and in thus deciding, the court simply followed English precedents of long standing and the highest character.[1]
It may, however, be objected that the practical effect of this decision has been to relieve all negotiable instruments from taxation, inasmuch as, removed beyond the territory and jurisdiction of the State in which their owner resides, they will not, by reason of easy concealment (for which safe-deposit companies in the larger cities of most of the States now offer great facilities), be easily cognizable by the assessors of the locality in which they are deposited. But admitting the objection in full force, as in all reason we must, what then? The Supreme Court has given its opinion clearly and unmistakably; and until this opinion is reversed, it constitutes the legitimate rule of action for both assessors and taxpayers. But suppose it were possible to reverse the opinion in question, would it be expedient to do so? Would it be desirable to abandon the plain common-sense view that the situs for the taxation of all personal property is where the law protects it, and where alone an assessment and a legal attachment against it can be enforced, and in its place make situs depend on visibility? And if visibility, what degree of visibility? Shall a diamond, a bar of gold, or a railroad bond, belonging to A. B., residing in Boston, but openly displayed in a jeweler's or broker's window in Philadelphia, be taxable in Pennsylvania, and a similar diamond, gold bar, or bond of the same owner, deposited in a drawer of the same shop or office and not so readily visible, be taxable in Massachusetts? Shall we make the situs of property for taxation depend upon the keenness of perception or visual organs of an assessor? Or shall we not rather, admit that the attempt to raise revenue by taxing such property as negotiable instruments which from their very nature are in a high degree intangible and invisible, and thus easy of concealment; which, passing by delivery, are here to-day and somewhere else to-morrow; which are not taxed in any other highly civilized country, and which are in great part, even in this country, specifically exempted by law—i. e., United States bonds, legal tender, national bank notes, etc.—is in itself an absurdity and a wrong; inasmuch as to enforce a levy from one man for one species of property, because through his honesty, ignorance, or inability to escape he can be laid hold of, and allow identically the same description of
- ↑ Lord Ellenborough, in King's Bench (Neilage vs. Holloway, Barnwell and Allison's Reports, 318), having decided that a negotiable note was a chattel personal and not a chose in action; Lord Abinger, that all foreign government bonds payable to bearer have a situs where they are actually situated; and the House of Lords, that registered stocks and bonds of the United States and of the several States not passing by delivery, are not negotiable instruments, and therefore not taxable as goods and chattels.
