Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/372

 346 OCTOBER TERM, 1907. Opinion o! the Court. 209 U.S. in bond should bear interest than by the language used in the ection aforesaid." The section had been quoted. This was the court's conclusion "as an 'original proposition." But it Kentucky, 327, where the "very question arose." To the codn- tention that the warehouseman has lost his lien through ghe construction put upon the act by the State's fiscal officere, and that the State was therefore estopped from collecting the interest, the court replied: "It may be true that this will work a hardship upon the distiller, but it was his duty, under the law, to pay the taxos and the accrued interest, and we cannot, in his behalf, waive the time-honored and conclusive presump- tion that he knew the law; and especially is this true since 1897, when the case of Commonwealth v. Taylor was decided, thus establishing beyond all question tha t taxes on whiskey in bond ' bore interest on the assessments made during the bonded period. Saying this, however, it is elementary that the Stae is not estopped by the laches of its officers." But from this situation this court cannot give relief. Due process of law does not assure to a taxpayer the interpreta- tion of laws by the executive officers of a State as against their interpretation by the courts of the State or relief from the consequences of a misinterpretation by either. We do not mean to indicate that the decision of the court was wrong. It would, indeed, be difficult .to resist the force of its reasoning. At any rate, it is the province of the courts to interpret the laws of the State, and he who acts under them must take his chance of being in accord with the final decision. And this is a hazard under every law and from which or the consequences of which we know of no security. The assignments of error repeat frequently and dwell upon the fact of the power of the Federal Government over the spirits and the distillery and its custody of them, and, it is urged, that such power is exclusive of the exercise of any other power whatever, and such custody has the effect to withdraw in legal contemplation the property from the jurisdiction of

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