Court Opinion

ID: 9418213
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:13:29.192917+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:57.682643
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Lamar
dissenting.
I dissent from the conclusions reached in the first branch of the opinion,, because, in my judgment, the statute which is not a police but a revenue measure makes an arbitrary discrimination. It taxes some and exempts others engaged in identically the same business. It does not graduate the license so that those doing a large volume of business pay more than those doing less. On the contrary, it exempts the large business and taxes the small. It exempts the business that is so large as to require the use of steam, and taxes that which is so small that it can be run by hand. Among these small operators there is a further discrimination, based on sex. It would be just as competent to tax the property of men and exempt that of women.' The individual, characteristics of the owner do not furnish a basis on which to make a classification for *65purposes of taxation. It is the property or the business which is to be taxed, regardless of the qualities of the owner. A discrimination founded on the personal attributes of those engaged in the same occupation and not on the value or the amount-of the business is arbitrary. “A classification must always rest upon some difference which bears a reasonable and just relation to the act in respect to which the classification is proposed.” Connolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Co., 184 U. S. 560.