129 Mass. 279. * * * “The time and mode of attaching property and its effect in general are part of the law of the forum; but its operation upon unrecorded transfers of shares in national banks is regulated by the law which creates the shares, and provides for their conveyance and registration.” Again, in Scoft v. Bank, supra, the same question was before the United States Circuit Court sitting in New York. The stock involved was stock of a national bank located in Connecticut, and it was urged that, under the decisions of that state, the attachment would have preference, but the court said: “The defendant having been incorporated under the national banking act, the rules which regulate the transfers of its stock are to be found in the statutes of the United States.” And, after quoting the statute, the court adds: “The construction of the statute, and the question of title as between the assignee and the attaching creditor, are not controlled by the tenor of the decisions of any one state.” These decisions seem to be decisive of the point under discussion. In their absence we might, perhaps, have reached a different conclusion, under the broad language used in National Bank v. Com.,9 Wall. 353. In speaking of the principle that government agencies cannot be subjected to state legislation, as announced in McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316; and the cases following that decision, Justice Miller, speaking for the full bench, said: “The principle we are discussing has its limitation,—a limitation growing out of the necessity on which the principle is founded. That limitation is that the agencies of the federal government are only exempted -from state legislation so far as that legislation may interfere with or impair their efficiency in performing their functions by which they are designed to serve that government. * * * It is only when the state law incapacitates the banks from discharging their duties to the government that it becomes unconstitutional.” But the cases cited from the Federal Circuit Courts were decided long after Bank v. Com., and involve the precise point here raised, and we deem them conclusive upon us.
The judgment of the District Court is therefore affirmed.
