Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/884

 S73 ., FEDERAL REPORTER. �person be a state, have not beretofore becii recognized as con- sistentwith the constitution. The protection afiforded by its provisions, and its prohibition of certain state legislation, relate, not to the mode and form of state statutes, but to their operation or effect. �■; Per cowfm, Justice Field, in bebalf of the majority of the court, says: "The ancient doctrine that, upon the repeal of a pçivate corporation, its debts were extinguished, and its real prpperty reverted to its grantors and its personal property vested in the state, bas beeri so far modified by modern adju- dications that a court of equity will now lay hold of the prop- erty of a dissolved corporation and administer it for the benefit of its creditera and stockholders. The obligation of contracts, madewhilst the corporation was in existence, survives its dis- solution, and the contracts may be enforced by a court of equity, so far as to subject for their satisfaction any property possessed by the corporation at the time. In the view of equity, its property constitutes a trust f und, pledged to the payment of the debts of creditors and stockholders; and if a municipal corporation, upon the surrender or extinction in any other way of its charter, is possessed of any property, a court of equity will equally take possession of it for the beneft of the creditors of the corporation." But, after to this extent concur- ring with Mr. Justice Strong, he proceeded to say "that taxes previously levied but not collected" do not, on the dissolution of a municipal corporation, "constitute its property," which, in the absence of statutory authority, can be collected by a court of equity through its own ofBcers and applied to the payment of the creditors of the corporation. And in support of this view he says "taxes are imposts, levied for the support of the government, or for some special purpose authorized by it," and, havingbeen levied only by the authority of the legis- lature, "they canbe altered, postponed, or released at pleasure. A repeal of the law under which a tax is levied, at any time before the tax is collected, generally puts an end to the tax, etc. We say generally, for, there are some exceptions, where the tax provided is connected with a contract as the inducement for ifs execution, that the court will hold the repeal of the law ����