Edward Douglass White

“ It would be beyond reason to assume that a judgment which commanded the performance of a particular act, because of the existence of a legal duty arising from a specified provision of a state Constitution, should be construed as excluding the right and duty to refer, in issuing the bonds in obedience to its command, to the authority by which alone the power exercised could be brought into play. ”

“ Although under the state law both of the bodies in question bore such a relation to the interests involved as to empower them to assert that the contract rights were impaired, nevertheless they do not possess the capacity to prosecute error to a decision if adverse to the contract rights. This, however, is but to say at one and the same time that there was capacity and incapacity to assert and protect the contract rights. The proposition that the judgment of the supreme court of the state of Louisiana rests upon an independent non-Federal ground finds no semblance of support in the record. ”

“ The power of the constituent body to direct the board of liquidation to sell the bonds, and the right to diminish the fund applicable to the drainage of the city of New Orleans, when viewed apart from the contract rights, involve purely local and non-Federal contentions. When the jurisdiction of this court is invoked because of the asserted impairment of contract rights, arising from the effect given to subsequent legislation, it is our duty to exercise an independent judgment as to the nature and scope of the contract. ”