The Morristown gazette. [volume] (Morristown, Tenn.) 1867-1920, 1879-10-01
COL. COLLAR ON SOME LEGAL
ASPECTS OF THE STATE
DERT
Chattanooga Times.


Col. A. s. Colyar, a good lawyer him
self and one who has given the State
debt question much and thorough study,
has just returned from a trip to New
York. While there he was urged by
representative holders of our State bonds
to become counsel in suits already be-
gun against the State, and others proba-
bly, contemplated. The offer of re-
tainer in these suits Col. Colyar declin-
ed, but he had full conferences with
all the lawyers who are of counsel for
the bondholders and with others who
have examined the questions involved,
both fromlegal and political standpoints.
The impressions and conclusions of
this old and shrewd lawyer and manager
have been given the Nashville american
in the form of an interview. We pre-
sent the material points without the
troublesome Intervention of converse
tional adjuncts. The New Hampshire
scheme for substituting the State for the
bondholder in suits in the United States
Courts against the State, Col Colyar
and the New York lawyers did not dis
cuss, in its legal or constitutional as
poets.
"The New York lawyers" says Col
Colyar, "agree. that the third section of
the funding act of 1878 was part of a
contract between the State and the
bondholders, and could not be repealed,
and that the act of 1875, repeating it af-
ter the funding was done, was void, and
it is still the duty of the Treasurer, IN
der the third section, to set apart suf-
ficiency of the revenue, as it comes in,
to pay the interest, and that under the
Osborn case and cases more recently de-
cided by the Supreme Court of the Uni
ted States, the Treasurer, without the
State being made party, can be com
PEELED to set apart the revenue as it
comes in. They assume that under this
third section, all the money going into
the treasury goes in charged with this
trust, and that the case, therefore, falls
directly under the Osborn case
"a question will also be raised, under
a case decided in 4th Wallace, as to
whether the forty ceRts tax, fixed by
statute at the time the funding took
place, did not become part of the CON
tract, and therefore the law reducing
the State tax to ten cents is a nudity;
and if so, whether, under the act of
1869, the Comptroller cannot be com
PEELED to collect the 40 cent tax"
He thinks this additional litigation is
serious, and that it will be commenced
soon:
81 have no doubt, " he says, that the
third section OF the Funding Act is still
in force, and this being so, every lawyer
will at once see our danger. And all
thinking men must now see our danger
from another quarter.
The danger from another quarter"
is set forth as follows:
6 The success of the Republican par
ty in California and Maine, and the
split of the Democratic party in New
York, are encouraging signs for the Re-
publican party. This party means to
sustain public credit at all hazards, and
in that they will be supported by a great
many Democrats
"The fourteenth amendment may be
enforced by appropriate legislation, and
if population by a State of a public
debt shall be regarded as depriving the
bondholders of property, we may ex-
pect legislation to compel such repu-
dating States to pay. Whoever thinks
we are not in imminent peril from this
quarter is looking out upon the political
horizon from a standpoint which GER
tainlY has not nv surroundings"