APPEAL from the Circuit Court for the District of Missouri; in which court Trask filed a bill against Maguire, collector of State and county taxes at St. Louis, to restrain him from collecting taxes upon the property of the St. Louis and Iron Mountain Railroad Company, a corporation organized in the State of Missouri, July 26th, 1867, and to have the property of the said company decreed exempt from liability to such taxes.
The case was this:
A general corporation law of Missouri, in force in 1845, thus ordained:
'The charter of every corporation that shall hereafter be granted by the legislature shall be subject to alteration, suspension, and repeal, at the discretion of the legislature.'
This provision of general law being in force, the legislature of Missouri, on the 3d of March, 1851, passed 'An act to incorporate the St. Louis and Iron Mountain Railroad Company.' The capital stock of the company was $6,000,000, and it was enacted that—
'The stock of said company shall be exempt from all State and county taxes.'
On the 17th of February, 1853, it was enacted that the railroad abovementioned as having been incorporated should be exempted from the provisions of the general corporation law already quoted. The statute further enacted:
'All the engines, cars, wagons, machines and other property belonging to said company, shall be deemed a part of the capital stock of the company, and shall be vested in the respective shareholders of the company forever, according to their respective shares, and transferable by them in the transfer of stock, as personal property.'
Subsequently to this, and to aid it in making the road, the State of Missouri lend to the company (in the shape of bonds, the principal and interest of which the company agreed to pay) a large sum of money. The act authorizing the transaction enacted that none of the bonds should be delivered to the company until it filed in the office of the secretary of state certificates of acceptance of them, executed under the corporate seal, &c. The act then proceeded:
'SECTION 4. Each certificate of acceptance so executed and filed as aforesaid, shall be recorded in the said office of the secretary to state, and shall thereupon become and be, to all intents and purposes, a mortgage of the road of the company executing and filing their acceptance, as aforesaid, and every part and section thereof, and its appurtenances, to the people of this State, for securing the payment of the principal and interest of the sums of money for which such bonds shall from time to time be issued and accepted.
'SECTION 11. In case the said companies, or either of them, shall make default in the payment of either interest or principal of the said bonds . . . it shall be lawful for the governor to sell their road and its appurtenances, by auction to the highest bidder, or to buy in the same at such sale for the use and benefit of the State, subject to such disposition in respect to such road or its proceeds as the legislature may thereafter direct.'
On the 4th of July, 1865, the State of Missouri adopted a new constitution of government. It contained the following provisions:
'No property, real or personal, shall be exempt from taxation, except such as may be used exclusively for public schools, and such as may belong to the United States, to this State, to counties, or to municipal corporations within the State.
'The General Assembly shall not pass any special laws . . . exempting the property of any named person or corporation from taxation.'
At the same time that it adopted this new constitution it adopted, in the separate form of AN ORDINANCE, entitled 'An ordinance for the payment of State and railroad indebtedness,' certain provisions which were to have 'full force and effect as a part of the constitution of the State.'
The ordinance was thus:
'SECTION 1. There shall be levied and collected from the Pacific Railroad, the North Missouri Railroad Company, and the St. Louis and Iron Mountain Railroad Company, an annual tax of 10 per centum of all their gross receipts for the transportation of freight and passengers . . . from the 1st of October, 1866, to the 1st October, 1868, and 15 per centum thereafter; which tax shall be appropriated by the General Assembly to the payment of the principal and interest now due, or hereafter to become due, upon the bonds of the State, and the bonds guaranteed by the State, issued to the aforesaid railroad companies.