Opinion of the Court. 130; Field v. New York, 6 N. Y. 179; S. C. 57 Am. Dec. 435; Moody v. Kyle, 34 Mississippi, 506; Corser v. Craig, 1 Wash. C. C. 424; Patten v. Wilson, 34 Penn. St. 299; Lyon V. Summers, 7 Connecticut, 399. The rule that a partial assignment could not be made without the consent of the debtor never amounted to more than that without such consent the assignee could not maintain an action in his own name. It was within the power of Meyers & Son to assign an interest in the contract with the county, together with a portion of the money due therefor. The fact that they were required to give bond for the performance of the work does not affect this right. Their bond remained in force as well after the assignment as before. They were still liable to the county upon their contract and bond, and the county was not injured by the assignment. We cite the court to the following cases, some of which have been cited in support of other positions herein: Field v. New York, 6 N. Y. 179; S. C. 57 Am. Dec. 435; Devlin v. New York, 63 N. Y. 8; Dannant v. Comptroller, 77 N. Y. 45. These are all cases of partial assignments and cover this case. See, also, as in point: Parker v. City of Syracuse, 31 N. Y. 376, 379; Horner v. Wood, 23 N. Y. 350; Taylor v. Palmer, 31 California, 241; Cochran v. Collins, 29 California, 129, 131; Morse v. Gilman, 18 Wisconsin, 373; Gee v. Swain, 12 Wisconsin, 450; Ernst v. Kunkle, 5 Ohio St. 520; Bradley v. Root, 5 Paige, 632; Pendleton v. Perkins, 49 Missouri, 565; Brackett v. Blake, 7 Met. 335; S. C. 41 Am. Dec. 442. The right to assign contracts with, or claims against, municipal corporations is recognized in Indiana. Board v. Jameson, 86 Indiana, 154; Smith v. Flack, 95 Indiana, 116; Coquillard v. French, 19 Indiana, 274. MR. JUSTICE GRAY, after stating the case as above, delivered the opinion of the court. Before proceeding to consider the merits of this case, it is necessary to dispose of the objections taken to the jurisdiction assumed by the Circuit Court of the United States. Opinion of the Court. 1. It was contended that that court had not cognizance of the suit, because the plaintiff's assignors could not have prosecuted it, inasmuch as one of them was a citizen of the same State as the defendant. But that restriction was applicable only to suits commenced in the federal court, and did not extend to suits removed into it from a state court. Act of March 3, 1875, c. 137, §§ 1, 2, 18 Stat. 470; Claflin v. Commonwealth Ins. Co., 110 U. S. 81. 2. It was further objected that the assignors were necessary parties to the suit, because they had assigned to the plaintiff part only of their original contract with the defendant; and because the statutes of Indiana, while they require every action arising out of contract to be prosecuted by the real party in interest, provide that "when any action is brought by the assignee of a claim arising out of a contract, and not assigned by endorsement in writing, the assignor shall be made a defendant, to answer as to the assignment or his interest in the subject of the action." Indiana Rev. Stat. of 1881, §§ 251, 276. But this objection was rather to the nonjoinder of defendants than to the jurisdiction of the court, and presented no valid reason why the court should not proceed. The assignors were not parties to the suit at the time of the removal into the Circuit Court; and as soon as they were made parties in that court, they disclaimed all interest in the suit; and as no further proceedings were had, or relief sought or granted, against them, their presence was unnecessary. Walden v. Skinner, 101 U. S. 577; Morrison v. Ross, 113 Indiana, 186. Besides, the first paragraph or count of the complaint (upon which alone the trial proceeded) alleged that the defendant not only had notice of the assignment to the plaintiff, but consented to that assignment. If that were so, there would be a new and direct promise from the defendant to the plaintiff, and the assignors would be in no sense parties to the cause of action. 3. It was also objected that the petition for removal was filed too late, after the case had been tried and determined by the board of county commissioners. But under the statutes of Indiana then in force, although the proceedings of county commissioners, in passing upon claims against a county, are in Opinion of the Court. some respects assimilated to proceedings before a court, and their decision, if not appealed from, cannot be collaterally drawn in question, yet those proceedings are in the nature, not of a trial inter partes, but of an allowance or disallowance, by officers representing the county, of a claim against it. At the hearing before the commissioners, there is no representative of the county, except the commissioners themselves; they may allow the claim, either upon evidence introduced by the plaintiff, or without other proof than their own knowledge of the truth of the claim; and an appeal from their decision is tried and determined by the circuit court of the county as an orig. inal cause, and upon the complaint filed before the commissioners. Indiana Rev. Stat. $$ 5758-5761, 5777; State v. Washington Commissioners, 101 Indiana, 69; Orange Commissioners v. Ritter, 90 Indiana, 362, 368. It follows, according to the decisions of this court in analogous cases, that the trial in the Circuit Court of the county was "the trial" of the case, at any time before which it might be removed into the Circuit Court of the United States, under clause 3 of section 639 of the Revised Statutes. Boom Co. v. Patterson, 98 U. S. 403; Hess v. Reynolds, 113 U. S. 73; Union Pacific Railway v. Kansas City, 115 U. S. 1, 18; Searl v. School District, 124 U. S. 197, 199. The only ruling upon evidence, which is excepted to, is to the exclusion of the complaint in an action brought by the present plaintiff against its assignors. But there is no material difference between the facts stated in that complaint and those stated in the complaint in the present suit; and the former complaint, not under oath, nor signed by the plaintiff, but only by its attorneys, was clearly incompetent to prove an admission by the plaintiff that upon those facts it had not a cause of action against this defendant. Combs v. Hodge, 21 How. 397; Pope v. Allis, 115 U. S. 363; Dennie v. Williams, 135 Mass. 28. We are then brought to the main question of the liability of the defendant to the plaintiff, depending upon the validity and effect of the partial assignment to the plaintiff from the original contractors of their contract with the defendant. Opinion of the Court. By the law of Indiana, the assignee by a valid assignment of an entire contract, not negotiable at common law, may maintain an action thereon in his own name against the original debtor; and the assignee by valid assignment of part of a contract may sue thereon jointly with his assignor, or may maintain an action alone if no objection is taken by demurrer or answer to the nonjoinder of the assignor. Indiana Rev. Stat. § 251; Groves v. Ruby, 24 Indiana, 418. These rules govern the practice and pleadings in actions at law in the federal courts held within the State. Rev. Stat. § 914; Thompson v. Railroad Companies, 6 Wall. 134; Albany & Rensselaer Co. v. Lundberg, 121 U. S. 451; Arkansas Co. v. Belden Co., 127 U. S. 379, 387. The case at bar was therefore rightly treated by the court below as an action at law; and the real question in controversy is not one of the form of pleading, but whether the plaintiff has any beneficial interest as against the defendant in the contract sued on. A contract to pay money may doubtless be assigned by the person to whom the money is payable, if there is nothing in the terms of the contract which manifests the intention of the parties to it that it shall not be assignable. But when rights arising out of contract are coupled with obligations to be performed by the contractor, and involve such a relation of personal confidence that it must have been intended that the rights should be exercised and the obligations performed by him alone, the contract, including both his rights and his obligations, cannot be assigned without the consent of the other party to the original contract. Arkansas Co. v. Belden Co., 127 U. S. 379, 387, 388. And the fact that that party is or represents a municipal corporation may have a bearing upon the question whether the contract is assignable, in whole or in part, without its assent. By the Revised Statutes of Indiana, it is the duty of the county commissioners to cause jails and other county buildings to be built and furnished, and to keep them in repair. Indiana Rev. Stat. § 5748. But they are forbidden to contract for the construction of any building, the cost of which exceeds $500, except upon public advertisement for bids and Opinion of the Court. to the lowest responsible bidder, and taking from him a bond with sureties to faithfully perform the work according to the contract, and to promptly pay all debts incurred by him in the prosecution of the work, including labor and materials furnished; and any laborer or material-man having a claim against the contractor may sue upon that bond. Indiana Rev. Stat. § 4244, 4247. It has been held by the Supreme Court of Indiana that the only remedy of laborers and material-men is against the contractor, or upon his bond, and that they have no lien upon the building, or right of action against the county; as well as that a county cannot be charged by process in the nature of garnishment or foreign attachment for the debts of its creditors to third persons; and the reason assigned in each class of cases is, that it would be contrary to public policy that a county should be involved in controversies and litigations between its contractors and their creditors. Parke Commissioners v. O'Conner, 86 Indiana, 531; Secrist v. Delaware Commissioners, 100 Indiana, 59; Wallace v. Lawyer, 54 Indiana, 501. In Bass Foundry v. Parke Commissioners, 115 Indiana, 234, where a contractor, to whom the county commissioners had let a contract for the construction of a court-house and jail, sublet the iron work to the plaintiff, and, after partially completing the buildings, abandoned the work and declared his inability to resume it; and it was alleged in the complaint, and admitted by demurrer, that the commissioners agreed with the plaintiff to pay it for such work; it was held that it was within the incidental power of the commissioners, without letting a new contract, to take charge of the work and complete the building, and to bind the county to pay the plaintiff the actual and reasonable value of iron work done by him at their request; but that they had no power to assume, on behalf of the county, debts due from the contractor to the plaintiff; and the court, after referring to the statutes above cited, said: "In the event that a contractor should abandon his contract when the work was at such an incipient stage as that to complete it would amount practically to the construction of a courthouse by county commissioners, without regard to the contract |