464 



LAW, CONSTITUTIONAL. 



porting or carrying out of this State any such tobacco 

 without having the same opened for inspection ; but 

 such tobacco, so exported or carried out of this State 

 without inspection, shall in all cases be marked with 

 the name in full of the owner thereof and the resi- 

 dence of such owner, and shall be liable to the same 

 charge of outage and storage as in other cases, and 

 any such person who shall carry or send out of this 

 State any such tobacco without having it so marked, 

 shall be subject to the penalty prescribed by this sec- 

 tion. 



In an elaborate opinion written by Justice 

 Blatchford, the Court, affirming the judgment 

 of the Maryland Court of Appeals, held : first, 

 that this section, in its provisions as to charges 

 for outage and storage, is not in violation of 

 clause 2 of section 10 of Article I of the Con- 

 stitution of the United States as respects any 

 impost or duty imposed by it on exports, or in 

 violation of the clause of section 8 of Article 

 I, which gives power to Congress "to regu- 

 late commerce with foreign nations and among 

 the several States"; second, that the charge 

 for outage under the proviso of said section 41, 

 as amended and re-enacted, is an " inspection 

 duty" within the meaning of the Constitu- 

 tion ; third, that dispensing with an opening 

 for an inspection of the hogsheads mentioned 

 in the proviso does not, in view of the other 

 provisions of the tobacco inspection laws of 

 Maryland, deprive those statutes of the char- 

 acter of inspection laws ; fourth, that it is not 

 foreign to the character of an inspection law 

 to require every hogshead of tobacco to be 

 brought to a State tobacco warehouse; fifth, 

 that the section of the law in controversy is 

 not a regulation of commerce, or unconstitu- 

 tional as discriminating between the State 

 buyer and manufacturer of leaf-tobacco and 

 the purchaser who buys for the purpose of 

 transporting the tobacco to another State or to 

 a foreign country, or a discrimination between 

 different classes of exporters of tobacco ; sixth, 

 that the charge for outage in this case appears 

 to be a charge for services properly rendered. 



THE KAILROAD-TAX CASE. No more im- 

 portant constitutional question was raised dur- 

 ing the year than that passed upon by the 

 United States Circuit Court in California, and 

 afterward argued before the Supreme Court of 

 the United States, in the " railroad-tax case." 

 The suit was begun by the county of San 

 Mateo against the Southern Pacific Eailroad 

 Company for the recovery of State and county 

 taxes. The company set up the defense that, 

 in the assessment of its property, according to 

 which the taxes claimed had been levied, an 

 unlawful and unjust discrimination was made 

 between its property and the property of indi- 

 viduals. The Constitution of California pro- 

 vides that all property in the State, with cer- 

 tain exceptions, shall be taxed in proportion to 

 its value; but, in the ascertainment of its value 

 as a basis for taxation, a distinction is made 

 between the property of persons and that of 

 railroad corporations. In the assessment of 

 individual property, the amount of mortgages 

 on it is deducted from its value ; in the case of 



corporate property this deduction is not al- 

 lowed. The practical effect of this law was 

 thus illustrated by Justice Field : " Suppose a 

 private person owns a farm which is valued 

 at $100,000, and is encumbered with a mort- 

 gage amounting to $80,000; he is, in that 

 case, assessed at $20,000 ; if the rate of taxa- 

 tion be two per cent, he would pay $400 

 taxes. If a railroad company owns an adjoin- 

 ing tract worth $100,000, which is also en- 

 cumbered by a mortgage for $80,000, it would 

 be assessed for $100,000, and required to pay 

 $2,000 taxes, or five times as much as the pri- 

 vate person." The railroad company contend- 

 ed, among other things, that the provision of 

 the Constitution of California which authorized 

 this discrimination against corporations was in 

 violation of the fourteenth amendment to the 

 Federal Constitution, which declares that no 

 State shall deny to any person within its juris- 

 diction the equal protection of the laws. The 

 plaintiff maintained, first, that the fourteenth 

 amendment was intended only to secure civil 

 rights to colored citizens ; and, second, that a 

 corporation is not a person within the mean- 

 ing of that amendment. On the questions thus 

 raised two elaborate opinions were rendered 

 by Circuit-Justice Field, of the United States 

 Supreme Court, and Circuit-Judge Sawyer, 

 who agreed that equal protection of the law is 

 guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment to 

 corporations as well as persons, and that the 

 amendment is aimed against unjust discrimina- 

 tion in taxation as well as in the matter of per- 

 sonal rights. Justice Field admitted that the 

 power of taxation possessed by the State may 

 be exercised upon any subject within its juris- 

 diction, and to any extent not prohibited by 

 the Constitution of the United States expressly 

 or by clear implication. Hence, where com- 

 plaint is made in a Federal court of a tax 

 levied by the States, the question always is, 

 whether there is any inhibition, express or 

 implied, in the Federal Constitution upon the 

 imposition of the tax. Considering this ques- 

 tion in the light of the fourteenth amendment, 

 he said : 



The fourteenth amendment of the Constitution, in 

 declaring that no State shall deny to any person with- 

 in its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, 

 imposes a limitation upon the exercise of all the pow- 

 ers of the State which can touch the individual or 

 his property, including among them that of taxation. 

 Whatever the State may do, it can not deprive any 

 one within its jurisdiction of the equal protection of 

 the laws. And by equal protection of the laws is 

 meant equal security under them to every one on 

 similar terms, in his life, his liberty, his property, and 

 in the pursuit of happiness. It not only implies the 

 right of each to resort, on the same terms with others, 

 to the courts of the country for the security of his 

 person and property, the prevention and redress of 

 wrongs, and the enforcement of contracts, but also 

 his exemption from any greater burdens or charges 

 than such as are equally imposed upon all others un- 

 der like circumstances. 



Unequal exactions in every form, or under any pre- 

 tense, are absolutely forbidden ; and, of course, un- 

 equal taxation, for it is in that form that oppressive 

 burdens are usually laid. It is not possible to con- 



