Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/554

 OCTOBER TERM, 1907. From the avermente of the bill and the rniios in the answer, and the argument at .the bar, it cannot be an open question in this case that the only liability of West for an equitable proportion of the an7be?lm debt is upon the basis of the ordlnnce. The neral rule stated in H v. Green, 1{12 U.S. 672, to the etect that where a State is divided into two or more States, in the adjustment of liabilities between each other, the debts of the parent State should be ratably appor- tioned among them, is eentially qualified by the authorities there quoted, in this, that a special areement between the two States in respect of the assumption of a proportinn of the debt as it existed before the separation, takes the case out of the neral rule; so that the second iFound alled in the bill which specifically avers a special alFeement, destroys the ap- plicability of the rule to this case. This special atFeement oannot he dismissed from this case as the decree propod on behalf of V'nnia would do. This court has sustained' the Wallace, 39,'in respec of the provision contained in it for the incorporation of the counties of Berkeley and Jefferson in the latter State conditioned upon a popular vote ther for. If the ordinance was valid then in respect of the incorpora- tion of these eounties, it cannot be held to be invalid as to the specific provision co*&ined in �for the assumption by the new'State of a ust proportion of the indebtedness to be ascer- tained in the m*nner defined, clearly carried into the constitu-' tion of the new State and assented to by Congress by the ad- mition of West V'niA into the Union. Whether it was or was not the lawful government of V'n-ginia was a political question. When the House of Representatives admitted the members of Congress from that State and the Senate admitted the senators elected by the legislature of the 'Pstored State," and the Prident recognized that govern- ment � the true government of Vh..'i* that forever settled

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