Sacramento daily record-union., 1883-09-19
RAILROAD TAX CASE.

Following is the official synopsis Of the de-.
cision of Justics Field in the Marin county
railroad tax case. TO which reference was
made yesterday The decision occupied an
hour and forty minutes in its delivery, and
Judge Sawyer fled one of about the same
length without reading il:
The Constitution OF California declares that a
mortgage on property shall, for the purposes Of
assessment and taxation, be deemed and treated as
interest in the property sected and except as to
railroad and quasi public corporations the value OF
the property less the value OF the security shall be
assessed and taxed to the owner of the property,
and the value of the securities shall be assessed and
taxed to the holder, and that either party paying
the tax thus chargeable to the otaer shall be allowed
\ creait either as payment on the mortgage or as
addition to it. This rule has been followed in this
State in the assessment and taxation of all property
of natural subject TO mortgage, but Is not
followed in the assessment and taXation OF property
OF railroad companies subject 10 q mortgage. III
consequence Of this discrimination, railroad com
panies obtain no credit on their mortgages which
exceed the value of their property for the sX hun
dred thousand dollars paid by them each year as
taxes, which natural persons paying such tax
would be allowed. The Court holds that this DIS
elimination imposes upon them an unequal ana op
pressve burden forbidden by the Fourteenth
Amendment to the Federal Constitution, which
declares that State shall deny to any person
within its uris fiction the equal protection OF the
laws and that this limitation upon the State affects
the exercise of all their powers which can touch
the individual or his property, including among
them that of taxation. The Court decides that
the equal protection guaranteed by the Fourteenth
Amendment implies not only that the means which
the laws afford for the protection OF private rights
shall be equally accessible to every one, but that no
one shall be subject to any greater burdens or
charges than such are equally imposed upon all
others under like circumstances, and that persons
are not deprived of such equal protection in their
property because they associate themselves into
corporstion; that the power of the State over
corporation by its reservation Of the right to alter
amend or repeal its charter is limited to what the
State grants that though State may prescribe the
conditions upon which the powers granted to cor
poration shall be exercised ard the franchise en-
joyed aud may modify its grant in this respect at
pleasure the property acquired by the corporation
in the exercise Of its powers otherwise is pro-
teced by the guarantees Of the Constitution to the
same extent as the property of individuals and can
be subjected only to such burdens imposed
upon the property Of individuals. The Court also
holds that the Central Pacific and the Southern Pa
cic Railroad Companies are not exempt from State
taxation because employed as agents of the Gen.
eral Government for postal and military purposes,
in the absence of any Congressional legislation de-
carine such exemption.