1874.] ^ii [Price. 



"It is clear, then, that the Society could not charge this lot by any 

 recognizance, mortgage, judgment, debt, obligation, or responsibility, 

 nor could they create any lien upon it ; because it could not be sold by 

 any form of execution, and this being the case, no taxes could be a lien 

 upon it, and no form of proceeding to recover the same could create a 

 lien upon this lot, because it could not be sold under any such judgment. 

 It seems stronger in the case of taxes levied under the authority of the 

 very Government that has expressly prohibited any sale of it, except in 

 the cases specially pointed out, and by the character of its public uses as 

 expressly declared. The uses for which it was given are public, and can 

 neither be affected nor destroyed by the adverse action and process of 

 a court of law. The court below were therefore right, and their judg- 

 ment must be affirmed. 



"This Society numbers amongst its members many distinguished 

 foreigners of great scientific eminence, and it corresponds with public 

 bodies and private individuals devoted to the pursuit of science in every 

 country in Europe ; one of its latest correspondents being a Hungarian 

 Society, whose Transactions are published in their native language. It 

 has a most valuable library of about 27,000 volumes, of which a complete 

 catalogue is now preparing at a very heavy expense, including a gi-eat 

 many manuscript letters and papers of a most valuable and rare charac- 

 ter, relating to the early history of this Province and country. A large 

 number of the works in the library are of a scarce and rare kind, and 

 are not to be found on this side of the Atlantic, including a complete set 

 of the Transactions of the Royal Society of London, commencing two 

 centuries ago. The first President of this Society was the originator of 

 the first fire company, the first public library, the first hospital, and the 

 first academy, now the University of Pennsylvania, a signer of the Dec- 

 laration of Independence, Minister to France, one of our Ministers Pleni- 

 potentiary who signed the provisional articles and the definitive treaty of 

 peace between the United States and Great Britain, and finally one of the 

 framers of the Constitution of the United States. 



"This was Dr. Benjamin Franklin, the patriot and the Philosopher ; 

 and I cannot but express a confident hope that the City and the State of 

 which he was so distinguished an ornament, will never permit the hands 

 of the tax-gatherer to diminisli the fund devoted to the interests of science 

 in every part of the world, both in peace and in war, and belonging to a 

 Society of which he was the founder." 



Judge Read, in an opinion concurring with his brethren on the bench, 

 held the Southern Confederacy to be " an entire and complete nullity : 

 The coantry and the people embraced by this unholy rebellion are simply 

 in a state of rebellion, and ai"e rebellious citizens, but at the same time 

 they are enemies, and may be treated as such. They may be tried as 

 traitors and pirates, and may, under the laws of the United States, be 

 convicted and punished as such, and no man or nation could complain of 

 it as an unjust or illegal act." Yet it was held that we could and should 



