This was an action brought by Fauntleroy, the defendant in error, a citizen of Virginia, against the city of Hannibal, a municipal corporation of Missouri, to recover the amount of principal and interest alleged to be due on certain bonds and coupons. The bonds are dated April 1, 1858, for $1,000 each, and are payable twenty years after date of A. O. Nash, auditor of said city, or bearer, at the American Exchange Bank, New York, for value received, without defalcation, with interest at the rate of ten per cent per annum, payable semi-annually, on the first day of October and April in each year, upon presentation of the annexed coupons severally, until the payment of the principal sum. They purport on their face to have been issued by the city to pay calls on subscription for stock in the Pike County Railroad, Illinois. They contain no other recitals. They were issued, it is claimed, under the authority of an act of the legislature of Missouri, passed Feb. 27, 1857, to amend the charter of the city, the third section of which reads as follows:--
'SECT. 3. Said city council shall have power to subscribe for and take stock in any railroad terminating at the city of Hannibal or upon the bank of the Mississippi River opposite to said city in the State of Illinois. But before such subscription shall be valid, it shall be ratified by a majority of the taxpayers, at a poll to be opened for that purpose.'
The second section of the same act provides that 'said council shall also have power to borrow on the credit of the city and to pledge the revenues and public property for the payment thereof; but a greater rate of interest than ten per cent shall not be paid on any sum borrowed, unless two-thirds of the qualified voters of said city, at polls to be opened for that purpose, shall instruct the payment of a greater rate.'
It is, therefore, not denied that the bonds are binding obligations upon the municipal corporation, provided the subscription to the stock of the Pike County Railroad, in payment of which they were issued, was lawfully made; and no question is made as to the validity of this subscription, except that it was not ratified, as is claimed, by a majority of the taxpayers, in accordance with the provisions of the third section of the amended charter.
It appears that, at a called meeting of the city council of the city of Hannibal, held on Oct. 22, 1857, an ordinance was duly passed authorizing and directing the subscription of $100,000 stock in the Pike County Railroad, as follows:--
'Be it ordained by the city council of the city of Hannibal, as follows:--
'SECT. 1. That the mayor of the city of Hannibal be, and is hereby, authorized and directed to subscribe for and take for the city of Hannibal, one hundred thousand dollars stock in the Pike County Railroad, having its western terminus on the bank of the Mississippi River, at a point in the State of Illinois opposite the city of Hannibal, within a one-half mile of the western terminus of Suy Carty Plank Road; said stock to be paid for in the bonds of the city of Hannibal at their par value, which bonds are to be made payable not exceeding twenty years from the date of their issue, and are to bear ten per cent interest per annum, payable semiannually.
'SECT. 2. That the mayor be, and is hereby, directed to cause a poll to be opened in said city of Hannibal for the purpose of obtaining the ratification of the foregoing said subscription of one hundred thousand dollars stock in said Pike County Railroad by the taxpayers of said city of Hannibal, in accordance with the provisions contained in the third section of an act passed by the General Assembly of the State of Missouri, entitled 'An Act to amend the charter of the city of Hannibal,' approved February 27th, 1857.