Page:Memphis & Little Rock Railway Co. v. Berry.pdf/11

. Every reasonable doubt is to be resolved adversely. Nothing is to be taken as conceded but what is given in unmistakable terms or by an implication equally clear. The affirmation must be shown. Silence is negative, and doubt is fatal to the claim. The doctrine is vital to thc public welfare." 20 Wall., 37; 22 Wall., 527; 76 N.Y., 64.

Now, then, applying the rule laid down in these adjudications, do we find that there is clearly and unmistakably, without ambiguity or doubt, a grant of the exemption from taxation to the appellant company? The original company had it undoubtedly. Did or could this company take it by transfer from the old company?

If it take by virtue of the general act of 1868, July 23, or of 1873, April 29, for incorporation in such cases, then without doubt the exemption could not pass, for the act and the constitution of 1868, under which they were passed, as well as the constitution of 1874, all expressly and in the most emphatic terms forbade it. See Const. 1868, Art. 10, Sec. 2; Art. 5, Sec. 48; Const. 1874, Art. 5, Sec. 25; Art 12, Secs. 5, 6 and 7; Gantt's Dig., Secs.

Did it vest in the appellant company by virtue of the act of 1853 and the mortgage and sale thereunder?

The late cases of Morgan v. Louisiana, 93 U.S., 217, and Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company v. Palmes, 3 Sup. Ct. Reporter, 193, settle conclusively by the adjudication of the highest judicial authority in the land, and the court of ultimate resort in this class of cases, that the exemption from taxation granted to a railroad corporation is not attached to the road and property, and does not pass with it, but that it is a personal immunity and "incapable of transfer without express statutory direction."

In the last case the supreme court of the United States use the following language: "The conception of an immunity that is impressed upon the thing in respect to which it