Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 2).pdf/362

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336
NORTH DAKOTA REPORTS.

all the property taxed, throughout the state, and not equality and uniformity throughout the state as to the whole of each or any particular species of property from which objects of taxation may have been selected. The restrictions relate to the valuation of the property taxed, and to the rate of taxation imposed. They require all the property selected for taxation to be taxed according to its value, and that the rate of taxation imposed shall not be fixed higher upon the property of one taxpayer than upon that of another, no matter whether the property be of the same or of different species; and when this equality of valuation and rate has been observed it necessarily follows that the taxation of the property taxed is equal and uniform.” The principle announced in and established by this case has never since been questioned, and was adopted without discussion in the cases of Railroad Co. v. Berry, 41 Ark. 509; Railroad Co. v. Berry, 44 Ark. 17; Railroad Co. v. Parks, 32 Ark. 131; Railroad Co. v. Berry, 41 Ark. 436. In all these cases an exemption of railroad land grants in consideration of a payment of a certain specified percentage of gross earnings was recognized and decided to be valid.

In view of what we have before said it seems unnecessary to enter into any further discussion of the authorities bearing, either remotely or directly,-upon the point under discussion. Our opinion is that, so far as the provisions of § 6 of the organic act are concerned, the legislature had full power and authority to enact the gross earnings law of 1883. In addition to the cases heretofore cited, we refer, without comment, to Stratton y. Collins, 43 N. J. Law 562; Mississippi Mills v. Cook, 56 Miss, 40; New Orleans v. Davidson, 30 La. Ann. 554; New Orleans v. Tourchy, Id 910; Crow v. State, 14 Mo. 237; Hamilton v. County Court, 15 Mo. 3; State v. North, 27 Mo. 465; Railroad Co. v, McLean Co., 17 Ill. 201—all of which cases fully support and sustain the views we have expressed.

There is nothing in the provisions of § 6 of the organic act which prohibited the legislature of Dakota territory from passing the law of 1883. As we have before said that section applicd only to the second requisite of apportionment, and was intended to prescribe the rule by which the subjects selected