Cairo v. Zane

Citations

• 149 U.S. 122
• 13 S. Ct. 803
• 37 L. Ed. 673
• 1893 U.S. LEXIS 2277

Syllabus

<p>In accordance with a previous resolution of the city council of Cairo, Illinois, an election was duly held there on the 28th of May, 1867, “ for the purpose of voting upon the question of the city’s issuing $100,000 in twenty-year bonds, drawing eight per cent interest, as a subscription to the capital stock of the Cairo and Vincennes Railroad ”; and it was, by a vote of 695 to 1, “ declared to be the wish of the people that the said sum of $100,000 be so subscribed.” Such subscription was accordingly made. In November following the railroad company and the city further agreed that the railroad company should commence work within six months and push it with dispatch; that the city should issue its bonds to the amount of $50,000, when the road should be- completed to the boundary line between Alexander and Pulaski Counties, and a like amount when it should be completed to the boundary line between Pulaski and Johnson Counties, and that each amount when issued should be delivered to the railroad company in exchange for a like amount of its stock; and that the city should, as each issue .of stock was made, sell it to the railroad company for the sum of $2500 in bonds of the city. In July, 1871, an ordinance was passed authorizing this contract to be carried out; and in December, 1872, the city, by its trustee,'delivered to-the railroad company bonds to the amount of $100,000, the company delivered to the trustee, for the city certificates of stock to the like amount and bonds of the city to the amount of $5000, and the trustee thereupon transferred the certificates of stock- to the company. . The mayor of the city then, on-the 14th of December, 1872, reported to the-auditor of the State of Illinois an issue of bonds of the city to the amount of $95,000 for subscriptions to the stock of the^ railroad company, and the bonds were certified by the auditor as registered pursuant to the laws-of Illinois, “ to fund and provide for paying the railroad debts of counties, tow