by John Marshall Harlan

“ Having a clear conviction that the legislature did not transcend its power in enacting the statute of March 31, 1869, and there being, to say the least, at the time the bonds in suit were issued, no adjudication to the contrary in the supreme court of Illinois, we cannot surrender our judgment upon that question, and overrule the settled doctrines of this court, in deference to decisions by the state court, made long after the rights of the plaintiff accrued. ”

“ As a municipal corporation, organized for public purposes, has, as a general rule, and as between it and the state, no privileges or powers which are not subject at all times, under the constitution, to legislative control, and as the legislature might legally have authorized a subscription by the township of Santa Anna, with the assent of a majority of its legal voters, we adjudged the act of February 28, 1867, to be within the constitutional power of the legislature to pass. ”

“ In other words, according to the settled doctrines of the supreme court of Illinois, it would have been competent for the legal voters of the town, under legislative authority for that purpose previously given,-such voters being its 'corporate authorities' in the meaning of the state constitution as interpreted by the highest courts of Illinois,-to have required the subscription to be made, and the bonds to be issued, which were in fact made and issued pursuant to the unauthorized election of August 3, 1868. ”