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from difficulty, I am not willing to admit that we have any right to refuse to follow the construction of an act of congress, i. e., § 1925 of the organic act of the territory of Dakota, and of the fourteenth amendment to the federal constitution, by the federal circuit court. On the contrary, our duty is clear in such a case, under all the adjudications, to follow where the federal court leads. Judicial courtesy, the prevention of unseemly conflict, the undoubted right of every sovereign to have its adjudications construing its own laws and constitution respected by the courts of every other sovereign, all call loudly for the strict enforcement of tharule which is ignored in this case. The federal supreme court never refuses to adopt the interpretation of a state statute or constitution by the etate court; and much stronger is the reason why we should follow the construction by the federal court of a federal statute and of a clause of the éederal constitution, because the constitution and laws of the United States are the supreme law of the land, and ultimately the state court can always, by judgment of the federal supreme court on writ of error, be compelled to accept such construction. There is no power which can coerce the federal courts, and compel an observance by them of the state court’s construction of a state law, statutory or fundamental. While I do not deem it proper, in view of the decision in Railroad Co. v. Walker, to discuss the question whether the organic act is contravened by the exemption contained in the gross earnings law of 1883, there is one feature of the prevailing opinion that seems to me so utterly anomalous and unsound that I cannot suffer it to pass without comment. The position seems to be thus taken that whether this act violates the rule of uniformity in taxation prescribed by congress is not very important, because congress itself, by not disapproving of the act, has in effect ratified it, and it stands as though congress had in fact enacted it. The language of the opinion is: “By the organic act congress delegated this power [the taxing power] to the territorial legislature. The latter body exercised the power by passing the gross earnings law of 1883; and, as congress has never annulled or repealed the law, it has the same effect as a similar act of congress itself. It must be considered as, and is,