of the persons or parties in whose names each subdivision was listed,” etc.; clearly showing that his list is to contain only what the assessor has listed. We think § 1621 must have a similar construction. The treasurer can strike nothing from his list, and is under no obligations to go outside of his list. But respondent insists, further, that what is now § 1621, when originaily passed by the territorial legislature, directed the treasurer to sell “all lands on which the taxes levied for the preceding year still remain unpaid,” and that the amendment introduced into the Code of 1877 directing the treasurer to sell "all lands liable for taxes of any description for the preceding year or years” was intended to throw this additional and judicial function upon the treasurer, and that if such was not its purpose it is meaningless and inexplicable. We think the amendment susceptible of a very simple explanation. Section 1612, Comp. Laws, as it appeared in the Code of 1877, provided, as it does now, that ‘taxes due from any person upon personal property shall be a lien upon any real property owned by such person, or to which he may acquire a title.” If real estate could only be sold to satisfy the taxes levied thereon, clearly the provision relative to the lien on realty of taxes on personlty would be a nullity; and in order to give effect to that provision, it was necessary to direct all lands to be sold that were “liable for taxes of any description,” and that undoubtedly was the purpose of the amendment. Viewing the whole statute and all its parts, we are still forced to regard the treasurer as a purely ministerial officer.
Ministerial officers are protected by the process under which they act when that process is fair upon its face, and while their acts are strictly within its terms, even though such process was issued improperly, and without jurisdiction. There may have been a doubt as to this proposition at one time, but we deem the law too well settled now to make a discussion of the cases profitable. See Cooley, Tax’n, (2d Ed.) §§ 797, 798; Freem. Ex’ns, § 101; Savacool v. Boughton, 5 Wend. 170; Chegary v. Jenkins, 5 N. Y. 376; Wall v. Trumble, 16 Mich. 228; Sprague v. Birchard, 1 Wis. 457; Loomis v. Spencer, 1 Ohio St. 153; Little v. Merrill, 10 Pick. 547; Erskine v. Hohnback, 14 Wall. 613. The
