City of Savannah v. Jesup/Opinion of the Court

by by John Marshall Harlan

United States Supreme Court

106 U.S. 563

City of Savannah  v.  Jesup

I do not agree to the construction which the court places upon the act of the state of Georgia subjecting the railroad company to taxation. When that statute says that the property of the railroad company is 'to be taxed as other property of the people of the state,' I understand it to mean that it is to be subjected to all the lawful taxes imposed by state laws under the same circumstances that the property of the citizen is. The case of Bailey v. Magwire, 22 Wall. 215, construes a statute of Missouri, passed under similar circumstances and in language almost identical, to have this meaning. That the statute of Georgia only provides in that act for the means of collecting the taxes due the state, affords no argument against taxation by counties and cities for local purposes, because the laws already in existence were sufficient for that purpose.

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