ERROR to the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia; the case being thus:By an act of August 5th, 1861, passed in quite the early part of the late rebellion, Congress having laid a duty on incomes, imposed a direct tax of $20,000,000 per annum upon the whole of the United States, of which a certain sum was apportioned to Virginia. The act provided that the tax should be assessed and laid on all lands according to their money value on the 1st of April, 1862; and it provided for the assessment and collection of the tax, and authorized the sale of so much of the lands of delinquent payers as might be necessary to satisfy the taxes due thereon; and furthermore provided that at any time after the advertisement for sale and before actual sale, the delinquent taxpayer might pay the amount assessed with ten per cent. penalty, and thus relieve his lands; and yet further that, in the event of a sale of property for non-payment of the tax assessed thereon, the owners, their heirs, executors, administrators, or any person in their behalf, might redeem the same within a certain period thereafter. The act also provided that if, at the time it went into operation, any of the people of any State should be in actual rebellion, so that the laws of the United States could not be executed therein, it should be the duty of the President to collect both land tax and income tax, with six per cent. interest, according to the provisions of the act, as soon as the authority of the government should be re-established.
Afterwards, however, the rebellion having now become widespread, and assumed far greater magnitude, an act of June 7th, 1862, declared that when in any State the civil authority of the government of the United States should be obstructed by insurrection or rebellion, so that the provisions of the former statute could not be peaceably executed, the direct taxes apportioned by that statute should be apportioned and charged in each State wherein the civil authority was thus obstructed, upon all the lands situate therein, respectively, &c., as the same were enumerated and valued under the last assessment and valuation thereof made under the authority of said State or territory previous to January 1st, 1861; and every parcel of the said lands, according to the said valuation, was declared to be charged, by virtue of the act itself, with the payment of so much of the whole tax laid and apportioned by said act upon the State wherein the same was situate, as should bear the same direct proportion to the whole amount of the direct tax apportioned to said State as the value of said parcels of land should, respectively, bear to the whole valuation of the real estate in the said State, according to the said assessment and valuation made under the authority of the same, and in addition thereto with a penalty of fifty per centum of said tax.
The 3d section allowed the owner or owners of the lands, within sixty days after the amount of the tax charged thereon, respectively, should have been fixed by a board of tax commissioners (the appointment of which was provided for by the act), to pay the same to the commissioners, and take a certificate thereof, by virtue of which the lands should be discharged from the tax.
The 4th section (which, if we divide the enactment into two clauses, reads thus) enacted as follows:
1st clause. 'That the title of, in, and to each and every piece or parcel of land upon which said tax has not been paid as above provided, shall thereupon become forfeited to the United States.
2d clause. 'And upon the sale hereinafter provided for, shall vest in the United States or in the purchasers at such sale, in fee simple, free and discharged from all prior liens, incumbrances, right, title, and claim whatsoever.'