by John Marshall Harlan

“ There are no funds in its treasury out of which the judgment can be paid, and its corporate authorities have refused, upon demand of the relator, to satisfy it, in the only way in which it can be paid, by a levy of taxes for that specific purpose. ”

“ When the legislature in 1869 legalized and confirmed what the city council had previously done touching the subscription to the stock of the Mississippi & Missouri River Air-line Railroad Company, and thereby authorized bonds in payment thereof to be issued, it could not have been contemplated that indebtedness thus created would be met by such taxation as was permitted for ordinary municipal purposes. ”