State ex rel. Attorney General v. Clinton

28 La. Ann. 219
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedFebruary 15, 1876
DocketNo. 5908
StatusPublished

This text of 28 La. Ann. 219 (State ex rel. Attorney General v. Clinton) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Louisiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State ex rel. Attorney General v. Clinton, 28 La. Ann. 219 (La. 1876).

Opinions

Morgan, J.

The Attorney General avers that under act No. 35 of the session of 1865 the Governor was authorized to issue, and did issue, one thousand bonds of one thousand dollars each, payable in twenty years, bearing interest at eight per cent per annum, the interest payable semiannually, to defray the expenses of building levees in accordance with contracts which had been made by him and'the levee commissioners, which bonds were to be sold, if possible, after thirty days notice, at par, and if not sold within that time, that they could be jfiedged for loans in order to carry out the provisions of the law; that said bonds were executed and delivered to the Board of Levee, Commissioners as follows: One hundred, dated sixteenth of February, 1866 ; eighteen, dated tenth of March, 1866 ; five hundred and six, dated fourteenth of March, I860; one hundred and sixty-five, dated twentieth of March, 1866 ; two hundred and eleven, dated first of July, 1866.

[220]*220That during tho summer of 1866 two hundred and eighteen of these bonds had been taken to New York for sale, but a sale not having been effected, were left there on deposit; that the remaining seven hundred and eighty-two bonds had been pledged, under the law, by the Board of Levee Commissioners on the first of September, 1866, as follows: Seventy-eight to Pike, Lapeyre & Brother, fifteen to the City National Bank, four hundred and ninety-eight to Forstall & Delassus, one hundred and thirty-three to Abat & Generes, forty to the Citizens’ Bank, and twenty-one to sundry insurance companies, three 'bonds to each company, less three bonds pledged to the Louisiana Mutual Insurance Company, redeemed- in June, 1866, and included in the two hundred and eighteen sent to New York for sale; that in October, 1866, six bonds (throe each) pledged to the Crescent and Citizens’ Mutual Insurance Companies were •redeemed, and the two hundred and eighteen sent to New York were returned, making in all two hundred and twenty-four bonds which were, on the fourteenth of December, 1866, exchanged by the Board of Levee Commissioners with the then Treasurer and Auditor for a like amount (two hundred and twenty-four thousand dollars) in State notes, otherwise called certificates of indebtedness.

That on the fifth of January, 1867, tho four hundred and ninety-eight bonds pledged to Forstall & Delassus were redeemed, and on the ninth of January, 1867, four hundred and seventy-six of the same were exchanged for State notes or certificates of indebtedness to an equal amount, which seven hundred bonds were from that date in the State treasury, or under tho control of the Treasurer and Auditor.

That said exchange of State notes for said bonds, or, in other words, the redemption of said bonds to the extent of seven hundred thousand dollars, though done without authority by tho Treasurer and Auditor, was subsequently ratified by act No. 117 of tho acts of 1867.'

• That on tho nineteenth of January, 1867, tho twenty-two bonds then in the hands of the Levee Commissioners and not exchanged with the Auditor and Treasurer were pledged by the Board of Levee Commissioners to the Citizens’ Bank, the disposition of said bonds being c n tho nineteenth of January, 1867, as follows: Seven hundred bonds in the treasury, and three hundred bonds pledged for loans made by the Levee Commissioners, as follows: to Abat & Generes, one hundred and thirty-three bonds; to Pike, Lapeyre & Brother, seventy-eight; to tho City National Bank, fifteen; to the Citizens’ Bank, sixty-two, and to sundry insurance companies, twelve.

That under act No. 35 of tho acts of 1867, authorizing the return of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars from the general to tho levee and drainage fund, the Treasurer, on the second of March, 1867, pledged throe hundred and thirty-two of these bonds to Pike, Lapeyre & Brother, [221]*221and under act No. 88 of acts of 1867, authorizing the Treasurer to borrow fifty thousand dollars, he (the Treasurer) pledged seventy-five of these bonds to the Citizens’ Bank.

That the first of these acts authorized the loan to be made for sixty or ninety days, and the second to be for thirty or sixty days, said loans to be repaid out of the taxes and revenues as the same shall come into the general fund. •

He avers that the redemption of the bonds as aforesaid extinguished the same to the extent of seven hundred thousand dollars, and that the provisions of act No. 35 of 1867, authorizing the pledge of the three hundred and thirty-two bonds for the loan of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars was unconstitutional, the object of the loan not being named in the title to said act.

He avers that on the twenty-sixth of March, 1867, two acts of .the Legislature were passed, one, No. 115, authorizing the issue of four million dollars of bonds for levee purposes, and act No. 116, repealing act No. 35, of December, 1865, which authorized the issuing of one million dollars of levee bonds, and directing the Auditor and Treasurer, in the presence of the Governor and Secretary of State, to cancel all the bonds of the one-million-dollars issue in the hands of the Levee Commissioners, which they were ordered to return as well as those in the treasury, to wit: two hundred and ninety-three bonds, and those which then might be held in pledge, to wit: four hundred and seven bonds; that by the provisions of these laws ample means had been provided to redeem all those bonds which were in pledge for loans by the State, by way of first taxes coming into the general fund, and as to those loaned by the Levee Board, by the bonds soon to be placed in their hands known as the four-million-dollars issue of levee bonds ; that the two hundred and ninety-three bonds, by the act No. 110, became extinguished, null, and void, and those in pledge from the. moment they should be redeemed; that all said bonds then in pledge could and should have been redeemed before the expiration of the year 1867, and that they would have been, had the Auditor and Treasurer not been grossly derelict in their duty.

He avers that all these bonds, so far as they were in the treasury, instead of being canceled, were again re-issued, either .as pledges, or sold, and that those which had been pledged were suffered to be sold, and that they are now uncanceled.

He avers that under the provisions of act No. 122 of 1867, for the purpose of borrowing two hundred and fifty-thousancl dollars, two hundred and twenty of these bonds were, on the eleventh of April, 1867, pledged to Smith, Newman & Co.; sixty bonds, on the third of April, 1867, were pledged to the Canal Bank; and that on the twenty-eighth of March, 1867, ten bonds were pledged to the Citizens’ Bank. He avers that it is [222]*222pretended that one hundred and sixty-seven of these bonds were sold by authority of act No. 123 of 1869, because the same were alleged to be in, pledge, when, in fact, they were in the vaults of the treasury, and should have been destroyed two years previous "to the passage of the act, and that three other bonds were disposed of under act No. 58 of 1869, which bonds should also have been canceled, and that they were in law canceled on the twenty-sixth of March, 1867.

He avers that none of the bonds which had been pledged were redeemed or canceled, as was required by act No. 116 of 1867, but that, in.

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Bluebook (online)
28 La. Ann. 219, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-ex-rel-attorney-general-v-clinton-la-1876.