Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 7.djvu/173

 FABMERS* & MEOHANieS* :,BANK f. HOAGLAND. 161 �the usurious interest paid to the bank ? That lie cannot do so is settled by the case of Bamet v, Thfi Natmttfl Bank, 98 U.,S. 655, -which decides that interest in excess of the legial rate, received by a national bank, although taken in the renewals of a series of bills, cannot be applied by way of set-off or payment in a suit upon the last of the series ; the only remedy open to the party aggrieved being the penal suit given by the statute. �2. Can the plaintiflf recover the interest charged at the earlier renewals at rates in exeess of the legal rate, and in- cluded as part of the principal in. the notes in suit? We are clearly of the opinion that he can recover no portion of such interest. By the tenns of the act of congress the charging of such rates of interest worked a forfeiture of the entire in- terest which the several notes carry with them. Nqw such forfeiture was not waived by the giving of the subsequent notes, although as respects them the agreed rate of interest was a legal rate. They were mere renewals, and given with- out any new consideration. Nor did the ne:w notes operate as payment of the debts for which they were given. Peter v. Beverly, 10 Pet. 533; The Kimball, 3 Wall. 37. In so far, then, as the notes in suitembrace the forfeited interest, they are without consideration. Moreover, it is an established principle that if there be usury in the original transaction, it affecta all consecutive securities,,however remote, growing out of it. Walker v. The Bank of Washington, 3 How. 62; Campbell v. Sloan, 62 Pa. St. 481. And neither the renewal of an old nor the substitution of a new security between the same parties can efface the usury. Id. �3. Can there be any recovery for interest from the dates at which the bank reduced its charge to a legal rate ? We have already seen, from the authorities cited, that the notes in suit did not operate as payment, and that the taint of usury in- heres in them. When the rate of interest was reduced to a legal standard, instead of purging the new notes then taken of all illegality, the bank incorporated in them usurious inter- est previously charged, as part of the new principal, and thia �v.7,no.2— 11 ��� �