Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ The opinion of the Supreme Court shows clearly enough the general nature of the defense sustained. The relator contends and must contend that this is so. While it is true that we are not bound by the construction of the New York statutes by the New York Courts in deciding the constitutional question, yet when we are dealing with a matter of local policy, like a system of taxation, we should be slow to depart from their judgment, if there was no real oppression or manifest wrong in the result. ”

“ Powers, supra, consideration seems to be of little importance except as bearing on interpretation, that the payment of an alternative tax is consideration for exemption from nothing except its alternative. On the other hand the provision for an indorsement upon the security hardly is reconcilable with less than a permanent exemption; it is said that so the law generally has been understood; and the ground taken by the Appellate Division in the case that we have cited indicates that they were not prepared to deny that the exemption even of mortgages looked beyond the year. ”

“ The Mortgage Recording Tax Law, Article 11, § 251, provides that all mortgages of real property situated within the State that are taxed by that article and the debts and obligations that they secure shall be exempt from other taxation by the State and local subdivisions. ”