Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 2).pdf/343

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD CO. v. BARNES.
317

is the doctrine that the exemption in a charter only extends to the property necessary for the business of a corporation.

Property beyond the legitimate wants of a corporation for its corporate purposes is not within an exemption of all property from taxation. Desty on Taxation, Vol. 1, p. 146; Bank v. Tennessee, 104 U. 8. 497; Railroad Co. v. Berks County, 6 Pa. St. 70; Railroad Co. v. Burlington, 28 Vt. 193; Railroad Co. v. Newark, 25 N. J. Law 317; Railroad Co. v. Commissioners, 23 N. J. Law 510; State v. Love, 37 N. J. Law 60; Navigation Co. v. Berks County, 11 Pa. St. 202; Wayne County v. Canal Co., 15 Pa. St. 351. The statute in question violates the rule of uniformity, which is a part of the organic act. Norris v. Waco City, 57 Tex. 635; Ottawa County v. Nelson, 19 Kan. 234; New Orleans v. Kaufman, 29 La. Ann. 238; People v. Floating Dock Co., 63 How. Pr. 454; Gordon v. Cornes, 47 N. Y. 608; Stuart v. Palmer, 74 N. Y. 183. No property is beyond the reach of the taxing power of the state, unless designedly put beyond it by an unequivocal act of the sovereign power. Robertson v. Land Commisioners, 44 Mich. 274. When a corporation claims exemption from taxation it must show that the power to tax has been clearly relinquished. Railroad Co. v. Reed, 13 Wall. 266.

Heber McHugh and E. W. Camp, for respondent Foster County.

The “Gross Earnings Law” is invalid. If the parts of a statute are so mutually connected with and dependent upon each other, as conditions, considerations or compensations far each other, as to warrant the belief that the legislature intended them as a whole, and that if all could not be carried into effect, the legislature would not have passed the residue independently, then if some parts are unconstitutional, all the provisions which are thus dependent, conditional or connected, must fall with them. Cooley, Const. Lim., pp. 216, 217; Warren v. Mayor, 2 Gray 99; Allen v. City of Louisiana, 103 U.S. 80; Slauson v. Racine, 13 Wis. 398; State v. Commisioners, 5 Ohio St. 497; O’Brien v. Kreuz, 30 N. W. Rep. 458; State v. Harris, 8 Pac. Rep. 462; State v. Pugh, 1 N. E. Rep. 439; Meyer v. Berlandi, 40 N. Rep. 613; Virginia Coupon Cases, 114 U. S. 270. A statute which