Salmon P. Chase

“ So far as that capital consists of ordinary funds or securities acquired or held under the laws of the States, the measure of taxation must necessarily be determined by the discretion of the State legislature. The responsibility of their members to the people, their own interests in common with those of their constituents, their knowledge, their justice, and their wisdom must be relied on for security against injustice. ”

“ It may be well questioned, in our judgment, whether Congress has power under the Constitution to authorize State taxation of national securities, either directly or indirectly. Taxation of national securities is taxation upon the contracts of the United States, and may be regarded, not unreasonably, as impairing their obligation, unless provision is made for such taxation in the laws authorizing the loans for which they are issued. It is not alleged that any such provision is contained in the acts under which the government issued the bonds held by the national banking associations. ”

“ In most of the States, if not in all, the personal property of all individuals and corporations is listed, valued and assessed by public officers under legislative authority. The first proviso simply requires that the shares of individuals in national banking associations shall be included in this valuation and assessment; and, inasmuch as personal property of different descriptions is often valued and assessed by different rules, it further requires that it shall not be so included at a greater rate than is assessed upon other moneyed capital in the hands of citizens. ”

“ It is true that the shareholder has no right to the possession of any part of the corporate property while the corporation exists and its affairs are honestly managed. He has committed his interest, for a time, to the possession and control of the corporation of which he is a member, and he has only a member's voice in the management of it.
So a man who has leased a farm has no right to possession or control during the lease ”

“ A certificate of title to a share is not a share. It is evidence of the shareholder's interest. His interest may be transferred by the transfer of the certificate; but it is not the certificate that is valued when the worth of the share is estimated either by the speculator in the market, or by the tax assessor. ”

“ But such corporations and associations must be organized in such manner, under such limitations, and with such liabilities as Congress may see fit to prescribe. If in the judgment of Congress, therefore, the purposes of their organization will be better, or more safely fulfilled if subjected, in some respects, to State taxation, the acts authorizing their establishment may be so framed as to allow such taxation, excepting, probably, national securities, as already suggested. ”

“ It is to authorize the organization of associations to be employed, not only in the service of the government as depositories and financial agents, but especially in facilitating the collection of internal duties, and the transfer and disbursement of public moneys, and in furnishing to the people a safe and uniform note circulation, convertible immediately into notes of the United States, and to be made convertible into coin as soon as the government shall provide for the payment of its own notes in that medium. ”

“ They subject the interests held by citizens in the national banking associations to a tax in common with other property of the same description, and they give to the exception a practical application by determining what property is of the same description with the interest to be taxed in common with it. ”

“ While that bank, however, was organized as one great moneyed corporation, with power to establish branches in the several States, subject to its central power, these associations, under the limitations prescribed by Congress, are formed whenever and wherever citizens, possessing the necessary means, see fit to organize under the law ”