Court Opinion

ID: 9301053
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-12-02 17:07:27.45683+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:13:41.231247
License: Public Domain

GRIER, Circuit Justice.
If the right of a municipal corporation to subscribe, even when authorized by the legislature, to purposes so alien to its general purpose as the construction of works of improvement which, in their largest part, are in distant counties and in other states, were open to me for consideration as a new point, I cannot say that I should hold such subscription other than simply void. The strongest arguments at law have been made against such subscriptions, and they are worth recurring to as containing true and lawyer-like views of the extent and character of municipal powers. But the matter is not open in this court The legislature of Pennsylvania has authorized counties to make such subscriptions, and the supreme court of the state has decided (though by a bare majority) that the act is constitutional. The views of that court upon the statutes of their own state bind this court.
In spite, then, of all the resistance by the county to paying these bonds, here are the bonds, upon which the county “promises to pay.” The county said to the railroad companies, “We want to help you: we have not the money, but we will lend you our credit: our promise to pay.” That promise is, or should be, sacred. Doubtless many improper things have been done. The whole business of making cities and counties subscribe to railways was unwise. This will be admitted now; though the counsels of the able and conservative men who took ground against it was not heeded when given. Mercantile and popular clamor demanded “subscription.” Traders, politicians, and all kinds of interested jobbers urged and drove the matter, while commissioners, grand jurors and legislators have been led in the train. It is to be lamented that such things should be done; but they have been done. If the electors of our cities choose to hand over the great concerns of our public offices to ignorant and unprincipled administrators, they must suffer for it. They must themselves bear the burdens which they put it in the power of knaves to pile upon them. Whatsoever a man soweth, that he shall reap; and when he sows the wind, he is apt to reap the whirlwind.
The objections urged against the plaintiff’s claim would have force, if the question were between the county and the railway companies. But it is not. It is between .an innocent holder for value of a bond payable to bearer, and the party who sent it out into the market (or handed it over to others to do so) where it has been sold in the course of trade. It is useless to bring forward here, as against the business operations of this day, abstract dogmas out of Blackstone and the Institutes of Coke. Such instruments as these are were never dreamed of in their day. The laws of trade suggest and govern these matters. As I said in the beginning: “Here is the bond. Here is the fact.” Your promise to pay is put upon the market. You gave it this negotiable and coupon form for the purpose of facilitating sale, and preventing all questions of equity about it. And now, when the promise has been put on the market, and sold to an innocent holder, you set up these equities. That won’t do. Why did you issue your bonds, if you meant that the holder should look to the railways? Why did you not leave the railways to issue their own? For this reason only, that you knew that capitalists would trust you and would not trust them. I esteem the bold, and hardy, and industrious people of this county. I feel for them, with this load of debt put upon them by the careless and unworthy persons whom they have elected into office. But they have allowed the bonds to be issued and sold, and they must pay them.
Judgment for plaintiff.