Page:United States Reports, Volume 60.djvu/20

 machinery for its collection provided by the statute is paralyzed by the repeal.

We are entitled to the benefit of a strict construction of the statute, as being not only partial and odious, even as it regards citizens of the State, but, as was held by the Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana in the case of the widow and heirs of Benjamin Poydras de la Lande against the Treasurer of the State, even penal in its character.

So far as statutes for the regulation of trade impose fines or create forfeitures, they are doubtless to be construed strictly as penal, and not liberally as remedial laws. Mayor v. Davis, 6 Watts and Serg., 269.

Statutes levying duties or taxes upon subjects or citizens are to be construed most strongly against the Government, and in favor of the subjects and citizens, and their provisions are not to be extended by implication beyond the clear import of the language used. U. S. v. Wigglesworth, 2 Story, 369.

No judgment can be rendered for a penalty given by a statute after the statute is repealed, although the action was commenced before the repeal. Pope v. Lewis, 4 Ala., 487.

From these principles and authorities it follows, that the right of the State to claim or recover the foreign succession tax of 1842 is lost from the moment of the promulgation of the consular convention of 1853, although the tax might have been claimed and recovered, if proceedings had been instituted, perfected, and executed, before that convention.

Mr. Benjamin stated the points as follows:

The casc is clearly within the jurisdiction of this court; and the only question is, whether the court of Louisiana has rightfully construed the treaty. Its decisions under it have been—

First. That wherever the rights of the heir vested after the consular conventiou went into effect, the tax could not be recovered. Succession Dufour, Annual, 392.

Secondly. That wherever the right of the heir vested anterior to the date of the treaty, the right of the State vested at the same time.

The latter proposition is the one now in dispute.

I. At what time, under the laws of Louisiana, did the rights of the State to the tax of ten per cent. vest?

Fortunately, the response to this question is entirely free from difficulty, as the point had been settled by a series of adjudications long prior to the controversy in this cause.

The Supreme Court of that State has held, ever since the year 1831, that, under the State statute, the rights of the heir