US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

1. The powers of a railroad company in Missouri, in existence prior to the adoption of the constitutional provision of 1865, prohibiting subscriptions to the stock of any corporation by counties, cities, or towns, unless two-thirds of the qualified electors thereof shall assent, are not affected by such provision, but remain the same as if it had never been adopted.

2. The power conferred by the statute of Missouri of March 10, 1859, upon a county in which may be any part of the route of the Louisiana & Missouri River Railroad Company, to subscribe to the capital stock of that company without submitting the question of such subscription to the vote of the people, was not taken away by the Amendatory Act of March 24, 1868.

3. Every reasonable construction of the language of the Act of March 10, 1859, embraces the County of Callaway, and the road has been actually located through it.

4. The subscription to the stock of the railroad company, having been actually made by that county, under the authority of a legislative act, in January, 1868, was legal, and the circumstance that the bonds were issued at a later date does not impair their validity.

A copy of the bonds and coupons in question, and a full statement of the statutory provisions governing the case and of the facts shown in the record, are set forth in the opinion of the court.