Joseph P. Bradley

“ But it has been well settled, that, when a plain official duty, requiring no exercise of discretion, is to be performed, and performance is refused, any person who will sustain personal injury by such refusal may have a mandamus to compel its performance; and when such duty is threatened to be violated by some positive official act, any person who will sustain personal injury thereby, for which adequate compensation cannot be had at law, may have an injunction to prevent it. ”

“ But it will not increase the total amount of the consolidated bonds. The complainant can hardly contend that he has a right to prevent the State from using the bonds for funding its other debts, if those for which they were intended should not be surrendered. It is a question of power. The Funding Act gives the board of liquidation power to issue $15,000,000 of these bonds, or so much thereof as may be necessary to fund the outstanding floating and bonded debt; and it is admitted that the amount of that debt is sufficient to absorb the whole $15,000,000. ”

“ The right to procure the necessary means of carrying on the government by taxation and loans is essential to the political independence of every commonwealth. By the internal constitution of a government, it is true its legislature may be temporarily restricted in this respect, as we have seen is the case in Louisiana. ”

“ In the first place, the appellee contends, that, in consequence of the provisions of the Funding Act, and the constitutional amendment adopted in confirmation of it, the State debt cannot be increased, whereas the assumption of the levee debt (which, it is contended, is not a debt of the State) will directly increase it. ”

“ Another objection made to the proposal to fund it is, that it is to be paid in full, whilst the funding act authorized the payment of only sixty cents on the dollar of the debts to be replaced by the issue of the consolidated bonds,-the great object of the act being to effect a reduction of the State debt within manageable limits. ”

“ The tax formerly appropriated to it will be liberated and made available for other State purposes. The other creditors of the State cannot possibly be injured, if nothing is appropriated to the payment of the claim which has been pledged to them. ”

“ The complainant consented, when he took his bonds, that there might be $15,000,000 of them issued. He cannot justly complain if that amount is not exceeded, even though the debts funded thereby are not precisely those specified in the act, provided the material terms of the act are complied with. ”