Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/110

 102 FEDERAL REPORTER. �etc. I have given, without quoting at length, the substance of the provisions of the revenue laws applicable to the questions now under consideration, as they are found in the acts of June 30, 1864, (13 Stat. 223,) and of July 13, 1866, (14 Stat. 97.) The question is, -whether the several steps in the preparation of the assessment lists and their return to the coUector must precede the demand, which is the foundation of the lien. The supreme court has decided in two cases that the obligation to pay the tax does not depend on an assess- ment made by an officer, but that, the facts being established on which the tax rested, the law made the assessment, and an action of debt could be maintained to recover it. The Dollar Savings Bank v. United States, l9 Wall. 227; King v. United States, 99 U. S. 229. �The question in these cases was, however, simply as to the liability of the delinquent himself when sued in an action of debt for taxes due and unpaid, but never assessed by an officer. The present is a very different case; here the object is not to enforee a common law remedy in the collection of an admitted indebtedness, but to enforee a statutory lien against property which was once the property of the debtor, but is now in the possession and ownership of others. It is well settled that, in order to support and enforee a statutory lien for taxes, ail the prerequisites of the laws granting the lien must be striotly complied with. Thatcher v. Powell, 6 Wheat. 119 ; Parker v. Rule's Lessee, 9 Cranch, 64; Rouhendorf v. Taylor, 4 Pet. 349 ; Stead's Ex'r. y. Course, 4 Cranch, 403 ; Early v. Doe, 16 How. 618; Williams v. Peyton's Lessee, 4 Wheat. 77; Mayhew v. Davis, 4 McLean, 213, 217; Hilliard on Taxation, 291; Cooley on Taxation, 258, 259; 2 Dillon on Mun. Corp. § 658. �The distinction between a suit to enforee a lien of this character, and an action at common law to recover judgment for unpaid and past due taxes, was clearly recognized and strongly stated by Mr. Justice Miller, in his opinion in the former case in this court, between the parties to this suit, already cited, (4 Dill. 71,) in which he said, in referring to a suit to enforee such a lien : "AU this is a very different ��� �