Morrison Waite

“ To reduce the debt, there must be a payment by the state to its own creditors, and an actual cancellation of its own obligations. As by accepting the money the state discharged the company from all further obligation to provide for the payment of the principal or the interest of the bonds for which it had become bound, it was necessary, in order to save the state from loss in the transaction, that the payment by the company should be enough to enable the state to take up and cancel an equal amount of its other indebtedness bearing the same rate of interest. ”

“ Whenever there is any money in the state treasury not necessary to defray the current expenses of the state government and to meet the appropriations made by law, it shall be the duty of the state auditor, and he is hereby authorized and required, to transfer the same to the credit of the state sinking fund, for the purpose of paying the state debt, or any portion thereof, and the interest thereon as it becomes due. ”

“ Inasmuch as, before the act of 1881 was passed, the state had by its constitution made it imperative that a certain amount should be raised each year by taxation, and paid into the sinking fund to be applied to the liquidation of the state debt, it is but right that this should be exhausted as far as available before the money of the company is used; but after that is exhausted, the statute made it the duty of the commissioners to use any other money there might be in the fund to pay its bonds, whenever the right to make such payment should be complete. ”