Horace Gray

“ The reasons for exempting all the property and income of a state, or of a municipal corporation, which is a political division of the state, from federal taxation, equally require the exemption of all the property and income of the national government from state taxation. ”

“ The title of the United States can be divested by no other power, by no other means, in no other mode, than that which congress shall sanction and prescribe. It cannot be done by the action of the people or legislature of a territory or state.' And he supported this conclusion by a review of all the acts of congress under which states had theretofore been admitted. ”

“ So the United States, at the discretion of congress, may acquire and hold real property in any state, whenever such property is needed for the use of the government in the execution of any of its powers, whether for arsenals, fortifications, light-houses, custom-houses, court-houses, barracks, or hospitals, or for any other of the many public purposes for which such property is used ”

“ In short, under a republican form of government, the whole property of the state is owned and held by the state for public uses, and is not taxable, unless the state which owns and holds it for those uses clearly enacts that it shall share the burden of taxation with other property within its jurisdiction. ”

“ The cases in which it has been held that public lands, granted by the United States to a railroad company, continue to be exempt from state taxation so long as the costs of survey have not been paid and patents have not been issued, stand upon equally broad ground. ”

“ In the words of Chief Justice MARSHALL: 'The United States is a government, and consequently a body politic and corporate, capable of attaining the objects for which it was created, by the means which are necessary for their attainment. This great corporation was ordained and established by the American people, and endowed by them with great powers for important purposes. Its powers are unquestionably limited ”

“ The United States, for instance, as incident to the general right of sovereignty have the capacity, within the sphere of their constitutional powers, and through the instrumentality of the proper department, to enter into contracts and take bonds, not prohibited by law, and appropriate to the just exercise of those powers, although not expressly directed or authorized to do so by any legislative act ”

“ In at least 26 states, namely,-Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, South Carolina, Vermont, Maine, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Florida, West Virginia, California, Oregon, and Nevada,-all property of the United States is expressly exempted from taxation. ”

“ The judgment rendered by the supreme court of Pennsylvania on March 31, 1845, holding the building and land to have been subject to the assessment and payment of the taxes, was brought to this court by writ of error, and affirmed by an equal division of opinion. ”

“ Justice WOODBURY, in a case in which, however, the exercise of the power by the state was adjudged to be unlawful. U.S. v. Chicago, 7 How. 185, 194, 195. But it can hardly be reconciled with the views expressed by congress, in acts concerning particular railroads, too numerous to be cited, as well as in general legislation. ”

“ Singer, 4 Serg. & R. 354; Directors of the Poor v. School Directors, 42 Pa. St. 21; People v. Doe, 36 Cal. 220; Worcester Co. v. Worcester, 116 Mass. 193; Trustees of Public Schools v. Trenton, 30 30 N.J. Eq. ”