Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 13).djvu/171

 governor, the holders of the bonds which were authorized to be issued in 1844, and which were issued in 1848, stepped in. When these bonds were authorized there were already so many liens upon the canal that it was a well-known fact that no market would be found for them. Realizing this fact, the state, to give them a value, waived its rights, under previous issues and loans, as we have seen, in favor of these bonds about to be put upon the market, and also securing them by a mortgage on the tolls and revenues of the canal. The holders of these bonds arose and petitioned the courts to protect them, claiming that a sale of the canal to the rail road would destroy the corpus, and that with the corpus destroyed, the toll and revenue earning capacity would cease. In other words they claimed that a mortgage on the tolls and revenues constituted a mortgage on the corpus. They further petitioned that the court appoint trustees to operate the canal for the bondholders of 1848, thereby enabling them to have an opportunity to protect themselves. The case was bitterly fought in the courts and