McLaughlin v. Chadwell’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 1 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““What, however, would be the result should the Legislature see proper to exempt property from taxation, in violation of the spirit of the Constitution above quoted, we do not say. Would it result that all the tax imposed by the act upon other property would therefore be illegal, and not susceptible of collection! This would be to give an unusual effect to an unconstitutional law, — that because certain property is improperly exempted, therefore no tax can be collected from other property that is properly taxed. Would not a more reasonable view be that the part of the law providing for the improper exemption should be declared void. “If the argument be sound that the exemption of these bonds was a violation of the condition in the act of Congress upon which the right to tax national bank stock is founded, it would seem to follow that the exemption is also in violation of that part of our State Constitution above quoted, requiring equal taxation; and if this be true, then it would result that the exemption was in violation of the Constitution, and should have been disregarded altogether. And this would certainly be more rational than to defeat the entire tax law because of the fact that a part of it is unconstitutional. ’ ’”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. International Harvester Company v. Carr