Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/883

 GABRETT V. OITT OF HBUPHIS. 871 �lected in the state courts, I am unable to see why the cironit court of the United States, sitting in Tennessee, and hating jurisdiction, may not also eollect them or seize them as assets of an insolvent and dissolved corporation. I eannot perceive why they are not as truly assets of the city as are thç assess- mehts made by an insolvent mutual insurance company its assets. Nobody would deny that such assessments could be' seized by a court of equity, through the agency of its receiVer, and administered for the benefit of the creditors of the Com- pany. No difficulty wottld be found in the way of colleeting them, �Thus far I have considered the merits of the case as unaf^ fected by the legislation of the state heretôfore spoken ôf, except 80 far as that legislation repealed the charter of 'the city. That legislation was certàinly very eitraordinary and quite unpreoedented in the history of the country since the federal constitution was adopted. Whatever may have been its purpose, and however carefuUy that purpose may bave been disguised, if it can be sustained, its effect is to obstruot, if not totally destroy, ail the power of the creditors of the city to enforce payment of the debts due them. They are re- manded to the mare grace and favor of the legislature. If ever legislation impaired the obligation of contracts, this did. If it had been simply the repeal of the municipal charter, no one could bave called it in question. Undoubtedly the legis- lature of a state may amend or dissolve the organizatibn of a municipal corporation, so far as its governmental powcrs are concerned. But no legislature can so dissolve a corpora- tion, municipal or private, as to dôstroy or impair the obli- gation of any contracts the corporation may have made. Dillon on Mun. Corp. § 114; Von Hoffman v. The City of Quincy, 4 Wall. 535. Creditors of municipal corporations are as completely within the protection of the constitution as any other creditors. What is meant by "impairing the obligation of a eonti:act" is well defined. Embarrassments thrown by a statute in the way of enforcing payment of a debt, or a statutory substitution for the obligation and liabil- ity of the debtorof the will of some other person, though that ����