v. United States
| Citation | 26 L.Ed. 1220,105 U.S. 733 |
| Parties | v. UNITED STATES |
| Decision Date | 01 October 1881 |
| Court | United States Supreme Court |
ERROR to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Missouri.
The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.
Mr. Henry A. Cunningham for the plaintiff in error.
Mr. john H. Overall, contra.
Section 29 of the act to incorporate the St. Louis and Keokuk Railroad Company, approved Feb. 16, 1857, is as follows:——
Under this authority the County Court of Ralls County subscribed $200,000 to the stock of the company, and, during the years 1870 and 1871, issued bonds of the county to pay the subscription. Default having been made in the payment of coupons for interest attached to some of these bonds, Douglass brought suit against the county, in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Missouri, for their recovery, and, on the 16th of October, 1878, obtained judgment for $17,158.43. That judgment was affirmed in County of Ralls v. Douglass, supra, p. 728.
After the judgment was rendered in the Circuit Court, the present suit was begun by the United States, on his relation. to require the county court, by mandamus, to pay the amount due out of moneys in the treasury of the county; or, if that could not be done, to raise the necessary means by the levy of a special tax. In the return to the alternative writ many defences were set up which related to the validity of the coupons on which the judgment had been obtained, as obligations of the county. As to all these defences, it is sufficient to say it was conclusively settled by the judgment which lies at the foundation of the present suit, that the coupons were binding obligations of the county, duly created under the authority of the charter of the railroad company, and, as such, entitled to payment out of any fund that could lawfully be raised for that purpose. It has been in effect so decided by the Supreme Court of Missouri in State v. Rainey (74 Mo. 229), and the principle on which the decision rests is elementary.
The present suit is in the nature of an execution, and its object is to enforce the payment, in some way provided by law, of the judgment which has been recovered. The only defences that can be considered are those which may be presented in the proper course of judicial procedure against the collection of valid coupons, executed under the authority of law and reduced to judgment. While the coupons are merged in the judgment, they carried with them into the judgment all the remedies which in law formed a part of their contract obligations, and these remedies may still be enforced in all appropriate ways, notwithstanding the change in the form of the debt.
This brings us to consider what may be done to enforce the judgment. The county court insists that its power of taxation is limited to the levy of an annual tax of one-half of one per cent on the taxable property in the county, and that as this tx has always been levied at the times provided by law, the duty of the court in the premises has been fully performed. The relator, on the contrary, claims that the limit of one-half of one per cent only applies to taxes to defray the general expenses of the county, and that if the fund produced in this way is not sufficient to enable the county to pay his judgment, an additional tax must be levied and collected specifically for that purpose. This presents the real controversy we have to settle.
When the charter of the St. Louis and Keokuk Railroad Company was granted, when the subscription was made to its stock by the county court, and when the bonds to pay the subscription were put out, there were were limitations on the powers of the county court for the levy of taxes to defray the expenses of the county which confined the tax for a year to one-half of one per cent or less. The question we have to consider is not whether this power has been reduced below that limit, but whether the limit is applicable to the obligation of the county created under the authority of the particular charter now in question.
It must be considered as settled in this court, that when authority is granted by the legislative branch of the government to a municipality, or a subdivision of a State, to contract an extraordinary debt by the issue of negotiable securities, the power to levy taxes sufficient to meet, at maturity, the obligation to be incurred, is conclusively implied, unless the law which confers the authority, or some general law in force at the time, clearly manifests a contrary legislative intention. The power to tax is necessarily an ingredient of such a power to contract, as, ordinarily, political bodies can only meet their pecuniary obligations through the instrumentality of taxation. This general doctrine has been so many times announced, that it cannot be necessary now to do more than refer to Loan Association v. Topeka (20 Wall. 655), where the opinion was given by Mr. Justice Miller, and United States v. New Orleans (98 U. S. 381), in which Mr. Justice Field, speaking for the entire court, went elaborately over the whole subject. In United States v. County of Macon (99 id. 582), there was a special limitation on the...
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