sidered irrelevant, perhaps no more important to the merits than whether he stood at right angles to the jury when he testified. When we consider that an important trial may continue a week or more, and when we think how little of the testimony the jury remember at the end of the trial, it is laughable to observe appellate courts granting new trials because they cannot say that such a piece of evidence did not affect the jury." This arraignment is too severe to be laughable. With large experience, I have never known a judge to write an opinion merely or mainly to make a precedent, or for any other purpose than to reach a just conclusion. Are they to cut loose from the wisdom and labors of the past, and lose sight of the maxim that "every man's wisdom is better than any man's wisdom?" In all the appellate courts I know any thing about, the rule is rigidly enforced that an error which could have done no harm shall be disregarded; and judgments are never reversed for trifling errors of the character mentioned. It is really laughable for appellate courts to grant new trials for errors which they cannot say did not affect the jury? Are they to guess that errors that have influenced the verdict did not influence it? A new trial is doubtless an evil, but an unjust judgment is a still greater one.

He says that a jury is affected much" by what may be called the atmosphere of the trial which cannot be felt by the appellate court." This is too true, and so much the more reason for the existence of appellate courts which will review judgments in the calm, serene atmosphere of the law, undisturbed by an atmosphere created by sympathy, passion or prejudice or by interested persons or able and influential counsel. Such an atmosphere, like the impalpable understanding before noticed, may play a great part upon the trial of an action, but can have no place in an appellate court.

He seems to complain that appellate courts will not disregard improper evidence received upon a trial by a judge without a jury, and that the same rules of evidence are applied in equitable actions as in legal actions triable by a jury. Why should they not be? If a judge trying a case without a jury received improper evidence when objected to, his ruling shows that he considered it important and material; and hence how can it be said that it did not, or may not have influenced his decision? Having decided that the evidence was pertinent and material, can it be presumed that he afterward disregarded it?

He says "not merely in matters of evidence, but upon the whole merits of the case, appellate courts might well take broader views than they do; and if they see, that on the whole, justice has been done, they might wisely disregard errors even more important than pertains to evidence." What would such a practice lead to? Every appellate court would have to consider and weigh the evidence presented to it upon paper to see whether on the whole justice had been done; and when proper evidence had been excluded or improper

evidence received or an erroneous charge given or a proper instruction refused, how could an appellate court determine that justice had been done? A party has not had justice done to him until his case has been legally tried; and if appellate courts are to dispose of each case as they deem just upon the whole record, disregarding errors of law, what will become of the value of precedents and the certainty of the law, exceedingly desirable so far as can be obtained? An appeal under such circumstances would be little more than an arbitration.

He says "one other cause of legal delay may be briefly mentioned with due deference to the judiciary, and that is the writing of long opinions. "Tis pleasant sure to see one's self in print. A book's a book, although there's nothing in't.' Long opinions take up time in writing. And they cause another evil. Besides the point of law decided, there is often much in an opinion which is not decided and is not law. There passages are caught up and used as if they were accurate statements and authorities. They lead some lawyers astray." For sooth, let us have short opinions for fear some dullard upon the bench or at the bar will mistake the arguments or the illustrations for points decided! It is important for an appellate court not only to decide right, but to satisfy the parties that their case has been fully examined and considered; and this is best accomplished by an opinion fully covering the points made. Appeals to the highest appellate court are usually brought under the advice of able counsel. Frequently a dozen or more points are argued with equal zeal and apparent confidence; and if a judgment be affirmed without noticing them all in the opinion, counsel making the argument generally think that the omitted points were overlooked or not duly considered, and the result is swearing at the court or a motion for re-argument. A thorough discussion of a case on paper leads to accuracy of examination and reasoning and conduces to correct results. Would any one advise that no opinions or that mere skeleton opinions be written simply giving results and conclusions? Such a practice would certainly be unsatisfactory to the bar and to suitors. Judicial opinions in this State are not often long, and their length certainly does not contribute to the law's delays. It is the careful study and examination of cases that take time. The putting the argument upon paper is but a small portion of the work. Thus too it is not the long opinion that takes the most time. It would be more laborious to eliminate from an opinion every superfluous idea, every unnecessary phase and every idle word, as if one were writing a treatise on logic or metaphysics. There is no time for that.

As if advising that no opinions be written, he says "the danger of attempting to give reasons for a conclusion is sometimes seen even in judges who have enjoyed a legal training." If a judge in an appellate court can give no reasons on paper for his conclusions, so much the worse for the conclusion.

Such a judge should write no opinions, and what is equally clear, should decide no cases.

We agree most heartily with what Judge Learned says as to limiting appeals. They are allowed now to a most absurd extent. But it is difficult to limit the right of appeal. The people and the lawyers are jealous of this right, and are averse to putting much limitation upon it. We are an active, wide-awake, litigious people, generally ready to fight for our rights upon the field of battle or in the courts of law until final victory or defeat. It is the characteristic of our race, and must be taken into account in our legislation. It is difficult to draw the line between cases which should be appealable and those which should not be. But the effort should be made, and in that direction something may be done to lessen the law's delays. So too some relief should be given to the court of appeals by an increase in its working force, and then generally there will be no delay in the administration of justice in this State, except what is in the nature of things inevitable. The progress which we can make in any direction in a given time depends upon the distance to be travelled and the obstacles to be overcome. In the late Civil War, it took the Federal Government four years with all its resources to put down the rebellion. There were advances and retreats, marches and counter-marches, victories and defeats, before the end was reached. So in legal warfare, the obstacles in the pathway of one or of the other of the litigants may be great and the progress may be slow. Frequently the delays are beyond remedy and the burden of them must be borne. I am quite sure that they cannot in any great measure be attributed to the judiciary.

My thoughts upon this subject are not all expressed, but I must stop here as a long article is probably as abhorrent to many as a long judicial opinion appears to be to some.

JUDEX.

THE VIRGINIA COUPON QUESTION.

THE Legislature of Virginia, by the act of March 30, 1871, known as the Funding Act, provided for the issue of bonds in exchange for bonds, stocks, and interest certificates of the State, and declared that the coupons annexed thereto shall be payable to bearer, and also "receivable at and after maturity for all taxes, debts, dues, aud demands due the State." Under the provisions of this act about $30,000,000 of old bonds were surrendered by the creditors of the State, and in place of them these creditors received about $20,000,000 of new bonds. The act, when thus carried into effect, constituted a contract between the State and these creditors and all subsequent holders of the new bonds and the coupons thereof.

On the 7th of March, 1872, which was less than a year after the passage of the Funding Act, the Legislature passed another act, declaring that it shall "not be lawful for the officers charged with the collection of taxes or other demands of the State," then due or which might thereafter become due, "to receive in payment thereof any thing else than gold or silver coin, United States treasury notes, or notes of the National banks of the United States." The Supreme

Court of Appeals of the State, at the November Term of 1872, held, in Antoni v. Wright, 22 Gratt. 833, that Virginia, in issuing her bonds in pursuance of the act of 1871, had entered into a valid contract with the holders of these bonds, and with all persons holding the coupons thereof, to receive the coupons in payment of all taxes due to the State, and that the act of March 7, 1872, so far as it conflicted with this contract, was void and of no force. The authority of this case was recognized by the same court in Wise v. Rogers, 24 Gratt. 169; and in Clarke v. Tyler, 30 id. 134, 137, which was decided in 1878, the court said the decision in Antoni v. Wright "must be held to be the settled law in this State."

In 1873 the Legislature passed still another act, which was modified in 1874 and substantially re-enacted in 1876, providing "that from the interest payable out of the treasury on the bonds of the State, whether funded or unfunded, there should be retained a tax equal in amount to fifty cents on the one hun

dred dollars of their market value, on the first day of

April in each year, and made it the duty of every officer of the Commonwealth, charged with the collection of taxes, to deduct from the matured coupons which might be tendered to him in payment of taxes, or other dues to the State, such tax as was then and or might thereafter be imposed on the bonds." This legislation, so far as it relates to the deduction of the tax from the matured coupons of the bonds issued under the Funding Act of 1871, was considered by the Supreme Court of the United States in Hartman v. Greenhow, 102 U. S. 672; and the doctrine of the court was, that under the Funding Act of 1871, Virginia had entered into a contract with the holders of these coupons from which she could not, without their consent, be released, and that any subsequent enactment requiring a tax on the bonds issued under that act to be deducted from the coupons originally attached to them, when tendered in payment of taxes or other dues to the State, cannot be applied to coupons separated from the bonds, and held by a different owner, without impairing the contract, and that such owner is entitled to a mandamus to compel the proper officer to receive for their full amount the coupons so tendered. The judgment of, the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia, denying a mandamus to Hartman, was accordingly reversed, and the case remanded for further proceedings in accordance with this view.

The next legislation of Virginia relating to the taxreceivable coupons, authorized by the Funding Act of 1871, we have in the act of January 14, 1882, not inaptly spoken of as the "Coupon Killer." The substance of this act, briefly stated, is the following:

1. That the tax-receivable coupons are to be received by tax-collectors for identification and verification.

2. That all taxes due to the State are to be paid in coin, legal-tender notes, or National bank bills, and in default of such payment, to be collected as other delinquent taxes are collected.

3. That the tax payer having offered the coupons in payment of his taxes, and having been compelled to make the payment in money, may then if he chooses, bring a suit to test the genuineness of his coupons, and that if the suit is decided in his favor, the coupons shall be accepted in payment of his taxes, and the money paid refunded to him out of the treasury of the State.

4. That if the tax payer applies for a mandamus to compel the acceptance of the tax-receivable coupons, substantially the same proces as to a suit shall be pursued, and that the mandamus shall be issued only after the genuineness of the coupons offered shall have

been judicially ascertained by a formal trial before a court and jury.

This act was supplemented by the act of January 26, 1882, providing that the several tax collectors of Virginia "shall receive, in discharge of the taxes, license taxes, and other dues, gold, silver, United States treasury notes, National bank currency, and nothing else," and further providing that "no writ for the prevention of any revenue claim, or to hinder or delay the collection of the same, shall in any wise issue, either injunction, supersedeas, mandamus, prohibition, or any other writ or process whatever." The latter act was amended by the act of March 13, 1884, declaring that "no action of trespass or trespass on the case shall be brought or maintained against any collecting officer for levying upon the property of any tax payer who may have tendered in payment, in whole or in part, any coupon or paper purporting to be a coupon cut from the bonds of this State for such taxes, and who shall refuse to pay his taxes in gold, silver, United States treasury notes, or national bank notes." The act of April 7, 1882, declared that "no writ of mandamus, prohibition, or any other summary process whatever shall issue," from the Supreme Court of Appeals, "in any case of the collection or the attempt to collect revenue, or compel the collecting officers to receive any thing in the payments of taxes other than as provided" in the act of January 26, 1882.

Andrew Antoni, a tax payer, on the 20th of March, 1882, offered in payment of his taxes, a tax-receivable coupon to the treasurer of the city of Richmond in Virginia; and the acceptance thereof for this purpose being refused, he on the 28th of March, petitioned the Supreme Court of Appeals for a mandamus to compel such acceptance. The members of the court, upon the hearing of the case, were equally divided in opinion; and hence the writ was denied. Antoni then, by writ of error, carried the judgment to the Supreme Court of the United States; and this court in Antoni v. Greenhow,107 U. S. 679, affirmed the judgment of the court below. The single question decided by the court was whether the remedy for the enforcement of the contract with the coupon holder, as it existed when the contract was made, was so changed by the "coupon killing" act of January 14, 1882, as to violate the provision of the Constitution which declares that no State shall pass any "law impairing the obligation of contracts;" and the majority of the court were of opinion that no such change had been made in the remedy, and hence sustained the judgment of the lower court in refusing to issue a mandamus.

Chief Justice Waite in stating the opinion of the court, said expressly that "the right of the coupon holder is to have his coupon received for taxes when offered," and that the question before the court was "not as to that right, but as to the remedy the holder has for its enforcement when denied." He said again: "The question presented by this record is not whether the tax collector is bound in law to receive the coupon, notwithstanding the legislation which, on its face, prohibits him from doing so, nor whether, if he refuses to take the coupon and proceeds with the collection of the tax by force, he can be made personally responsible in damages for what he does, but whether the obligation of the contract has been impaired by the changes which have been made in the remedies for its enforcement in case he refuses to accept the coupons. We decide only the question which is actually before us." The remedy under the act of January 14, 1882, though not identical with the one existing when the contract was made, was, as the Chief justice said, "substantially equivalent to that in force when the coupons were issued."

Messrs. Justices Field and Harlan, in their dissenting opinions given in this case, took issue with the

majority of the court on this point. They maintained that the remedy was so changed by the act of January 14, 1882, as to violate the contract made under the Funding Act of 1871; and with all due respect to the majority, their view seems the better view. The right of the coupon holder to have his coupons "received for taxes when offered," as provided for under the Funding Act of 1871, and his right to have them so received only after they have been reduced to a judgment by a lawsuit at the expense of the coupon holder, as provided for under the act of January 14, 1882, are very different things as to the value of these coupons to the holder, and as to the obvious intention and understanding of the parties to the contract when it was made. Common sense gives to the contract the former and not the latter meaning; and if so, then a law establishing the latter meaning impairs the obligation of the contract in respect to the remedy for its enforcement, especially when the remedy by a mandamus is excluded altogether, as was done by the act of January 26, 1882, and the act of April 7, 1882. The receivability of the coupons, as secured by the Funding Act, is so hampered and embarrassed by subsequent legislation as to be substantially destroyed; and this was evidently the intention of the legislation.

Mr. Justice Matthews speaking for the court in Poindexter v. Greenhow, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 903, 909, and referring to the case of Antoni v. Greenhow, supra, said:

"That was a case in which it was sought, by mandamus, specifically to enforce the contract of the State with the coupon holder, by compelling, by affirmative action and process of law, the collector actually to receive the coupons tendered in satisfaction of taxes. It left unaffected the right of the coupon holder and taxpayer, after his tender had been unlawfully refused to stand upon his contract and the law in the defense of his rights, both of person and property, against all unlawful assaults and seizures. In the former he was an actor, seeking affirmative relief to compel the specific performance of the contract. In the latter he is a defendant, passively resting on his rights, and resisting only demands and exactions sought to be enforced against him in denial of them. He has himself, in all things, performed the contract on his part, and obeyed the law, and simply insists that if more is legally exacted and taken from him, he shall have the remedy which the law gives to every other citizen, not himself in default, against the wrong-doer, who under color of law, but without law, disturbs or dispossesses him." The disclaimers of Chief Justice Waite, in stating the opinion of the court in Antoni v. Greenhow, supra, as to what was not decided in that case, and the specific statement as to the only point decided, undoubtedly furnished the suggestion which subsequently led to several suits in Virginia in relation to the coupon question, some of these suits being brought in the courts of the State, and others in the Circuit Court of the United States. One of these suits was that of the Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. Allen, 17 Fed. Rep. 171. The company, in this case, after duly tendering the tax-receivable coupons in payment of its taxes due to the State of Virginia, and after the refusal of the tax collector to receive them for this purpose, applied to the court for an injunction to restrain the latter from the seizure and sale of its property in enforcing the payment of the taxes claimed by the State. Judge Bond referring to the language of the Supreme Court in Antoni v. Greenhow, supra, to the effect that "the right of the coupon holder is to have his coupon received for taxes when offered," and holding that the complainant in this case had no adequate remedy at law, and further holding that the suit was not one against the State of Virginia, granted the application and ordered the injunction to be issued.

Other suits were brought, involving questions not decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in Antoni v. Greenhow, supra. One of these suits, brought in the Hustings Court of the city of Richmond by Poindexter against Greenhow, was an action of detinue for personal property, distrained by the defendant for delinquent taxes, in the payment of which the plaintiff had duly tendered coupons cut from bonds issued by the State of Virginia under the Funding Act of March 30, 1871. The Hustings Court decided the suit in favor of the defendant; and since that court was the highest court of the State to which the cause could be taken, and since the validity of a State law was drawn in question on the ground of its incompatibility with the Constitution of the United States, the case was, by writ of error, removed to the Supreme Court of the United States. This court, in the opinion delivered by Mr. Justice Matthews in Poindexter v. Greenhow, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 903, considered the merits of this case at large, and laid down principles decisive not only of this case, but of several other cases before the court, coming from the State of Virginia, and relating to the coupon question.

The starting point of the deliverance by Mr. Justice Matthews is the fundamental fact that Virginia had, under the Funding Act of 1871, entered into a contract with the holders of the bonds and annexed coupons issued in pursuance of this act, which contract made the coupons "receivable at and after maturity for all taxes, debts, dues and demands due the State," and constituted a self-executing remedy in the hands of the tax payer, who in virtue of the contract had the right to tender them in payment of his taxes, just as if they were money, and who, having made such a tender, had in legal effect paid his taxes, so far as any subsequent proceedings to enforce payment are concerned. This contract being made, cannot by the State be set aside or repealed in consistency with the Constitution of the United States; and any law subsequently enacted by the Legislature of Virginia, whose effect is to impair or violate the obligation of this contract, is not law at all, and can furnish no immunity or protection to a State officer who acts under it, since it is absolutely without any authority whatever. This sweeps away the act of January 26, 1882, also the amendatory act of March 13, 1884, and at least so much of the act of January 14, 1882, as requires all taxes due to the State to be paid in coin, legal tender notes, or National bank notes. Such legislation was held by the court to impair the obligation of the contract with the coupon holder, and hence to be null and void.

The legal consequence of these doctrines, as stated by Mr. Justice Matthews, is that an action or suit brought by a tax payer, who has duly tendered the tax. receivable coupons in payment of his taxes, against the person who, under the color of office as a tax collector, and acting in the enforcement of a void law passed by the Legislature of the State, and after having refused to receive the coupons so tendered, proceeds to enforce the collection of such taxes by the seizure and sale of the property of the plaintiff, is an action or suit against him personally as a wrong-doer, and not against the State, within the meaning of the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; and further, that the defendant tax collector, being thus sued as a wrong-doer, and seeking to substitute the State in his place, and justify his action by its authority, cannot rest on the bare assertion of such a defense, but must establish it by producing a valid law of the State which constitutes his commission as its agent and a warrant for his act. This position was taken in answer to the argument that a suit against the tax collector is necessarily a suit against the State of Virginia, and therefore excluded by the Eleventh

Amendment to the Constitution, which was urged by counsel on one side, and also by the members of the court who dissented from the opinion of the majority.

The position is by no means a new doctrine in the history of the Supreme Court of the United States. As remarked by Mr. Justice Matthews, it has been repeatedly held by that court "that whenever, in a controversy between parties to a suit, of which these [the Federal] courts have jurisdiction, the question arises upon the validity of law by a State impairing the obligation of its contract, the jurisdiction is not thereby ousted, but must be exercised with whatever legal consequences to the rights of the litigants may be result of the determination." Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch, 87; New Jersey v. Wilson, 7 id. 164; Green v. Biddle, 8 Wheat. 1, 84; Providence Bank v. Billings, 4 Pet. 514; Woodruff v. Trapnall, 10 How. 190; Jefferson Branch Bank v. Skelly, 1 Black, 436; and Wolff v. New Or leans, 103 U. S. 358. These cases were decided after the adoption of the Eleventh Amendment.

The Supreme Court of the United States, in Osborn v. Bank of the United States, 9 Wheat. 738, held that although a State cannot in a Federal court be sued by a citizen of another State, and thus be made a defendant party on the record, an injunction would nevertheless lie from such a court against a State officer to prevent him from carrying into effect an unconstitutional State law, and that the suit against Osborn, brought in a Circuit Court of the United States, was not a suit against the State of Ohio, of which State he was an officer, although the State was interested in the suit, and, through its Legislature, had enacted the law under which Osborn was acting. Chief Justice Marshall said in this case:

"If the State of Ohio could have been made a party defendant, it can scarcely be denied that this would have been a strong case for an injunction. The objection is that as the real party cannot be brought before the court a suit cannot be sustained against the agents of that party; and cases have been cited to show that a Court of Chancery will not make a decree unless all those who are substantially interested be made parties to the suit. This is certainly true where it is in the power of the plaintiff to make them parties; but if the person who is the real principal-the person who is the true source of the mischief, by whose power and for whose advantage it is donebe himself above the law, be exempt from all judicial process, it would be subversive of the best established principles to say that the laws could not afford the same remedies against the agent employed in doing the wrong which they would afford against him could his principal be joined in the suit.'

The doctrines adopted in this case were reaffirmed in Davis v. Gray, 16 Wall. 203, to the following effect:

1. That a Circuit Court of the United States, in a proper case in equity, may enjoin a State officer from executing a State law in conflict with the Constitution or a statute of the United States, when such execution will violate the rights of the complainant.

2. That where a State is concerned the State should be made a party if it can be done, and that if this cannot be done, that is a sufficient reason for the omission to do it, and the case may proceed to a decree against her officers in all respects as if she were a party to the record.

3. That in deciding who are parties to the suit, the court will not look beyond the record, and that making a State officer a party does not make the State a party, although her law may prompt his action, and she may stand behind him as the real party in inter

est.

Mr. Justice Miller, in stating the opinion of the court

in Cunningham v. Macon & Bruns. R. Co., 109 U. S. 446, specified several classes of cases which had been decided by the court, and in regard to the second class said: "Another class of cases is where au individual is sued in tort for some act injurious to another in regard to person or property, to which his defense is that he acted under the orders of the government. In those cases he is not sued as or because he is the officer of the government, but as an individual, and the court is not ousted of jurisdiction because he asserts authority as such officer. To make out his defense he must show that his authority was sufficient in law to protect him." Mitchell v. Harmony, 13 How. 115; Bates v. Clark, 95 U. S. 204; Meigs v. McClung, 9 Cranch, 11; Wilcox v. Jackson, 13 Pet. 498; Brown v. Huger, 21 How. 305; and Grisar v. McDowell, 6 Wall. 363. These cases were referred to as embodying the principle stated.

To the same effect, so far as the principle is concerned, is the case of United States v. Lee, 106 U. S. 196. The original action in this case was one in ejectment, brought against the defendants, who were in possession of certain lands as officers of the United States, to which the plaintiff in the court below claimed the lawful title, of which title, as the Supreme Court held, he had not been legally dispossessed. It was conceded by the court that the United States could not, without their consent, be lawfully sued; and at the same time it was held that this doctrine has no application to officers and agents of the United States who, when as such holding for public uses possession of property, are sued therefor by a person claiming to be the owner thereof or entitled thereto, and that the lawfulness of that possession and the right or title of the United States to the property may by a court of competent jurisdiction be the subjectmatter of inquiry, and adjudged accordingly. The court affirmed the judgment giving the property to Lee, on the ground that although it was held by officers of the United States as such, who were the parties sued, still the lawful title was not in the United States, but in Lee, and hence these officers did not hold the property by any legal authority. United States v. Peters, 5 Cranch, 115; Meigs v. McClung's Lessee, 9 id. 11; Wilcox v. Jackson, 13 Pet. 498; Georgia v. Madrazo, 1 id. 110; Osborn v. Bank of the United States, 9 Wheat. 738; Grisar v. McDowell, 6 Wall. 363; Brown v. Huger, 21 How. 305; Davis v. Gray, 16 Wall. 204; The Siren, 7 id. 152; and The Davis, 10 id. 15. These cases were cited by Mr. Justice Miller in stating and sustaining the opinion of the court.

It is not true then that a suit against a State officer is necessarily a suit against the State of which he is an officer within the meaning of the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution. If being an officer of a State, he is acting under color of an unconstitutional State law, then in legal contemplation he is acting under no lawful authority whatever; and this makes him a wrong-doer and a trespasser, who may be sued, if in so doing he invades the rights of another party. This is precisely the predicament in which the deliverance of Mr. Justice Matthews, speaking for the court, places the tax collector of Virginia, who having refused to receive the tax-receivable coupons, provided for in the Funding Act of 1871, in discharge of the tax payer's taxes due to the State, proceeds to enforce payment by the seizure and sale of the tax payer's property. Such tax payer may bring an action against him as a trespasser acting without any authority of law; and in so doing he does not bring the action against the State of Virginia. Any other ruling would leave an aggrieved party without any remedy in a Federal court in any case in which a State government should, through its officers, assume to ex

ercise authority which it does not possess, and cannot therefore lawfully exercise. No State statute, however incompatible with the Constitution of the United States, could, upon any other principle, be, by a Federal court, prevented from being carried into effect by State officers; and no remedy in such a court would be available to the party whose rights might be invaded by the execution of such a statute.

The principles thus set forth by Mr. Justice Matthews at large in Poindexter v. Greenhow, were by the court applied as decisive in the case of White v. Greenhow, in that of Chaffin v. Taylor, and in that of Allen v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 923928. It was held in the last of these cases that the remedy by injunction to prevent the collection of taxes by distraint upon the rolling stock, machinery, cars, engines and other property of railroad corporations, after a tender of payment in tax-receivable coupons, is sanctioned by repeated decisions of the Supreme Court, and has become common and unquestioned practice in similar cases, where exemptions have been claimed in virtue of the Constitution of the United States, the ground of the jurisdiction being that there is no adequate remedy at law. The ruling of Judge Bond in that case, as reported in 17 Fed. Rep. 171, was affirmed.

In Marye v. Parsons, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 932, the court held, in the opinion delivered by Mr. Justice Matthews, that the contract right of a coupon holder under the Virginia act of March 30, 1871, whereby his coupons are receivable in payment of taxes, can be exercised only by a tax payer, and that a bill in equity for an injunction to restrain tax collectors from refusing to receive them when tendered in payment of taxes will not lie in behalf of a coupon holder who does not allege himself to be also a tax payer. Such a bill calls for a decree declaring merely an abstract right, and does not show any breach of the contract or other ground of relief.

These cases, especially in view of the principles adopted by the Supreme Court of the United States in determining them, would seem to settle the Virginia coupon question, so far as it can be settled by adjudication. The tax-receivable coupons are to all intents and purposes a legal tender for the payment of taxes due to the State of Virginia; and when tendered for this purpose by the tax payer to the proper officer of the State, the taxes are in legal effect paid, whether the coupons are received or not, so far as any subsequent proceedings to enforce payment are concerned. Any such proceedings on the part of the tax collector will render him personally responsible as a trespasser and a wrong-doer; and no law of the State can protect him against this liability. All existing laws of the State of Virginia, inconsistent with the contract made under the Funding Act of 1871, are simply a dead letter, and of no force. Any future legislation of the State, if having the same character, would be equally without authority. Whatever the people of Virginia may think or do in regard to the matter, such is the position of the Supreme Court of the United States. Judge Bond, of the United States Circuit Court, as reported in the secular papers, has recently rendered a decision which gives practical effect to the opinion and order of the Supreme Court. His decree declared that when a tax payer tenders the tax-receivable coupons for his taxes due to the State of Virginia, he has thereby paid his taxes; that if the coupons be refused, the tax payer may deposit them in court, and that the clerk thereof shall give him a receipt, certifying that by order of the court his taxes are paid; that the collector of taxes is forever enjoined from levying upon the tax payer's property, and from returning said property as delinquent for taxes; and that the collec