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Opinion of the Court.

The general purpose and scope of the Fourteenth Amend ment, and the general qualifications necessary to be applied to it, are well stated in Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27, 31. Mr. Justice Field, in delivering the opinion of the court, there said: "The Fourteenth Amendment, in declaring that no State 'shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction, the equal protection of the laws,' undoubtedly intended not only that there should be no arbitrary deprivation of life or liberty, or arbitrary spoliation of property, but that equal protection and security should be given to all under like circumstances, in the enjoyment of their personal and civil rights; that all persons should be equally entitled to pursue their happiness and acquire and enjoy property; that they should have like access to the courts of the country for the protection of their persons and property, the prevention and redress of wrongs, and the enforcement of contracts; that no impediment should be interposed to the pursuits of any one, except as applied to the same pursuits by others under like circumstances; that no greater burdens should be. laid upon one than are laid upon others in the same calling and condition; and that in the administration of criminal justice, no different or higher punishment should be imposed upon one than such as is prescribed to all for like offences. But neither the amendment- broad and comprehensive as it is nor any other amendment, was designed to interfere with the power of the State, sometimes termed its police power, to prescribe regulations to promote the health, peace, morals, education and good order of the people, and to legisdate so as to increase the industries of the State, develop its resources and add to its wealth and prosperity."

With due regard to these considerations, we are clearly of opinion that the method of assessing the tax in question, on the face value of corporate securities in Pennsylvania, is not violative of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

2. As to want of notice to the owners of the bonds. What notice could they have which the law does not give them? They know that their bonds are to be assessed at their face

Opinion of the Court.

value, and that a tax of three mills on the dollar of that value will be imposed; and that they will only be required to pay this tax when, and as, they receive the interest. If the State may assess the tax upon the face value of the bonds, notice in pais is not necessary. We think that there is nothing in this objection which shows any infraction of the Federal Constitution. It is urged that it is a taking of the bondholder's property without due process of law. We must confess that we cannot see it in this light. The process of taxation does not require the same kind of notice as is required in a suit at law, or even in proceedings for taking private property under the power of eminent domain. It involves no violation of due process of law, when it is executed according to customary forms and established usages, or in subordination to the principles which underlie them. We see nothing in the process of taxation complained of, which is obnoxious to constitutional objection on this score. Stockholders in the national banks are taxed in this way, and the method has been sustained by the express decision of this court. National Bank v. Commonwealth, 9 Wall. 353.

3. That the corporation is taxed for property it does not own. This objection is not true in point of fact. The corporation, as the debtor of its bondholders, holding money in its hands for their use, namely, the interest to be paid, is merely required to pay to the Commonwealth out of this fund the proper tax due on the security. The tax is on the bondholder, not on the corporation. This plan is adopted as a matter of convenience, and as a secure method of collecting the tax. That is all. It injures no party. It certainly does not infringe the Constitution of the United States by making one party pay the debts and support the just burdens of another party, as is implied in the objection.

The other objections are embraced in those which we have already considered, and need no further notice.

We would say, in conclusion, that there are several decisions of this court which virtually dispose of most of the questions involved in the present case. We refer particularly to National Bank v. Commonwealth, 9 Wall. 353; The Dollar

Names of Counsel.

Savings Bank v. United States, 19 Wall. 227, 240; King v. United States, 99 U. S. 229; Hagar v. Reclamation District No. 1, 111 U. S. 701; Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U. S. 97; Walston v. Nevin, 128 U. S. 578, 581.

The motion to dismiss the writ of error is denied, and the judgment of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania is affirmed.

CHESTER CITY V. PENNSYLVANIA. Error to the Supreme Court of the State of Pennsylvania. No. 1498. Submitted January 27, 1890. Decided March 10, 1890. Motions were made in this case similar to those made in Bell's Gap Railroad Co. v. Pennsylvania. MR. JUSTICE BRADLEY delivered the opinion of the court. This case, so far as any federal question is concerned, is similar, in all substantial respects, to that of Bell's Gap Railroad Co. v. Pennsylvania, just decided, and must be governed by the decision in that

case.

The motion to dismiss the writ of error is denied, and the judgment of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania is affirmed.

Mr. James W. M. Newlin for the plaintiff in error.

Mr. William S. Kirkpatrick and Mr. John F. Sanderson for defendant in error.

Mr. M. E. Olmsted and Mr. Wayne McVeagh, on behalf of W. W. Jennings, plaintiff in error in No. 1242; Mr. W. B. Lamberton and Mr. George R. Karcher, on behalf of the North Pennsylvania Railroad Company, defendant in error in No. 1556;. and Mr. M. E. Olmsted, on behalf of the Delaware Division Canal Company, The Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway Company, The New York, Lake Erie and Western Railroad Company, The Clearfield Bituminous Coal Corporation, The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Company, and The Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, filed briefs entitled in Bell's Gap Railroad Co. v. Pennsylvania and City of Chester v. Pennsylvania.

Syllabus.

DEPUTRON v. YOUNG.

UNITED STATES FOR THE

ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE

DISTRICT OF NEBRASKA.

No. 1151. Submitted January 6, 1890.- Decided March 10, 1890.

to confer a

e taken as

An averment of diverse citizenship by the plaintiff, nécessai jurisdiction, not being controverted by the defendant, m true under the practice in the courts of Nebraska. When the jurisdictional allegations of the plaintiff are not traversed by the defendant, no question involving the capacity of the parties to litigate in the federal courts can be raised before the jury, or treated as within the issues they are empanelled to determine.

The objection, under section 5, of the act of March 3, 1875, c. 137, 18 Stat. 472, that parties to a suit have been improperly or collusively made or joined for the purpose of creating a case cognizable under the act, should be taken at the first opportunity; and delay in its presentation will be considered in examining into the grounds upon which it is alleged to rest.

A suit cannot properly be dismissed by a Circuit Court, as not involving a controversy within the jurisdiction of the court, unless the facts, when made to appear on the record, create a legal certainty of that conclusion.. In Nebraska a tax deed, not executed by the county treasurer under his seal of office, is void.

In Nebraska a tax deed, though void on its face, is sufficient color of title to support an adverse possession to the property therein described. The adverse possession which bars a recovery in an action of ejectment must be continuous, uninterrupted, open, notorious, actual, exclusive and adverse.

Where the rightful owner of real estate is in the actual occupancy of a part of his tract, he is in the constructive and legal possession and seisin of the whole, unless he is disseised by actual occupation and dispossession; and where the possession is mixed, the legal seisin is according to the legal title.

A power from an owner of real estate authorizing the donee to make and execute deeds to convey the real estate to purchasers, as the same may be sold to such purchasers in tracts by a third party who acts under a contract with the donor of the power, is a naked power to convey as sales may be made, and a deed made by the donee to a person who was not such a purchaser is a fraud upon the power.

In the case of a naked power not coupled with an interest, every prerequisite to the exercise of that power should precede it.

In Nebraska the title of a purchaser at an executive sale depends not alone

VOL. CXXXIV-16

Statement of the Case.

upon his bid or payment of the purchase money, but upon the confirmation of the sale by the court.

One purchasing at an execution sale in Nebraska submits himself to the jurisdiction of the court as to matters affecting that sale; and as the court has power during the term to vacate or modify its own orders or to rescind a decree affirming the sale, he is concluded by the result of the proceedings to confirm or annul it.

THIS was an action of ejectment brought in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Nebraska, June 14, 1884, by Rowena Young, a citizen of Ohio, against John C. Deputron, a citizen of Nebraska, to recover certain premises in the petition named. The defendant answered, denying plaintiff's ownership and right to possession; and setting up title under a tax deed and purchase in good faith and without notice for $10,000 paid, being the full value, and ten years' adverse possession. To this answer a reply, specifically denying its averments, was filed by the plaintiff. At the November term, 1885, of said court, a trial was had, which resulted in a verdict for the defendant and judgment thereon, which was set aside on motion of plaintiff, and a new trial awarded. In March, 1886, the cause was tried a second time, and a special verdict of forty-one findings rendered by the jury as set forth in the margin.1

1 1st. That Jane Y. Irwin obtained title to said lands by patent from the United States December 15, 1862, and on the 9th of August, 1867, conveyed the same to William P. Young, who, on the 5th of February, 1874, reconveyed the same to Jane Y. Irwin, who, on the 11th day of June, 1884, conveyed said lands to the plaintiff, Rowena Young.

2d. On the 31st of March, 1874, Jane Y. Irwin and husband entered into a contract with N. S. Scott, Samuel Boyd and Milton La Master for the selling and subdivision of said lands.

3d. And said Scott, Boyd and La Master soon after entered upon said lands under said contract, and staked out the block corners and street intersections, being engaged in the survey on the lands in controversy and other lands for a period of about two months, finishing their survey about the last of May, 1874.

4th. On the 12th of August, 1875, Jane Y. Irwin and her husband executed a power of attorney to William T. Donavan to enable him to make conveyances to purchasers when sales were made by Scott, Boyd and La Master, and to facilitate their operations under their contract of March 81st, 1874.

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