Morrison Waite

“ It is difficult to see what more was necessary to bind the parties. Undoubtedly, if there had been at that time any book prepared in which subscriptions were to be made, Betz would have entered the subscription of the county court in that book in proper form. But what he did was in its legal effect the same. He presented the action of the county court in respect to the subscription for acceptance. ”

“ Justice HUNT: 'The county court did not intend their action, in June, 1870, to be final, and did not understand that a subscription was thereby completed. Their vote was a declaration that the power to subscribe should be exercised, and was an authority to their agent to perfect a contract with the railroad company on the conditions set forth. No acceptance was made by the railroad company, no notice of acceptance was given, nor was there any act or fact which afforded a pretext for saying that the railroad company was bound by the contract of subscription. ”

“ What was in fact done amounted in law to the making of a valid subscription by him for the county court and its acceptance in his presence by the company. As the Lexington, Chillicothe & Gulf Company was organized under the general railroad law of Missouri, which authorized consolidations, the subsequent consolidation of that company with another organized under the same law did not avoid the subscription which was made to its stock on the seventeenth of June, and the bonds in payment of the subscription were property delivered to the consolidated company. That has been many times decided. ”