counties and cities, and by fraud and false representation had obtained these bonds, for which no consideration has been paid to the present time. It will not be out of place here, as showing the influence of these corporations over the supreme court of the United States, to refer to the transactions that caused the first departure by the court from the settled rules of decisions on questions arising under the constitutions and statutes of states, and, we may add, initiated a rule of decisions, followed to the present time, which have well nigh destroyed states rights. Under this new rule the whole country is governed by the supreme court and corporations. The people are powerless, and monopolies reign supreme. We refer to the question of aid by counties and municipal corporations to railroads. In many of the states municipal corporations have subscribed stock and issued their bonds to railroad companies, in some instances under express statute authority, and in others without such authority. No one is prepared to admit that compulsory payment by the citizen of a part of his property, or money, to aid a private corporation in building a railroad, is the payment of taxes for the support of government, or that the levy and collection of a tax for that purpose can be supported by any section of the constitution. Yet we all know that such taxes have been, and are being, levied and collected. Judge Dillon, in his work on municipal corporations, says: "The courts concur, with great unanimity, in holding that there is _no implied authority_ in municipal corporations to incur debts or borrow money in order to become subscribers to the stock of railway companies, and that such power must be conferred by _express_ grant. To become stockholders in private corporations is manifestly foreign to purposes intended to be subserved by the creation of corporate municipalities, and the practice of bestowing powers of this kind is of recent date and origin; and hence the rule, that in order to exist, it must be specially conferred, and cannot be deduced from the ordinary municipal grants." If the above quotation is good law (and this no one will deny), the recent decisions made by the supreme court cannot be supported. But in order to avoid the force and effect of this principle, and to provide for the collection of bonds illegally issued (by recent decisions), a new doctrine has been promulgated by the court which overturns state statutes, as well as the decisions of state courts. Treating of this class of bonds, Judge Dillon says:--