The facts in this case are, in all respects, the same as those in Anthony v. County of Jasper, 101 U.S. 693, except that here it is expressly found that the subscription of the township which was voted had actually been made by the county court, and accepted by the railroad company before the act providing for the registration of bonds was approved, while there the acceptance of the subscription before the approval of the act did not appear, unless by implication. The vote of the township was taken on the fifth of March, 1872; the order of the county court for the subscription entered on the twenty-eighth of March, and on the same day the subscription was actually made and accepted. The registration act was approved March 30th.
Upon the additional fact found in this case it is insisted
(1) that if the registration act was applicable to the bonds now in question, it impaired the obligation of the contract of subscrption, and is therefore, so far as such application is concerned, in contravention of article 1, § 10, cl. 1, of the constitution of the United States; and
(2) that it was retrospective in its operation, and therefore in contravention of article 1, § 28, of the constitution of Missouri, which is 'that no ex post facto law, nor law impairing the obligation of contracts, or retrospective in its operation, can be passed.' It is also insisted that the fourth section of the act is in contravention of the constitution of Missouri, because it delegates the exercise of judicial power to an executive officer of the state.
The first two objections may be considered together, and, to our minds, they are disposed of by the paragraph in the opinion in Anthony v. County of Jasper, which is as follows, (page 699:)
'It matters not that when the bonds were voted the registration law was not in force. Before they were issued it had gone into effect. It did not change in any way the contract with the railroad company. The company was just as much entitled to its bonds when it complied with the conditions under which they were voted after the law, as it could have been before. All the legislature attempted to do was to provide what should be a good bond when issued. There was nothing changed but the form of the execution.'