Benjamin N. Cardozo

“ Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 4 L.Ed. 579, a corporation so conceived and operated is an instrumentality of government without distinction in that regard between one activity and another. Even on that assumption taxation by state or municipality may overpass the usual limits if the consent of the United States has removed the barriers or lowered them.
We think consent has been so given where shares in a national bank are the property to be taxed, though an agency of government is the owner of the assets subjected to the burden. ”

“ If they were to be exempt in the hands of a particular corporation, empowered to acquire them by an associated section, then was the appropriate time for announcing the exception. Instead there is a clear assumption, brought out into full relief by the exclusion of shares chargeable with double liability, that subscriptions when permitted are to stand on an equality, irrespective of their source. A shareholder in the banking system is a shareholder for every purpose, accepting the attendant liabilities along with the attendant powers. ”

“ The purpose to be served is the rehabilitation of finance and industry and commerce, threatened with prostration as the result of the great depression. We assume, though without deciding even by indirection, that within McCulloch v. ”