State v. Railroad Corporations

• Decision Date: 18 August 1873
• Parties: STATE v. RAILROAD CORPORATIONS.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

4 S.C. 376

STATE v. RAILROAD CORPORATIONS.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

August 18, 1873

An Act which requires every railroad company within the State to pay to the Treasurer, for the use of the State, a sum of money determined by the length of its road, is a tax upon property and is unconstitutional and void, because not laid upon the value of the property.

IN THE CRIMINAL COURT OF CHARLESTON, OCTOBER TERM, 1872.

The case is stated in the opinion of the Court.

Porter & Connor, Barker , for appellants.

Whipper , Solicitor, contra.

OPINION

MOSES C. J.

These were indictments, the first against the South Carolina Railroad Company, and the second against the Northeastern Railroad Company, under the seventh Section of the " Act to provide for a general license law," 15 Stat. 199, which reads as follows: " Every railroad company or corporation in this State shall be required to pay into the Treasury of the County in which its principal office within the State is located, for the use of the State, the following respective sums, to wit: Every company or corporation, the length of whose main track and branches, together, is greater than two hundred and fifty miles, the sum of twelve hundred and fifty dollars." The Section then proceeds to fix various rates according to a standard, the measure of which is the length of the road and its branches. The seventeenth Section declares it a misdemeanor to carry on any business or occupation named in the Act without first complying with its requirements, and prescribes the punishment. The respective appellants, now before the Court, were severally indicted for a violation of the provision of the said Section, convicted, and a fine imposed, on the one of twenty-two hundred and fifty dollars, and on the other of seventeen hundred and fifty dollars. Error is assigned, as well in the instructions of the presiding Judge to the jury as in his refusal to charge as requested by the counsel for the defense. In the view which we take of the grounds submitted, it will only be necessary to notice the refusal of the Court to instruct the jury that the Act imposes a tax, and is unconstitutional and void, because all property subject to taxation must be taxed in proportion to its value.

The Section of the Act on which the indictments are founded adjusts and fixes the amount to be paid into the Treasury by the length of the road. It is a tax imposed on the road as...