a lien? And this is the exact
status of this question. The rail-
'oad companies who have diseharg
ID the States lien in substituted 9
ponds, are forever acquitted of all :
to the State. and the !!
can look alone to the I
State, their sole debtor, from the be- t
inning to the end. But human +
Judgment is fallible, and if am mis-. n
AIKEN in this, the fact still confronts :
IS that, If the railroads who have I
discharged their Indebtedness to the
'tate, are again compelled to pay,
be State is bound in law aud morals
0 reimburse them. The people
hen have no great concern with this
mbroglio between the bondholders
nd the railroads. They have moth Il
,o 70 cav at the nolls but that we :,