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obloquy to which Marshall refers would be cast on the jurisprudence of the country.

It is not, then, the office of the defendants which can preclude an inquiry into the propriety of calling upon the courts to enforce the performance of duties imposed by law upon them. The propriety of issuing the writ must be determined by the nature of the act to be done; whether it is one which they, under the law, are required to do.

No interference is sought with the general financial affairs of the State. These she may manage as she chooses. What is sought is an injunction to prevent her officers from diverting to other purposes funds collected for the payment of her creditors, and a direction to them to proceed and carry out her command as to the collection Lereafter of the specific tax levied by herself, and the disbursement of its proceeds. The fact that she subsequently made an unconstitutional attempt to rescind that command cannot affect its character or efficacy.

In Woodruff v. Trapnall, 10 How. 190, decided in 1850, this court enforced a contract of the State of Arkansas in a proceeding by mandamus against one of her officers, compelling him to receive certain bills in satisfaction of a judgment recovered by the State, in the face of a subsequent statute prohibiting their receipt.

In Hartman v. Greenhow, 102 U. S. 672, decided only two years since, this court, with but a single dissenting voice, enforced a contract of the State of Virginia in a proceeding by mandamus against one of her officers, compelling him to receive coupons of certain bonds for taxes, pursuant to the law under which the bonds were issued, although a subsequent law of the State had forbidden their receipt. And the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia has, in similar cases, after mature consideration, asserted a like authority over officers of the State, never apparently imagining that the sovereignty of the Commonwealth was at all assailed by judicial process compelling them to do their duty. The Commonwealth has required no reminder from a Federal tribunal to awaken her attention to the invasion of any of her rights of sovereignty.

A number of other cases in this court and in the Circuit Courts might be cited to the same purport; and if the law re

specting contracts with States, and rights of property acquired from States, is not to be subject to continual change, that law should remain undisturbed, having been recognized as sound for more than a third of a century. The doctrine of stare decisis is deemed of great importance on questions affecting private rights. Much more ought it to be respected and resolutely adhered to in determinations touching the limits of the powers of the Federal and State governments, and the authority of each over the contracts of States with individuals.

Nor can I perceive in what way the law, as thus pronounced, encroaches here upon any of the powers of the State. It is undoubtedly a matter of great importance, indeed of absolute necessity to wise government in this country, that there should be no interference with the rights of the States in the management of their local affairs, including in these the collection and disbursement of their revenues. But if a State contracts to do certain things, and in order that they may be performed subjects her officers to the control of the courts, and makes their refusal to carry out her pledges a felony, it cannot be justly contended that her reserved rights are at all invaded if her officers are judicially commanded to do what she says they shall do. No doctrine is here asserted in conflict with the exercise of any rightful authority of the State. All that is claimed is simply a right to compel her officers to obey her own enactments, such as were constitutionally passed, and thus became laws, and to disregard such as she had no power to pass. If the State is above the Constitution of the United States; if the protection of that instrument does not extend to her engagements with individuals; if her power is as absolute as that of the Parliament of England; if the theory of the Federal Constitution, that it binds States as well as individuals, is unsound; if it is not, as it declares itself to be, the supreme law of the land, then my position falls; but otherwise there is no answer to it - at least none that I have been able to see.

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MR. JUSTICE HARLAN. Having a deep conviction that the opinion of the court is in conflict with the spirit and tenor of our former decisions, subversive of long-established doctrines,

and dangerous to the national supremacy as defined and limited by the Constitution, I deem it my duty to dissent from it.

That the bonds and coupons issued by Louisiana, in pursuance of the statute and constitutional amendment of 1874, are contracts within the meaning of that clause of the Federal Constitution which declares that no State shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts; that the provisions in its new Constitution known as the "Debt Ordinance" of 1879 were intended to impair, and, if enforced, do impair, the obligation of those contracts; and that such ordinance is therefore a nullity as against the bondholders who do not accept its terms, are propositions so manifestly correct as not to require argument in their support. Indeed, I understand the court, substantially, to concede them to be sound. As the Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land, "anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding," I had supposed that all State action, whether by legislative enactment or constitutional provision, must be disregarded when in conflict with that law. Yet this court holds that it cannot enforce or restrain the agents of a State from destroying the obligation of her contract with a citizen because such relief will require them in the discharge of their official duties, to disobey the orders of what is denominated the supreme political power of that State. The court, it seems to me, in effect, adjudges that the defendants cannot be coerced by the courts of the Union to disregard nullifying enactments of their State, although such coercion, if employed, would only be for the purpose of enforcing the rightful authority of the Constitution. It appears upon the very face of these proceedings, and is not to be disguised, that those officers refuse to perform purely ministerial duties solely because the will of the State is, with them, paramount, and to be obeyed although thereby they destroy rights guaranteed by the supreme law of the land.

To state the proposition in another form: Here are contract rights which, but for the nullifying provisions in the new Constitution of Louisiana, the courts (as I will presently show) would unquestionably protect by the process of injunction, and also, if need be, by mandamus compelling the offi

cers of the State to discharge plain official duties which require in their performance no exercise of discretion. Now, however, it is determined if I do not misapprehend the decision that the judicial arm of the nation is hopelessly paralyzed in the presence of an ordinance, destructive of those rights, and passed in admitted violation of the Constitution of the United States. A State which "cannot be viewed as a single, unconnected, sovereign power," but is a member of the Union under a Constitution whose supremacy all must ac knowledge-assumes to release its officers from the duty of obeying important provisions of that Constitution; and this court, it would seem, holds that, in cases like these, it has no power, as against such hostile State action, to require those officers to respect private rights guaranteed by such provisions.

1. What are the terms of the admitted contract between Louisiana and the holders of the consolidated bonds?

By the statute of 1874 a fixed annual tax is levied for the purpose of paying the principal and interest of the bonds authorized to be issued; the revenue therefrom is thereby "set apart and appropriated to that purpose and no other;" it is made a felony for any officer to divert it from that purpose; the interest tax is declared to be a continuing annual tax until the bonds, principal and interest, are paid or redeemed; the appropriation is made a continuing annual one during the same period; and the levy and appropriation, it is declared, shall authorize and make it the duty of the auditor and treasurer, and the board of liquidation, respectively, to annually collect the tax, pay the interest, and redeem the bonds, until they are fully discharged.

Each provision of the act is declared to be a contract between the State and each holder of the bonds; it is made a misdemeanor for any judge, tax-collector, or other officer to obstruct the execution of any part of it, or to fail to perform his official duty; tax-collectors are inhibited from paying over moneys so collected to any other person than the State treasurer; and it is provided that no court or judge of the State shall have power to enjoin the payment of principal or interest of the bonds or the collection of the special tax therefor.

These provisions were embodied in the Constitution of Lou

isiana, by an amendment adopted in 1874; and with a view of facilitating the sale of the bonds, provided for in the act of that year, it declares that such issue creates "a valid contract between the State and each and every holder of said bonds, which the State shall by no means and in no wise impair;" that "no court shall enjoin the payment of the principal or interest thereof or the levy and collection of the taxes therefor;" that "to secure such levy, collection, and payment, the judicial power shall be exercised when necessary;" that the tax required for the payment of the principal and interest of such bonds "shall be assessed and collected each and every year until the bonds shall be paid, principal and interest, and the proceeds paid by the treasurer of the State to the holders of said bonds, as the principal and interest of the same shall fall due; and, lastly, "that no further legislation or appropriation shall be requisite for the said assessment and collection, and for such payment from the treasury."

With these statutory and constitutional provisions in force, the State issued bonds to the amount of about $12,000,000, and taxes were assessed, collected, and paid over to the State treasurer solely for the purpose of meeting their interest. Of the amount collected to pay coupons maturing Jan. 1, 1880, about $300,000 are in the State treasury. The State officers refuse to apply the money for that purpose or to take any steps toward further collections as enjoined by the statute and Constitution of 1874.

2. What has the State done that impairs the obligation of her contracts?

By her Debt Ordinance the coupons falling due the 1st of January, 1880, are "remitted" without the consent of creditors, and the interest tax already collected is therein directed to be used exclusively for the payment of the expenses of the State government. Unless the holders of consolidated bonds. are paid out of this money, raised for their benefit exclusively, and unless future collections are made as required by the contract, they will be wholly without remedy, and their bonds will cease to have any value. Plainly that ordinance is a breach of the plighted faith of the State. The financial world, as we have seen, was assured by legislative enactment and constitutional

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