Page:Memphis & Little Rock Railway Co. v. Berry.pdf/6

 exemption contained in the twenty-eighth section of the original charter, filed a bill to enjoin the appellees, railroad commissioners, from proceeding to enforce the collection of taxes as provided for in the act of 1883. The court below having dismissed the bill, an appeal was taken to this court to correct the alleged error of the Pulaski chancery court in holding appellant liable for such taxes.

It is to be understood at the outset that there is no question made here now as to the right of the original corporation, the Memphis & Little Rock Railroad Company, to he exempt from taxation according to section twenty-eight of its charter, enacted and accepted, and that company organized thereunder many years before there was any constitutional inhibition on the legislative power to grant such exemptions. This was settled in Oliver v. M. & L. R. R.R,. 30 Ark., 129, in accordance with the now established doctrine on this subject, that such an exemption in the charter of a corporation amounts to a contract, and is within the protection of the clause of the constitution of the United States which forbids State laws impairing the obligations of a contract. Pierce on Railroads and Citations.

The establishment of this doctrine has not been accomplished, however, without a struggle and many earnest protests from courts and individual judges of the highest character. Mr. Pierce, in his able work, says: "The power of the State legislature, even outside of constitutional limitations, to bind the State by a grant of exemption from taxation has been frequently contested or questioned as an unauthorized surrender of an essential attribute of sovereignty. Pierce on Railroads, 481; 35 Wis., 257; 30 Penn. St., 9; 64 N.C., 155; 27 Vt., 140; 62 Ills., 452.

In Atlantic and Gulf Railroad Company v. Allen, 15 Fla., 637, J W, while recognizing the binding force of judicial authority, enters an earnest protest against the doctrine, and does not hesitate to say, if it were a new