Samuel Freeman Miller

“ To hold the contrary is to decide that a debt long past due and acknowledged to be due by the debtor cannot be paid, when he is willing to pay, and the proper officer of the government ready to receive it, because the debtor has neglected to report the same facts to some other officer, or that officer has neglected to make report of the facts. Of the duty of the railroad company to pay the money as speedily as possible there can be no doubt. ”

“ Money paid for taxes past due and received by the collector as such, and for which he gives a receipt as collector, specifying with precision the taxes for which it is paid, is public money. If it is not, whose money is it? The tax-payer has parted with it in voluntary payment of a debt due the United States. The collector appointed by the United States has received it as money paid to the United States on a debt due the United States. It is not, therefore, his money. It is the property of the United States, and within the meaning of the bond it is public money. ”

“ There can be no question that Chase understood himself as receiving the money for the government, and in payment of the taxes due. Nor is there any question that the treasurer of the railroad company intended it as payment to Chase in his official character as collector, and supposed he had paid the taxes by so doing; for Chase gave him three separate receipts in which the taxes for each of the years we have mentioned are set out, and also the months of the year in which they accrued, which he signed officially as collector, and declared in each receipt that it was in full of the account. ”