Samuel Freeman Miller

“ United States mails, troops, and munitions of war are carried upon almost every railroad. Telegraph lines are employed in the national service. So are steam-boats, horses, stage-coaches, foundries, ship-yards, and multitudes of manufacturing establishments. They are the property of natural persons or of corporations, who are agents or instruments of the general government, and they are the hands by which the objects of the government are attained. ”

“ Any telegraph company now organized, or which may hereafter be organized under the laws of any state, shall have the right to construct, maintain, and operate lines of telegraph through and over any portion of the public domain of the United States, over and along any of the military or post-roads of the United States which have been or may hereafter he declared such by law, and over, under, or across the navigable streams or waters of the United States ”

“ They are subject to the laws of the state, and are governed in their daily course of business far more by the laws of the state than of the nation. All their contracts are governed and construed by state laws. Their acquisition and transfer of property, their right to collect their debts, and their liability to be sued for debts, are all based on state law. It is only when the state law incapacitates the banks from discharging their duties to the government that it becomes unconstitutional. ”

“ The argument is very much pressed that it is a tax upon the franchise of the company, which franchise being derived from the United States by virtue of the statute above recited cannot be taxed by a state, and counsel for appellant occasionally speak of the tax authorized by the law of Massachusetts upon this as well as all other corporations doing business within its territory, whether organized under its laws or not, as a tax upon their franchises. ”

“ If this statute is void, as we think it is, so far as it prescribes this injunction as a remedy to enforce the collection of its taxes by the decree of the court awarding it, the injunction is erroneous. In holding this portion of section 54 of chapter 13 of the Massachusetts Statutes to be void as applicable to this case, we do not deprive the state of the power to assess and collect the tax. ”

“ If a resort to a judicial proceeding to collect it is deemed expedient, there remains to the court all the ordinary means of enforcing its judgment-executions, sequestration, and any other appropriate remedy in chancery. ”

“ The argument was pressed in that case that the railroad company held its franchises from the government of the United States, and that its property could not be taxed by the state, but this court held otherwise, and in the opinion used thisl anguage: 'It is often a difficult question whether a tax imposed by a state does in fact invade the domain of the general government, or interfere with its operations to such an extent, or in such a manner, as to render it unwarranted. ”

“ The tax assessed by the treasurer of the commonwealth of Massachusetts was based upon an estimate of $750,952 as the taxable value of the shares of the corporation apportioned to that state, the rate of taxation having been determined for that year, 1885, at $14.14 for and upon each $1,000 of valuation. ”