Page:A History of Banking in the United States.djvu/176

 The bank suspended operations for a few days.

An injunction was served on Harper while on his way to Columbus, and on Osborne before Harper arrived. The money was deposited with Currie, the State Treasurer.

Harper and Orr, one of his assistants, were arrested by the deputy marshal for a trespass with violence, in taking the tax, and bail was required of each of them to double the amount of the money they had taken. They were put in prison, where they lay, an application for habeas corpus having failed, until the following January, when they were released by the federal Circuit Court on the ground that the arrest was irregular.

In the meantime, November 22d, the United States District Judge granted an injunction against any disposition whatever being made of the money. Upon the meeting of the Legislature, Osborne made a report of the proceedings. He was under a subpoena to appear in January to answer in a petition for a return of the money, and an injunction.

January 5, 1820, application was made in the federal Circuit Court for an attachment against Osborne and Harper for contempt, in disobeying the injunction of the previous September; but after argument, the Court held the case, on account of the important constitutional questions involved, under advisement until the following September.

In September, a bill was prayed for to enjoin Currie, Sullivan, his successor in office, the Auditor, and his agents, from paying away the money or acting further under the law. This was granted. Currie in his answer stated that he received $98,000 from Harper (the latter having retained his fee); that he had held it separate and unused, and had delivered it to his successor. Sullivan, in his answer, stated that a committee of the House of Representatives had, in January, 1820, seized the moneys in the Treasury. The Court decreed that the identical notes and coins which had been taken from the Bank must be restored to it, and that interest on the specie part, $19,830, must be paid. A perpetual injunction was granted against the collection of any tax in future under the act of Ohio. By an arrangement between counsel, the attachment for contempt was dismissed at the cost of the defendants, and the action of trespass was continued, to be dismissed, at the defendant's cost, if the Supreme Court affirmed the decree.

Sullivan refused to obey the decree, and was imprisoned for contempt. On the third day of his imprisonment, the Court granted a writ of sequestration against all his property. The commissioners under it took from him the key of the Treasury, from which they took the $98,000 and brought it into Court, where it was delivered to the agents of the Bank. The defendants appealed, but it was agreed that the appeal should operate on the $2,000 yet wanting.

We now meet with utterances of the high State rights doctrine from Ohio. A committee of the Legislature made a long report, about January 1, 1821. They proposed acts of compromise with the Bank, and also of outlawry against it. A resolution which they proposed affirming the doctrine