erty which shall be liable for taxes of any description for the preceding year or years, and which shall remain due and unpaid.”
The power to sell lands for taxes is limited by the sovereign power of the territory, and no authority is conferred upon the treasurer, to sell any other than those directed by the legislature. His sale of other lands is an invasion of property rights which may be prevented by injunction and is therefore wrongful. N. P. R’y Co. v. Traill County, 115 U. S. 600.
The amendment of the statute by the insertion of the direction to sell only lands “which shall be liable for taxes of any description for the preceding year or years” was intended to limit the power of the treasurer. The language is clear. It cannot be construed to mean lands which shall appear from the tax-list to be liable. This would be adding words not necessary to the complete understanding of the meaning of the statute.
The only answer made by appellant to this position, is the one of hardship upon the treasurer. The statute provides that the county shall ‘save the purchaser harmless, by paying him the amount of principal, and interest at 12 per cent.” It further provides that “the treasurer and his sureties shall be liable for the amount to the county, on his bond,” and herein consists the hardship complained of by respondent.
It is evident, however, that there is no such hardship. If the treasurer has already paid to the county the money received, such payment would constitute a good defense in an action against him under the statute. Morrill v. Taylor, 6 Neb. 243; Blackwell on Tax Titles, p. 57 (star p. 56). The error in which appellant falls in the construction of this statute is in assuming that the treasurer sells by virtue of his warrant.
In those states in which the treasurer sells land by virtue of his tax warrant, the statute so expressly provides, and no such provision exists in the statute of Dakota. Our statute is unlike that of any other state or territory in that it directs the treassurer to sell only lands “liable for taxes.”
The revenue statutes of the territory indicate an intention by the legislature to protect the purchaser at tax-sales from loss in all cases, and § 78, chapter 28 (1629), would seem to be only supplementary to § 79, chapter 28 (1643), and the fact that these
