Samuel Freeman Miller

“ It is equally vain to say that the legislature professed to be satisfying an old obligation, while on the face of the transaction it is quite apparent that it was a new debt, based on a new consideration, with only an incidental reference to an old contract liability to make it colorable. ”

“ We are unable to discern the force of the reasoning by which validity is supposed to be imparted to these bonds by the act of the legislature.
The constitutional provision against an increase of the State debt was mainly if not solely intended to operate as a limitation on the power of the legislature. We do not know of any increase of the debt which could be lawfully made without its authority, unless it was by the non payment of interest on what already existed. Certainly no new debt beyond the $25,000,000 could be made and be valid without such authority. ”

“ It is argued that the proviso to sect. 4 of the act of 1870, making the provisions of the act of 1869 applicable to the new lines, if constructed within five years instead of three, as in that act, does away with the provisions for requiring specific acts as to location and construction of forty miles, to be performed within shorter periods, and that the obligation of the State to guarantee the bonds continued for five years, though nothing had been done in the mean time. ”