by John Marshall Harlan

“ If the plaintiff was entitled to have the property sold in satisfaction of the debt secured by the mortgage, it was his right to have it sold freed from any apparent claim thereon wrongly asserted by the holder of the tax-title. ”

“ The case before us is altogether different. It proceeds upon the ground that a mortgagor who had agreed 'not to sell, mortgage, or in any wise incumber the property,' to the prejudice of the mortgage, had fraudulently combined with his brother to defeat the mortgage lien by means of a sale for taxes due from the mortgagor, at which sale the brother was to bid in the property, in his own name, and, for the protection of the mortgagor, assert his absolute ownership of it. ”

“ The mortgagor had obtained liberal indulgence as to time from the mortgagee. He made such representations of his embarrassed financial condition as induced the mortgagee to forbear taking steps to enforce his lien upon the property. He gave positive assurances that he would make a payment of $2,500 on the mortgage debt by the fall of 1882. He knew that there were taxes upon the property which it was his duty to pay, and that their non-payment endangered the security upon which his generous creditor depended for the payment of the notes given for the property. ”