Samuel Nelson

“ The bonds were an issue, in the usual way, by this Northern Central Railway Company, and the security given by mortgage on the entire line of the road. No portion of the bonds belong to one part more than to another. No severance was made of the bonds, and, therefore, none can be made, in the taxation, with reference to the line within the respective jurisdictions of the States. If the tax is permitted as it respects one bond, it must be as it respects all.
Again, if Pennsylvania can tax these bonds, upon the same principle, Maryland can tax them. ”

“ A tax of three mills per dollar of the principal, at an interest of six per centum, payable semi-annually, is ten per centum per annum of the interest. A tax, therefore, by eachState, at this rate, amounts to an annual deduction from the coupons of twenty per centum; and if this consolidation of the line of road had extended into New York or Ohio, or into both, the deduction would have been thirty or forty. If Pennsylvania must tax bonds of this description, she must confine it to bonds issued exclusively by her own corporations. ”