REPORT OF THE COMPTROLLER OF THE TREASURY. xiii

stitution of 1850, antidating the charter of the company (ch. 250
of 1854) provides, that all charters granted by the State may be
altered or repealed, a most wise provision and one incorporated in
every constitution since that time, therefore the said Railway Com-
pany in accepting the consolidation of certain railroads under ch.
250 of the Act of 1854 was presumed to know that the immunity
from taxation was liable to repeal by future Legislatures.

It was further contended by the State that the Act of 1890, im
posing a tax of one per centum on the gross receipts of all railroad
companies, whose roads are worked by steam, incorporated by and
doing business within the State, repealing all acts in conflict there-
with, repealed by necessary implication Chapter 16 of the Act of
1880.

The contention of the State was thoroughly established by the
decision of the Court of Appeals of Maryland and afterwards sus-
tained by a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Justice White in delivering the opinion of the latter court, said
that "where a legislature is inhibited by the constitution from
making an irrepealable charter it cannot create a new contract and
bring into being a new corporation, and yet by the charter of such
corporation give rise to the irrepealable contract which the consti-
tution absolutely prohibits."

By reason of the great importance and value to the State of this
decision a brief history of the case may be given.

In 1827 a charter was granted to the Baltimore and Susque-
hanna Railroad Company by chapter 72 of the Act of 1827, one of
the chief provisions being, immunity from taxation. In 1854, by
chapter 250 of the act of the same year, the stockholders of the
Baltimore and Susquehanna Railroad Company were authorized
to consolidate with the York and Maryland Line Railroad Com-
pany, the York and Cumberland Railroad Company and the Sus-
quehanna Company, forming one corporation by the name of the
Northern Central Railway Company, in which consolidation was
transferred among other things to the new company, the property,
rights, privileges and immunities belonging to the several old com-
panies. This exemption from taxation under the Act of 1854 was
enjoyed by the 'said company until the year 1866, when the General
Assembly passed a general assessment law, chapter 157, providing
of course for the assessment of all property, in which, however.