Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/684

 €72 FEDERAL REPORTKB. �time that the act of March 15, 1856, was passed, directing the secretary of state and the attorney general to classify the varions laws; and, in pursuance of that requirement, the secretary of state and the attorney general classified this law as a local act, thereby not putting it in the claas of general laws, as named in the constitution of the state. But prier to the decision of the case of The Town of Rochester v. Alfred Bank, 13 Wis. 483, the supreme court of the state had held that a case like this was a general law, and came within the terms of the constitution. State v. Leon, 9 Wis. 279 ; Clark V. Janesville, 10 Wis. 136. These decisions were followed in the case decided upon these bonds. If this were an opea question, I should think there was great force in the position originally taken by counsel in the Wisconsin cases, that a law like this could hardly be said to be a general law within the meaning of the constitution. It applied only to the towns of Burlington, Eochester, Waterford, Norway, in the eounty of Eacine, and the town of Muskego, in the county ol Waukesha. But, however this may be, the question is whether, under the case of Havermeyer v. lowa County, 3 Wall. 294, the plaintiff is foreclbsed by the decision of the supreme court of Wisconsin in the case reported in 13 Wis. 483. In the Havermeyer Case, the supreme court decided that, at the time these bonds were issued, the law, as held by the supreme court of Wisconsin, was not a general law, and so did not corne within the language of the constitution ; and that the principle deolared in the case of Gelpke v. City oj Dubuque, 1 WaU. 175, applied; and if these bonds consti- tuted a valid contract, as the law and constitution were then expounded by the supreme court of the state, that it did noi cease to be such because the highest court of the state had afterwards changed its ruling; and, I must confess, it seemf to me, if the case of Havermeyer v. lowa County was properly decided, and if it is binding on this court, as of course it is, it is conclusive of the question in this case, because every point in controversy there was the same as here. The cases which have already been referred to, in which the supreme court of Wisconsin decided that a law like this was a general ����