In Bissell v. City of Jeffersonville (1860) 65 U.S. 287, the Supreme Court found that there was power to issue the bonds, and that after they were issued and delivered to the railroad company it was too late, as against a bona fide holder, to call in question the determination of the facts, which the law prescribed as the basis of the exercise of the power granted, and which the city authorities were authorized and required to determine before bonds were issued. In that case, the common council of the city had authority to subscribe for stock in a railway company and to issue bonds for such subscription upon the petition of three fourths of the legal voters of the city. The common council made a determination that the petition presented contained three fourths of such legal voters, and the bonds were thereupon issued. The bonds having been issued, the city defaulted in the payment of the interest, and an action was brought to recover such installments in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Indiana. After the plaintiff had given evidence from the records of the common council that it had determined that three fourths of the legal voters of the city had petitioned for the issuing of such bonds, the defendant offered parol testimony to show that three fourths of the legal voters of the city did not so petition. The evidence was admitted under objection, and under the rulings the jury returned a verdict in favor of the defendants, and the case was brought here for review. The Supreme Court, upon that question, through Mr. Justice Clifford, said (page 296): "Unless three fourths of the legal voters had petitioned, it is clear that the bonds were issued without authority, as by the terms of the explanatory act it could only apply to a case where the common council of a city had contracted the obligation or liabilities therein specified upon the petition of three fourths of the legal voters of such city; and if no such petition had been presented, or if it was not signed by the requisite number of the legal voters, the law did not authorize the common council to ratify and affirm the subscription. That fact, however, had been previously ascertained and determined by the board to which the petition was originally addressed."