Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/263

 NAT. ALBANY EXCHANGB BANK V. HILLS. 251 �In the view of the case which I am constrained to adopt, it will not be necessary to examine the second theory which has been alluded to — a theory which, upon the fact's, involves several difficult and doubtful questions of law; but I am of the opinion that the only authority for the assessmeht is to be found in the statute of 1866, and that act, as respects the taxation of shares in national banking associations, is radi- cally vicions and can have no operation. This conclusion is predicated upon the decision in Dolan v. People, and upon People 4. Weaver, 100 U. B. 539. �The construction given to the act in Dolan v. The People is explicitly to the effect that the act is intended to establish a System of taxation for bank capital peculiar to itself, and independent of the general System of taxation in existence in the state. It is there declared that "the act was intended as a substitute for the then-existing mode of assessing and tax- ing that portion of the property of the state invested in the capital of these moneyed corporations." If this is the correct exposition of the statutory intent, it cannot be questioned that the act must stand or fall upon its own provisions, and cannot be sustained by treating it as a part of the general System of taxation, and reading it as though it contained those provisions found in other parts of the system which would secure to the holder of bank shares the same ex- emptions and privileges allowed to the holders of other money capital. Accepting this as the true construction of the law, it was held by the supreme court of the United States, in People V. Weaver, that the operation of the laws to impose upon a citizen of the state, whose money was invested in bank shares, a greater rate of taxation than was imposed upon those whose capital was otherwise invested, is in violation of the prohibition of the law of congress. It was only necessary to decide in the particular case that the person assessed was entitled to the deduction from bis assessment on account of bis debts which he claimed, and the question was not before the court whether or not the whole assessment was yoid; but the opin- ion prôceeds upon the ground, and expressly declares, that the statute of the state is in conflict with the act of con- ����