Page:Tyler v. Hennepin County.pdf/11

8 much of it by nonresidents who did not live on or farm the land but instead hoped to sell it for a profit. McClure, 24 W. Va., at 564. Many of these nonresidents “wholly neglected to pay the taxes” on the land, id., at 565, so Virginia provided that title to any taxpayer’s land was completely “lost, forfeited and vested in the Commonwealth” if the taxpayer failed to pay taxes within a set period, 1790 Va. Acts p. 5, §5. This solution was short lived, however; the Commonwealth repealed the forfeiture scheme in 1814 and once again sold “so much only of each tract of land … as will be sufficient to discharge the” debt. 1813 Va. Acts p. 21, §27. Virginia’s “exceptional” and temporary forfeiture scheme carries little weight against the overwhelming consensus of its sister States. See Martin v. Snowden, 59 Va. 100, 138 (1868).

The consensus that a government could not take more property than it was owed held true through the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment. States, including Minnesota, continued to require that no more than the minimum amount of land be sold to satisfy the outstanding tax debt. The County identifies just three States that deemed delinquent property entirely forfeited for failure to pay taxes. See 1836 Me. Laws p. 325, §4; 1869 La. Acts p. 159, §63; 1850 Miss. Laws p. 52, §4. Two of these laws did not last.