Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1885-04-26
whose Legislation2

II is true, we think, as stated by Mr..
PORTER, member Of the House Of
Delegates from Portsmouth, that the act
Of Assembly passed last year requiring
licenses to be paid for in money has not
been pronounced unconstitutional by
the Supreme Court Of the United States.
Indeed, il has not, we believe, been
passed upon at all by that tribunal.
Looking over the opinion of the Su-
prcme Court, we find that under the
first head it is twice said that the cou-
pons must be received for I" for taxes"
The General Assembly Of 1884 passed
the bill alluded TO BY Mr.. PORTER be-
cause it was held by good lawyers that
license was privilege and that the
Legislature could make its own terms
in granting such privileges. Therefore
il does not appear that the court has
decided that license-privilege is tax.
But we fear il will do so.
The I'd, Sd, 4th, 9Th, and 9th heads
contain nothing on this point. The 9TH
shows that the act pronounced uncon-
stitutional is the act Of January %,
1882, "to provide for the more efficient
collection of the revenue, to support
government, maintain the public schools,
and to pay interest on the public debt,
requiring tax-collectors to receive in
discharge of the taxes license taxes and
other dues, gold, silver, United States
Treasury notes, nstional-bank cuTren-
cy, and nothing else, and thereby for
bidding the receipt of coupons issued
under the act of March 80, 1871, in
payment therefor .
Again No. IL denounces the same
act as follows:
"The suit authorized by the act of
the General Assembly of Virginia Of
January &c, 1882, against the collector
of taxes, refusing to accept tender of
coupons, to recover back the amount
paid under protest is no remedy at all
for the breach of the contract which re-
quired him to receive the coupons in
payment"
No. 13 reads as follows:
1.-The act Of the General Assembly Of
Virginia of January 26. 1882, and the
amendatory act of March Is, 1884, are
unconstitutional and void. because they
impair the obligation of the contract
of the State with the coupon-holder
under the act of March 30, 1871 and
that being the main object of the two
acts, the vice which invalidates them
pervades them throughout and in
all their provisions. 1t is not prac-
ticable to- separate those parts
which repeal and abolish the actions of
trespass and trespass on the case and
other particular forms of action, as
remedies for the taxpayer who has ten
dered his coupons in payment of taxes,
from the main object Of the acts which
that prohibition was intended to effectu-
ate; and it follows that the whole of
these and similar statutes must be de-
clared TO be unconstitutional, null, and
void"
1t may be supposed that the act Of
March Is, 1884, is the one alluded to
by Mr.. PORTER. But not so. The
act of March l3, 1884, is simply an act
providing-first, that the act of 1882
should be amended, so as to require the
coupons rendered to be sealed up in an
envelope and produced to prove the
tender, and, secondly, certain other
provisions as to the coupon-holder's
remedy.
We hear, as we have elsewhere
stated, that the constitutionality of the
law requiring all licenses to be paid for
in money will be decided by the Supreme
Court tomorrow.