Page:Fletcher v. Oliver.pdf/7

RhTerm, 1868.] other real property from taxation. Again, the Constitution, in relation to personal property, limits the amount to $500, that may be exempted, which precludes the idea that any other or further exemption would be made. The imperative command of the Constitution is, that the Legislature shall tax, by a uniform rule, all property except that specifically enumerated as being exempt from tax by the express terms of the Constitution.

Now, what would the complainant have this court do? Exempt his and all other property within the limits of the city of Little Rock from the payment of a tax levied by the county court of Pulaski county? The Legislature could not have made the exemption, if they had so desired, because of the plain provision of the Constitution. If the 39th section of the charter had, in express terms, exempted the property of the inhabitants of the city of Little Rock from the payment of this tax, such an exemption would have been a gross violation of the Constitution; and all the presumptions, that laws of a special character are not repealed by general statutes, would not have stayed the irrepressible march of the tax gatherer from crossing the imaginary line of the city and demanding the wherewith to aid in "opening the roads and highways" of Pulaski county. The mandatory terms of the Constitution is, that all property shall be taxed, and this command can not be evaded by indirection or circuity.

"Taxing by a uniform rule," means by one and the same unvarying standard; uniformity not only in the rate of taxation, but uniformity in the mode of assessment, by which the value is ascertained. There must be an equality of burden. This uniformity must be coextensive with the territory to which it applies. If a State tax, it must be uniform all over the State; if a county, township, city, town or district tax, it must be uniform throughout the extent of territory to which it applies; the property within these legal subdivisions, established by law for the convenience of the people, must all pay homage to this one uniform rule. Each one of these subdivisions grew