ments of the legislature that might be cited, I have reached the conclusion that the plea of the Statute of Limitations cannot be successfully made against these warrants, and that whenever it can be shown that the funds have been collected out of which they can be paid, or sufficient time has been given to do so in the mode pointed out in the statute, their payment may be demanded, and if refused, legally coerced."

And if, in such cases, a proceeding in mandamus should be considered to be the more appropriate, and, perhaps, the only effective remedy, it also is not embraced in the Statute of Limitations prescribed generally for civil actions. The writ may well be refused when the relator has slept upon his rights for an unreasonable time, and especially if the delay has been prejudicial to the defendant, or to the rights of other persons, though what laches, in the assertion of a clear legal right, would be sufficient to justify a refusal of the remedy by mandamus must depend, in a great measure, on the character and circumstances of the particular case. Chinn v. Trustees, 32 Ohio St. 236; Moses on Mandamus, 190. There is no statute of limitations in Nebraska applicable to that proceeding.

In the present case, however, it was not the understanding of the parties that the vendor should await the collection of taxes, as prescribed by the statute, for the payment of the purchase-money, but, on the contrary, there was an agreement for payment in a definite time, without regard to the condition of the county treasury, and for security by way of notes and mortgages. The agreement, as we have assumed, so far as it relates to the time and mode of payment, is void; but the contract for the sale itself has been executed on the part of the vendor by the delivery of the deed, and his title at law has actually passed to the county. As the agreement between the part has failed by reason of the legal disability of the county to perform its part, according to its conditions, the right of the vendor to rescind the contract and to a restitution of his title would seem to be as clear as it would be just, unless some valid reason to the contrary can be shown. As was said by this court in Marsh v. Fulton County, 10 Wall. 676, 684, and repeated in Louisiana v. Wood, 102 U. S. 294, "the obligation to do justice rests upon all persons, natural and artifi

cial, and if a county obtains the money or property of others without authority, the law, independent of any statute, will compel restitution or compensation." See also Miltenberger v. Cooke, 18 Wall. 421. The illegality in the contract related, not to its substance, but only to a specific mode of performance, and does not bring it within that class mentioned by Mr. Justice Bradley in Thomas v. City of Richmond, 12 id. 349. The purchase itself, as we have seen, was expressly authorized. The agreement for definite times of payment and for security alone was not authorized. It was not illegal in the sense of being prohibited as an offence; the power in that form was simply withheld. The policy of the law extends no further than merely to defeat what it does not permit, and imposes upon the parties no penalty. It thus falls within the rule, as stated by Mr. Pollock, in his Principles of Contract, 264: "When no penalty is imposed, and the intention of the legislature appears to be simply that the agreement is not to be enforced, then neither the agreement itself nor the performance of it is to be treated as unlawful for any other purpose." Johnson v. Meeker, 1 Wis. 436.

The principle was applied in the case of Morville v. American Tract Society, 123 Mass. 129, 137, where it was said: "The money of the plaintiff was taken and is still held by the defendant under an agreement which it is contended it had no power to make, and which, if it had power to make, it has wholly failed on its part to perform. It was money of the plaintiff, now in the possession of the defendant, which in equity and good conscience it ought now to pay over, and which may be recovered in an action for money had and received. The illegality is not that which arises where the contract is in violation of public policy or of sound morals, and under which the law will give no aid to either party. The plaintiff himself is chargeable with no illegal act, and the corporation is the only one at fault in exceeding its corporate powers by making the express contract. The plaintiff is not seeking to enforce that contract, but only to recover his own money and prevent the defendant from unjustly retaining the benefit of its own illegal act. He is doing nothing which must be regarded as a necessary affirmance of an illegal act."

The decision of this court in Hitchcock v. Galveston, 96 U. S. 341, 350, covers the very point. There a recovery was allowed for the value of the benefit conferred upon the municipal corporation, notwithstanding, and, indeed, for the reason, that the contract to pay in bonds was held to be illegal and void. "It matters not," said the court," that the promise was to pay in a manner not authorized by law. If payments cannot be made in bonds, because their issue is ultra vires, it would be sanctioning rank injustice to hold that payment need not be made at all. Such is not the law."

This doctrine was fully recognized by the Supreme Court of Nebraska as the law of that State in the case of Clark v. Saline County, 9 Neb. 516, in which it adopts, from the decision of the Supreme Court of California in Pimental v. City of San Francisco, 21 Cal. 362, the following language: "The city is not exempted from the common obligation to do justice which binds individuals. Such obligations rest upon all persons, whether natural or artificial. If the city obtain the money of another by mistake, or without authority of law, it is her duty to refund it, from this general obligation. If she obtain other property which does not belong to her it is her duty to restore it, or if used to render an equivalent therefor, from the like obligation. Argenti v. San Francisco, 16 Cal. 282. The legal liability springs from the moral duty to make restitution."

The conveyance by Chapman to the county of Douglas passed the legal title, but upon a condition in the contract which it was impossible in law for the county to perform. There resulted, therefore, to the grantor the right to rescind the agreement upon which the deed was made, and thus to convert the county into a trustee, by construction of law, of the title for his benefit, according to the often repeated rule, as stated by Hill on Trustees, 144, that "whenever the circumstances of a transaction are such that the person who takes the legal estate in property cannot also enjoy the beneficial interest, without necessarily violating some established principle of equity, the court will immediately raise a constructive trust and fasten it upon the conscience of the legal owner, so as to convert him into a trustee for the parties who, in equity, are entitled to the beneficial enjoyment." Upon this principle the vendor of real

estate is treated as trustee of the title for the purchaser; and the mortgagee, having the legal title, after payment of the mortgage debt, is a trustee for the mortgagor. The analogy is complete between these and every case, of which the present is one, where the holder of the legal title is under a duty to convey to another.

But, admitting that Chapman was entitled to call for a reconveyance, it is alleged that the Statute of Limitations of Nebraska, which bars the right to recover the title to real estate in ten years from the time it first accrued, defeats the recovery.

The Statute of Limitations in force on March 5, 1859, which was the date of the deed, prescribed twenty-one years after the cause of action shall have accrued as the period within which an action for the recovery of the title to lands must be brought. Rev. Stat. Neb. 1866, p. 395, sect. 6.

On Feb. 12, 1869, the legislature of Nebraska passed an act, which took effect July 1, 1869, which amended this section so as to reduce the limitation to ten years. It is not denied that if Chapman's cause of action first accrued to him on March 5, 1859, this amendment could not operate upon it, because to give it that effect would be to take away an existing right of action by mere legislation, as the ten years would then have fully expired. It is, therefore, claimed that his right of action for a reconveyance of the title could only have first accrued when the first instalment of the purchase-money became due, that is, on March 5, 1860, which left eight months after the statute took effect before the ten years' limitation would expire, which, it is claimed, would be a reasonable time within which to require that suits upon existing causes of action should be brought. But this view cannot be supported; for the original contract for payment, at a fixed time, is rendered invalid, for the same reason that avoided the notes and mortgage, the objection being, according to the decision of the Supreme Court of Nebraska, that the county had no power to bind itself to pay, in any other manner than that prescribed by the statute. Hence, it must be held, in this aspect of the case, that the right of action was not postponed, after the date of the deed, by the credit given, and if it accrued at that time,

the limitation was twenty-one years, according to the statute then in force, within which the present suit was in fact brought.

But the more satisfactory answer to this defence is, that none of the statutes of limitation referred to apply to the case

We have already seen that by the decision in Brewer v. Otoe County, 1 Neb. 373, it is the declared law of Nebraska that the claim against the county for the purchase-money, on the supposition that the understanding had been to accept payment according to the terms of the statute, was not liable to the bar of the limitation acts. So that the obligation of the county to pay would not be extinguished by the statutory lapse of time. Now, although the right of Chapman to rescind the contract and demand a reconveyance accrued at the very date of the deed, he was not bound to exercise the right, and his cause of action did not accrue, until he had made manifest his election. He had the right to treat as null that part of the contract which was illegal, and having executed it on his part, to waive performance according to its terms, on the part of the county, and wait a reasonable length of time for the county to make the payment in the mode made lawful by the statute, before exerting his power to rescind the contract. Until that time had elapsed, and until, after that, Chapman had elected to rescind, there was no existing cause of action, and consequently nothing upon which the Statute of Limitations could begin to take effect. When that reasonable time expired we have no means of determining. It would depend upon circumstances not disclosed in the record, such as the state of the county treasury, the extent of its other obligations, the value of the taxable property, and its general financial condition. There is nothing whatever to show that the delay that has taken place in filing the present bill has unreasonable. It is impossible, therefore, to say that any statute of limitations has even begun to run against the cause of action, much less that its bar has become complete.

There is nothing, therefore, to prevent the relief prayed for being granted, if it can be done without injustice to the defendant. On this point, it is said, it would be inequitable to decree a rescission of the contract and a restoration of the title