by John Marshall Harlan, Wadsworth v. Supervisors — Opinion of the Court
“ As the statute only declared that the supervisors should have power, by resolution, to cause bonds to be issued when the people voted in favor of railroad aid, we are not at liberty to say that the legislature meant such vote to be a positive command to exercise that power without regard to the circumstances arising after the expression of the popular will. ”
by John Marshall Harlan, Wadsworth v. Supervisors — Opinion of the Court
“ We held in that case that the popular vote did not itself create a vested right in the railroad company to the bonds, and that a subscription was necessary to create a contract binding the county to issue bonds in payment of the stock, and binding the company to issue stock for the bonds. ”
by John Marshall Harlan, Wadsworth v. Supervisors — Opinion of the Court
“ Commissioners, &c., to hold that the legislature could, at any time before the bonds were in fact issued, or before the county came under a legal obligation to issue them, repeal, as it did, the statute conferring the power to issue, and thereby withdraw from the supervisors all authority in the premises. The election at which the people gave their sanction to railroad aid had, as we have seen, no other effect than to confer power upon the supervisors to issue bonds, and did not place them under any legal obligation to the railroad company to exercise the power granted. ”
