Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-02-20


interesting questions questions which de-
advice when dealing with the subject of
taxation. The validity of the California
constitutional provision was assailed by the
railroad companies upon another ground,
based upon another section of the State
Constitution. The point taken was that
the Constitution which authorized the
State Board of Equalization to assess did
not provide for notice or give an oppor-
tunity to be heard. This point was care
fully considered by Justice Field and
Judge Sawyer in the San Mateo and Santa
Clara cases, and they held that this defect
in the Constitution could be remedied by
legislation; that if the Legislature fixed
the dates between which the State Board
of Equalization should act, or provided
that notice should be given to the COM
panies, it would be competent legislation,
and that an assessment made within a
period named, the company having a right
10 appear and be heard, would be a process
of law.
This was e wise piece OF legislation,
and followed in the wake of Judicial de-
cisions of the highest order. No taxing
system can be valid that does not seek
honest ends. No law which leads to in
Justice, whatever it may pGrport on its
| face to do, can ever be valid taxing law.
Attempts at discrimination, whether COW
cred by general laws or incorporated in
Especial Acts, can never convert an illegal
system Into legal one. Courts have re-
peatedly said that they would look beyond
the form of a statute at its intent and pur-
pose, and at the thing which it seeks to
accomplish, and after having arrived at
that intent and purpose, will construe it
accordingly. Courts have frequently IN
this and other States declared statutes
which were general in form to be special
legislation because the end aimed at by the
statute was special and discriminating, al
though in form it was general and free
from apparent discrimination. One Of the
greatest of American statesmen, match
less lawyer of pure and spotless character,
one who never shrank from asserting the
truth or following the lead of principle,
one who never obeyed party behests if
they were not in the line of his own con-
science, one whose preserved arguments
rank with those of Webster, of Writ or
| Pickney as authority, has dealt with this
subject, and dealt with it in the presence
of the most august judicial tribunal ever
| established by man, with frankness which
was part of his nature. His reputation
and learning and the subsequent adjudica-
ton of the Court support his arguments.
They have never been answered, and they
never can be answered. He has passed to
his grave, leaving behind, as a legacy to
his countrymen, his recorded opinions on
many great questions, not the least of
which are his opinions on the questions
now under consideration.
SCOPE OF THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT.
1t was asserted in the beginning of this
legislation that the Fourteenth Amend
ment to the Constitution was made for
black men alone; that the word ''person,"
in the Fourteenth Amendment, did not
apply to corporations, and did not protect
men who had exercised the natural right
of association. He answered these ques-
tions successfully and set them at rest.
After discussing the question deliberately,
he said:
Suppose colored men in Louisiana
should as a co-partnership or joint stock
company, acquire a theatre or baseball
ground, and upon coniscation of their pro-
perty, should receive the protection of the
national Courts acting under the Four
tenth Amendment, and afterwards should
| incorporate themselves for the manage
ment of the same property for the same
purpose-if a second and like confscation
should occur, can it be that the same
Courts would say that the right of protec-
ton was lost by the act of incorporation,
and might be revived again by resuming a
co-partnership name?
81 have put the case of the colored men.
Let me transpose the illustration. In sew
eral States colored men outnumber white
men. Suppose in one of these States laws
should be contrived by the colored MAORI
! ty, or constitution set up, under which
the property of white men should be con-
| fscated, surely the Court would not say the
constitution is dumb, but would speak, if
only the parties of the record were re-
versed.
81 have sought to convince your honors
that the men who framed, the Congress
which proposed, and the people who
through their Legislatures ratified the
| Fourteenth Amendment, must have known
the meaning and force Of the term per
sons
THE REAL QUESTION.
''Let me now turn your attention away
from this surmise to the real question to
be answered Let me remind you that
the scope and effect of general provision
is never to be ascertained by seeking for
the particular cases which the author had
in thought at the time the provision was
drawn or adopted. The Court cannot ac-
quit itself as interpreter and expounder by
visiting, If the Court could visit, the minds
and thoughts and hopes and fears and
doubts and expectations and anticipations
of those who took part in devising the
| Constitution. The true question, in ex-
ploring the meaning Of the Fourteenth
Amendment, is not, in given case, whether
the trainers foresaw that particular case and
acted in reference to it; the inquiry is,
does the case fall within the expressed in
tention of the amendment All cases
comprised by the letter of the language
must be included, unless obviously repug-
nant or foreign to its spirit and purpose
81 ask the Court to listen to the rule of
construction as laid down in the Dartmouth
College case by great and rugged magis-
trate. The words are the words of Chief
Justice Marshall, speaking for the Court :
'''It is more than possible that the pres
ervation of rights of this description was
not particularly in the view of the trainers
of the Constitution when the clause under
consideration was introduced into that in
strument. tits probable that interferences
of more frequent recurrence, to which the
temptation was stronger, and of which the
mischief was more extensive, constituted
the great motive for imposing this restric-
ton on the State Legislatures.
"'But although particular and rare
case may not of itself be OF sufficient mag
nilude 10 induce rule, yet it must be
governed by the rule when established,
unless some plain and strong reason for ex-
clEding it can be given. 1t is not enough
To say that this particular case was not in
the mind of the Convention when the
article was framed, nor of the American
peoFle when it was adopted. Ii is neces-
siry to 90 faH.her, and to say that
had this particular case been suggested
the language woEld have been SO varied as
to exclude it, or 1t would have been made
special exception. The case being
within the words q the rule must be within
Its operation likewise, unless there be
something in the literal construction SC
.ebyionsly absurd o. misehievous or repug.
iusnt In the general spirif Of tho int r,l