Samuel Freeman Miller

“ There is nothing in the statute which requires the tax commissioners to hunt up the owner, or to make the tax out of personal property of his, or which may be found upon the land. It is clearly a direct tax on the land, and on all the estates, interests, and claims connected with or growing out of the land. All this was forfeited to the United States on non-payment of the taxes, and passed with the sale to the purchaser, subject alone to the right of redemption, which the law allowed. ”

“ But the sale in this case comes within the first category. The United States did not bid at all. A private person bid a sum sufficient to pay the tax, interest, and cost, and the commissioner let him have it, and we see nothing in the statute which forbids it. Certainly we cannot infer because the United States authorized the commissioner in a defined contingency to bid off the land for a sum not exceeding two-thirds its value, that he was therefore bound in all cases to make it bring that much. ”

“ The first of these propositions is founded on the amendment to the seventh section of the act of June 7th, 1862, passed February 6th, 1863. The latter act undoubtedly was intended to be a substitute for the seventh section of the former, and to supersede it entirely. In a case of doubtful construction it is, therefore, important to consider what changes are made by the latter in regard to the matter now in controversy. ”