“ It would be a palpable evasion of the Constitution to permit the legislature to absolutely transfer public lands to private owners vested with the privileges and immunities as to taxation which are prohibited by the Constitution.'
We think the apprehension of the supreme court is one more of imagination than of fact. It is true that Congress might act so as in effect to keep withdrawn a large area of the state from taxation. ”

“ If, then, the terms 'compact' or 'agreement' in the Constitution do not apply to every possible compact or agreement between one state and another, for the validity of which the consent of Congress must be obtained, to what compacts or agreements does the Constitution apply? . . .
'Looking at the clause in which the terms 'compact' or 'agreement' appear, it is evident that the prohibition is directed to the formation of any combination tending to the increase of political power in the states, which may encroach upon or interfere with the just supremacy of the United States. ”

“ It follows therefrom that in dealing with property generally the legislature must, in respect to taxation, as in all other matters, keep within the express constitutional limits as interpreted by the highest court of the state. We would not weaken, even if we had authority so to do, the full scope of this constitutional obligation. Whatever the people, framing their organic act, have declared to be the limits of legislative power, and the modes in which that power shall be exercised, must always be recognized by the courts, state and national, as obligatory. ”

“ Justice Brown concurred upon the ground that the legality of commuting the payment of taxes upon railway property by a payment of a percentage upon the gross earnings, having been recognized by the legislature and the supreme court of Minnesota for thirty years, and also having been recognized as valid in the constitutional amendment of 1871, it is too late to set up its repugnance to the state Constitution as against railways which were built upon the faith of its validity. ”

“ In other words, forbidding exemptions in terms directs that no one legislature shall by contract limit the lawful rights of its successors, by taking particular property out of the legislative authority to tax, on the assumption that such persons or property are thereafter to be governed by a contract which exempts from all future exercise of the legislative power of taxation. ”

“ It is true, as has been held in the ordinary administration of the affairs of the land department, that whenever full payment has been made to the United States, and the full equitable title has passed to an individual purchaser or homesteader, the mere delay in furnishing to such purchaser or homesteader the legal evidence of his title does not relieve the land from ordinary state taxation. ”

“ Having failed to so prescribe the manner in which the trust should be executed, the power became vested in the trustee, the state, and it exercised it in the way indicated by the legislation of 1865 and 1870. Having that power as trustee, it could make a valid contract in respect thereto with the corporations, and they, investing their money in the construction of the road on the faith of the contract tendered and accepted, are entitled to be protected against any subsequent legislative impairment in respect thereto. ”

“ So in case of threatened invasion of cholera, plague, or other causes of sickness and death, it would be the height of absurdity to hold that the threatened states could not unite in providing means to prevent and repel the invasion of the pestilence without obtaining the consent of Congress, which might not be at the time in session. ”

“ Congress, acting for the United States-the owner of the lands could, by virtue of the compact with the state, have in creating the trust provided specifically for an exemption, or for taxation in a limited way. ”

“ It may be well to notice the decisions of the supreme court of Minnesota prior to the one challenged in this proceeding. In First Div. St. Paul & P. R. Co. v. Parcher, 14 Minn. 297, Gil. 224, it appeared that a railroad charter had been granted by the territorial legislature, containing, among other things, a provision similar to the one in question, commuting all taxes on the basis of 3 per cent on the gross earnings. The company having defaulted in its contract, foreclosure proceedings were had, and its property, franchises, etc., were brought in by the state. ”

“ In such case no irrepealable contract, protected from impairment under the Constitution of the United States, takes effect, because it is impossible to conceive that contract rights which are conferred subject to the power of repeal, alteration, or amendment are protected from an impairment which under the terms of the grant the state has reserved a right to make. ”

“ Conscious that nothing is needed to strengthen the conclusive reasoning by which the proposition is sustained in the opinion of the court, nevertheless, as the question presents itself to my mind in a somewhat different aspect from that considered by the court, the additional grounds which cause me to concur will now be stated. ”

“ Under the provisions of the treaty of 1854, between the Shawnee Indians residing within the territory of Kansas and the United States, certain of their lands were allotted to individual members and patented to them, with the express restriction that 'the said lands shall never be sold by the grantee, or his heirs, without the consent of the Secretary of the Interior.' In the case of The Kansas Indians, 5 Wall. ”