Opinion of the Court. organization, the county has been ever the same, and, although the name of the political community given by the statutes is the "board of county commissioners" of the county, it is, after all, the county, with its property and population, which is the debtor. No one would for a moment suppose that when a county has contracted a valid obligation, the fact, if it could be made to appear, that all its inhabitants had removed and their places been supplied by others, would affect that obligation. There has been no subdivision of the original territory; no addition to or subtraction from it. The only change has been in the continuity of political organization, and that, neither by municipal law nor the law of nations, destroys the territorial responsibility for legal obligations. Even a change in form does not destroy responsibility. The republic of France recognizes as valid the debts of the empire. A town whose growth enables it to cast off its village organization and assume the habiliments of a city continues liable for all debts theretofore contracted. And so the debts of a county, contracted during a valid organization, remain the obligations of the county, although for a time the organization be abandoned and there be no officers to be reached by the process of the courts. State ex rel. v. Yorall, 40 Kansas, 323; The Sapphire, 11 Wall. 164; Broughton v. Pensacola, 93 U. S. 266; Mount Pleasant v. Beckwith, 100 U. S. 514. Passing to the question of the bonds themselves, the first to be considered are the bridge bonds. The recital is in these words: "This bond is executed and issued in pursuance of and in accordance with an act of the legislature of the State of Kansas, entitled 'An act to authorize counties, incorporated cities, and municipal townships to issue bonds for the purpose of building bridges, aiding in the construction of railroads, water-power or other works of internal improvement, and providing for the registration of such bonds, the registration of other bonds, and the repealing of all laws in conflict therewith,' approved March 2, 1872, and also in accordance with the vote of a majority of the qualified electors of said county of Comanche, at a special election duly and regularly held therefor on the 31st day of January, 1884 [1874]." Opinion of the Court. The act referred to therein gave to counties full power to issue bonds for the building of bridges and prescribed the proceedings, including therein a vote of the people, essential to the vesting of authority in the county commissioners. The recital that the bond was executed and issued in pursuance of and in accordance with that act, and also in accordance with the vote of the majority of the qualified electors, is, within repeated rulings of this court, sufficient to validate the bonds. in the hands of a bona fide holder. It shows, in the language of School District v. Stone, 106 U. S. 183, "a compliance in all substantial respects with the statute giving authority to issue the bonds," and does not come within the limitations noticed in that case. Further than that, the bonds are endorsed with the official certificate of the auditor of the State that the bonds had been regularly and legally issued; that the signatures were genuine; and that the bonds had been duly registered in his office in accordance with the act of the legislature of March 2, 1872. Inasmuch as these bonds were issued after the act of 1872 went into effect, they fall within the decision in the case of Lewis v. Commissioners, 105 U. S. 739, rather than within that in the case of Bissell v. Spring Valley Township, 110 U. S. 162, as to the conclusiveness of the certificate of the auditor. The suggestion that the recitals are not sufficient because the particular bridge, for the building of which the bonds were to be issued, is not specified, carries no weight. Power is given by the first section of the act of 1872 to issue bonds for building bridges, and while the subsequent sections providing for a vote and other preliminaries seem to contemplate that a particular bridge should be the subject of consideration, yet it has never been held by this court, and ought not to be, that a full and minute detail of all the proceedings is essential to the validity of a recital. The main thing is that the county has promised to pay, and that the people by their vote have authorized such a promise for one of the purposes for which, under the statute, they may bind themselves. The other series of bonds is what is known as "court-house bonds," so named on the face of the bonds themselves. The Opinion of the Court. recital in this bond is as follows: "This bond is executed and issued for the purpose of erecting county buildings in pursuance of and in accordance with an act of the legislature of the State of Kansas, entitled, 'An act relating to counties and county officers,' approved February 29, 1868, and An act to authorize counties,'" etc., reciting the title of the act referred to in the bridge bonds, as well as a vote similar thereto. On the back of each bond appears the auditor's certificate as in the bridge bonds. But it is insisted that county buildings are not works of internal improvement within the meaning of the act last referred to. Be that as it may-and it is unnecessary to decide this question, although in considering it reference may well be had to the opinion of the Supreme Court of Kansas in the case of Leavenworth County v. Miller, 7 Kansas, 479 the act first referred to, the act of February 29, 1868, gave ample authority. That act, section 16, provides: "The board of county commissioners of each county shall have power, at any meeting: . Fourth, to borrow, upon the credit of the county, a sum sufficient for the erection of county buildings, or to meet the current expenses of the county in case of a deficit in the county revenue." Prior to the issue of these bonds the Supreme Court of the State had held, in the case of Doty v. Ellsbree, 11 Kansas, 209, that the power to borrow money carries with it the power to issue the ordinary evidences and security of a loan, and, among them, county bonds. So that, by that act, the county had power to borrow money for the erection of county buildings and issue bonds therefor. There is no force in the suggestion that the purpose expressed in the recital is that of erecting county buildings, instead of borrowing money for the erection of county buildings. A general statement of the purpose, with direct reference to the act granting authority, and a recital that the bond is issued in pursuance of and in accordance with the act, is sufficient. The case of Scipio v. Wright, 101 U. S. 665, rested entirely on the fact of the uniform and continuous ruling on the part of the highest court in the State of New York, in which the bonds were issued, and was a case aris Counsel for Appellants. ing between a municipality and a purchaser who took with notice of the manner in which the bonds had been disposed of. So that this cannot be considered an authority in the case be'fore us. These are all the matters we deem necessary to notice, and, there appearing no error in the ruling of the Circuit Court, its judgment is UNITED STATES v. WATERS. Affirmed. APPEAL FROM THE COURT OF CLAIMS. No. 95. Submitted November 11, 1889.- Decided January 27, 1890. The amount of counsel fee to be allowed to a district attorney, under Rev. Stat. § 824, for trial before a jury of a person indicted for crime, is discretionary with the court, within the limits of the statute; and the action of the court in this respect is not subject to review by the Attorney General, or by the accounting officers of the treasury. The supervisory powers of the Attorney General over the accounts of district attorneys, marshals, clerks and other officers of the courts of the United States under Rev. Stat. § 368, are the same which were vested in the Secretary of the Interior before the creation of the Department of Justice. The powers of an Auditor in the Treasury Department are limited to the examination and auditing of accounts, to the certification of balances, and to their transmission to the comptroller; and do not extend to the allowance or disallowance of the same. A comptroller in the Treasury Department has no power to review, revise or alter items in accounts expressly allowed by statute, or items of expenditures or allowances made upon the judgment or discretion of officers charged by law with the duty of expending the money or making the allowances. THIS was an action against the United States to recover an allowance to a district attorney by the trial court under Rev. Stat. § 824, disallowed by the Attorney General and by the accounting officers of the Treasury. Judgment for claimant, from which the defendants appealed. The case is stated in the opinion. Mr. Attorney General and Mr. B. Wilson for appellants. Opinion of the Court. Mr. Charles C. Lancaster for appellee. MR. JUSTICE LAMAR delivered the opinion of the court. This is an action brought in the Court of Claims on the 18th of February, 1885, by a district attorney of the United States to recover a balance of $320, alleged to be due him for services performed under section 824 of the Revised Statutes, and withheld from him by the accounting officers of the Treasury Department, under instructions from the Attorney General. The material facts in the case, as found by the court below, are substantially as follows: The claimant, Charles C. Waters, for six years immediately preceding the commencement of the action, had been United States district attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, and in his official capacity, during that period, had tried twenty-two indictments for crimes, before a jury, securing a conviction in each case. The District Court before which those causes were tried allowed him $30 counsel fee in each case, in addition to the fees otherwise provided for, in accordance, as is claimed, with the provisions of section 824 of the Revised Statutes. When his accounts were forwarded to the accounting officers of the Treasury Department they were submitted to the Attorney General for his supervision, Rev. Stat. § 368, who reduced the amounts, allowed claimant $10 in five, $15 in fourteen, and $20 in three of the cases in all $320. The accounting officers of the Treasury Department followed the action of the Attorney General and passed the accounts as reduced. The practice of reducing the allowances made to district attorneys for counsel fees first began about 1878, when Attorney General Devens issued the following circular : "DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, WASHINGTON, Esq., "United States Attorney, District of 1878, "SIR: Your attention is invited to the concluding clause of section 824 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, permitting an allowance not exceeding $30, in addition to the VOL. CXXXIII-14 |