Unfortunately for the government, the United States Supreme Court squarely refused to entertain the notion that Central Pacific stockholders were individually liable for repayment of advances which the United States had made to that company. Individual liability depends upon express statutory prescription, and no word upon this point was to be found in the federal laws of 1862 and of 1864. While California railroad stockholders were undoubtedly personally liable to some degree for the debts of California corporations, yet the state law which established this liability was held not to apply to the debt due to the United States. The terms of liability as regards this debt were to be sought, according to the Supreme Court, in the Congressional enactment, and there only. It was said that any other ruling would not only lack solid legal foundation, but would have the unfortunate effect of imposing a heavier burden upon stockholders of the Central Pacific than upon those of the Union Pacific.[566] Lien of Subsidy Bonds A second possibility which might have strengthened the government’s claim that the lien of the subsidy bonds might be held to extend to the non-bond-aided portions of the Central Pacific as well as to those portions for the construction of which the government had given aid. This was also the contention of Mr. Doyle, of San Francisco. The point was of the highest importance, because if it were denied, the government possessed a mortgage upon only the trunk lines of the Pacific railroads. It had no interest in, and could by foreclosure secure no control over any branches, or over the principal terminals. On the Central Pacific it could acquire by judicial sale only 860 miles from a total of 1,360, and on the Union Pacific 1,532 miles from a total of 7,944. The bond-aided portions of the Central Pacific reached neither Oakland nor San Francisco.[567] In order to understand the relation of the subsidy bonds to the non-aided portions of the Central Pacific, it is necessary to refer for a moment to the terms of the Pacific railroad legislation. The clauses of the Act of 1862 which relate to the lien of the subsidy bonds of the Central Pacific were to be found in Section 5 of that law. They provided as follows, namely, that: