Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 2).pdf/357

subject to taxation. But what property is “subject to taxation?” Obviously such property as the legislature has declared to be subject to taxation. Property not so declared to be subject to taxation is necessarily exempt from taxation, and the section cannot possibly have any relation to or bearing upon any such property. When the legislature delared and prescribed the subjects that should be taxed, § 6 became operative upon these selected subjects, and prohibited any unjust discrimination in taxing these subjects. It prohibited the taxing of one class or kind of these selected subjects upon one basis, and the taxing of another kind or class upon another basis, but made it imperative that all classes and kinds “should be taxed in proportion to their value.” In the absence of the provision, the legislature would have had the power to prescribe one rule by which one class of selected subjects should contribute, and another and different rule by which another class should contribute, and would thus have had the power to make unjust discrimination in taxing different kinds of property. Section 6 was designed to prevent this by making one uniform, ad valorem rule, operating upon all property subject to taxation. It did not limit the power of the legislature to select the subjects, but it did operate upon those subjects as soon as they were selected. Prior to the selection the provision was dead; as soon as the selection was made it sprang at once into life, and attached itself to these selected subjects. This is the construction placed on the provision by the supreme court of Dakota territory in the case of Ferris v. Vannier, 6 Dak. 186, 42 N. W. Rep. 31, where Tripp, C. J., said: “Congress has prohibited discrimination, which must be construed to mean unjust discrimination—a discrimination in favor of one kind of property as against another; a discrimination which prevents each kind of property subject to taxation from bearing its fair and equal share of the burden imposed on all. In this sense the words are aptly chosen; in any other they are meaningless and lead to absurd results. Under this construction we are free from many perplexities in which courts have found themselves in determining whether laws which were not discriminating were uniform. The disjunctive clause with which this provision is connected further limits and explains it.