Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/389

 YAZO0 & MISSISSIPPI R. R. . VICKSBURG. 09 U.S. Oplm'on o the Court. franchises under which organizations have not in good faith taken place at the adoption of this constitution, shall be sub- jeet to the provisions of this article," etc. "S.c. 181. The property of all private corporations for pe- cunlay gain shall be taxed in the same way and to the same extent, as property of individuals, etc. Exemptions from .taxation, to which corporations are legally entitled at the adoption of this constitution, shall remain in full force and effect for the time of such exemptions as expressed in their respective charters, or by general laws, unless sooner repealed by the legislature." This court held that even if the legislature, in the several acts of consolidation, had expressly provided tkat the new corporation should be exempted from taxation, such laws ould be nullified by the provision of the constitution of 1890, requiring that the prolrty of all private corporations for pecuniary gain shall be taxed in the same way and to the same extent as the property of individuals. Conceding the force of the decision in the .4dan .ea, the learned counsel for the railroad company undertakes to dif- ferentiate that case from this upbn the ground that the legis- lation of the State of Mississippi (act of February 22, 1884) authorized a contract to be made with the railroad company for an exemption from taxation upon valuable considerations to be performed by the company, and that the grant in the Adaras ease was a mere .legislative exemption from taxation; and the counsel insists that the validity of such legislation as is now under consideration has been sustained by the Supreme Court of Mississippi in a case decided by that court after its deeision in Railroad Company v. Adams, 77 Missbeippi, in the. case of Adams v. Tombigbee Mills, 78 Mississippi, 676, in which an act of the legislature granting an exemption to certain factories for the manufacture of cotton or woolen goods, etc., for a period of six years from the completion of the factory, was sustained. But an examination of the opinion in that case convinces ns that the Mississippi cout. had no intention to

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