Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/880

 868 FEDERAL REPORTER. �which the city, during its corporate existence, had levied for the payment of interest on it3 debt, or for other purposes, and had not colleeted, and generally to ail the assets of the city of every charaeter, except such as I have heretofore mentioned, held for strictly public uses, such as public buildings, parks, fire apparatus, etc. These general assets, though not held specially in trust for any particular creditors, were held by the corporation, in a very just sense, for the benefit of its creditors. The corporation having ceased to exist, it was perfectly within the power of the circuit court, sitting as a court of equity, to seize ail its assets to which its creditors have an equitable or legal claim, and hold them for adminis- tration. Such assets cannot be appropriated to any other use until the creditors are satisfied. Even legislative action can- not divert them to other uses. These principles have been fuUy recognized, and particularly in the Code of Tennessee. Eeferring to dissolved corporations, that Code enacts, (section 3426:) "The court shall appoint a receiver, with fuU power to take possession of ail the debts and property, and sell and dispose of, collect and distribute, the same among the credit- ors and other persons interested, under the orders of the court." This statute is only an af&rmance of equitable rem- edies before acknowledged and found in text-books. Thus, in Potter on Corporations, §§ 714, 715, the rule is thus stated: " Whàtever technical difficulties exist in maintaining an action at law against a corporation after its charter bas been repealed, in the apprehension of a court of equity there is no difficulty in the creditor's foUowing the property of the corporation into the hands of one not a honafide crediter or purchaser, assert- ing bis lien thereon, and obtaining satisfaction of his debt." In Broughton v. Pensacola, 93 U. S. 268, the language of the court was: "The ancient doctrine that upon the repeal of a private corporation its debts were extinguished, and its real property reverted to its grantors, and its personal prop- erty vested in the state, bas been so far modified that a court of equity will now lay hold of the property of a dissolved cor- poration and administer it for the benefit of its creditors, and its contracts may be so far enforced by a court of equity as to ����