Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/274

 262 FSDEBAL BEPOBTEB. �doctnae on that subject. The governor is endeavoring now to enf orce the payment of a sum which is aseertained and well known. It is the last past-due instalment of interest, which amounts to $90,000, I suppose. There is no difficulty about it. If you want to pay it, well and good; if you do not, the governor bas a right to sell. Wbat will happen after the sale it will be time enough to consider then. You can prevent it. If you wantj'our road, go and pay this $90,000, — that is, by saving the state from the obligation of paying it ; or, if the state bas paid it, by repaying it to her; and when that is done, if this particular proceeding is not stopped by the governor, we will stop it. But I have no idea that there will be any occasion for a resort to that. The governor will never want to do any more than make you pay this interest as it accrues, and save the state harraless. �Perhaps I ought to stop there, because that decides the motion before us, and I may not be bere if the case ever cornes up on any- thing else. But I think it not inappropriate to make a remark or two further, with a view of seeing if the state and the complainants can not be brought together in such a manner as to prevent a great and unneeessary loss — a loss which might be prevented if each party would do what there is some moral obligation to do; and in some respects, I will say, what there may be a legal obligation to do. I am of opinion that the decision of the supreme court of the state does not preclude us from holding the act of 1865 valid, in the view that we take of it, whatever it might be if it was construed as complain- ants say it should be. I am of opinion, therefore, that the act of 1865 is a subsisting, valid act, and a rule of moral and legal obligation for the state and for these parties complainant. I am also of the opinion that the state having accepted, or got this money into her possession, is under a moral obligation (and I do not pretend to commit anybody as to how far its legal obligation goes) to so use that money as, so far as possible, to protect the parties who have paidit against the loss of the interest which it might accumulate, and which would go to extin- guish the interest on the state's obligations. I am of opinion, also, that it is the duty of these gentlemen, if they further seek to get the benefit of this statutory lien, to indemnify the state absolutely against any loss that may accrue on account of the unpaid interest on these three millions of bonds. �I do not know that I ought to say anything about the particular manner in which that should be done. I think I am quite safe in saying that if they will go and purchase up and get eut off of any 6 per cent, bonds of the state of Missouri as many coupons as will ��� �