Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/278

 L. & N. B. 00. V.aAIKKS. S71 �Complainaut accepted the compromise thus offered, and made and delivered the schedule required by the act to the comptroUer, and paid into the treasury IJ per cent, of its gross eamings for the year 1875, amounting to $52,712.92. But in December, 1876, the supreme court of the state, in the case of L. dt N. R. Go. v. Ellis, held that the legislature had not the power, under the constitution of 1870, then in force, to enact said eleventh section, and that the same was in conflict with that instrument, and therefore inoperative and of no legal force. �Complainant then fell back on its chartered rîghts, claimed its 20 years' exemption, and made application to the leg-; islature to refund the amount so paid by it under said sec- tion, which the legislature ref used to do, but, in lieu, that body passed the act of the twentieth of March, 1877, entitled "An act to amend an act entitled ' An act declaring the mode and manner of valuing the property of a railroad oompany for taxation,' passed March 20, 1875, and to adjust the rights of the state and railroads in Tennessee under the decision of the supreme court, holding that the eleventh section of said act is unconstitutional." �This act revived substantially the machinery created by the first, and directed an assessmetit by the commissioners, etc., of the complainants' property aforesaid, as a basis for its tax- ation for the years 1875, 1876, 1877, and 1878, and then by the ninth seetioa thereof provided : �"That ail railroads of the state, which had accepted and complied with the provisions of the eleventh section of th'e act of March 20, 1875, shall be entitled to a credit for the amounts respectively paid by them to the state" under the assessments made by authority of said act for the years 1875, 1876, and 1877 ; "and, if the amounts so paid by said companies shall exceed the assessments for said years, the excess shall be refunded by the state to said railroads, with interest." �Commissioners were accordîngly appointed to act under and pursuant to the provisions of the act last mentioned, who proceeded and assessed complainant's property aforesaid ����