The object of this action, which was commenced on the twelfth day of May, 1880, is to recover the amount due on bonds, with interest coupons attached, issued on the first day of January, 1857, by the town of Koshkonong, a municipal corporation of Wisconsin, pursuant to authority conferred by an act of the legislature of that State. They were made payable to the Chicago, St. Paul, and Fond du Lac Railroad Company, or its assigns, on the first day of January, 1877, at the American Exchange Bank, in the city of New York, with interest at the rate of eight per cent per annum, payable semi-annually, on the presentation of the interest warrants at that bank on the first day of each July and January, until the principal sum should be paid. Of the bonds in suit, with their respective coupons, Burton became the owner by written assignment from the railroad company, indorsed upon the bonds, under date of Nov. 16, 1857. None of the coupons have ever been detached from the bonds nor paid, except those maturing July 1, 1857, and Jan. 1, 1858.
The coupons are all alike except as to dates of a maturity. They are complete instruments, capable of sustaining separate actions, without reference to the maturity or ownership of the bonds. Commissioners of Knox County v. Aspinwall et al., 21 How. 539; Clark v. Iowa City, 20 Wall. 583; Amy v. Dubuque, 98 U.S. 470. The following is a copy of the one last due: 'The town of Koshkonong will pay to the holder hereof, on the first day of January, 1877, at the American Exchange Bank, in the city of New York, forty dollars, being for half-yearly interest on the bond of said town No. 22, due on that day. S. R. Crosby, clerk.'
The main question is whether the action, as to coupons maturing more than six years prior to its commencement, is not barred by the Statutes of Limitation of Wisconsin. The court below being of opinion that no part of plaintiff's demands was barred, gave judgment for the principal of the bonds, with interest from the first day of January, 1877, at the stipulated rate of eight per cent per annum until paid, and also for the amoun of each coupon in suit, with interest from its maturity at the rate of seven per cent per annum, the latter being the rate established by the local law in the absence of a special agreement by the parties.
The present writ of error questions the correctness of that judgment, as well because it overrules the defence of limitation to coupons maturing more than six years before the commencement of this action, as because it allows interest upon the amount of each coupon from its maturity.
The statutes of Wisconsin, in force when the bonds and coupons were issued, provided that 'all actions of debt founded upon any contract or liability, not under seal' (except such as are brought upon the judgment or decree of some court of record of the United States, or of a State or Territory of the United States), shall be commenced within six years after the cause of action accrued, and not afterwards; and that all personal actions on any contract, not otherwise limited by the laws of the State, shall be brought within twenty years after the accruing of the cause of action. Rev. Stat. Wis. 1849, sects. 14-22, pp. 644, 645.
We remark that the foregoing provisions, without substantial change of language, were taken from the statutes of the Territory of Wisconsin, adopted in 1839. Further, that the revision of 1849 did not, in terms, prescribe any limitation to actions upon sealed instruments. They were, therefore, embraced by the limitation of twenty years as to personal actions on contracts not covered by other provisions.