Opinion of the Court. could only be constructed and operated by reason (among others) of the moneys raised upon the security of these very lands? The present insolvency of the railroad company shows that the lands must form a most important item in the ability of the company or its successors to continue the operation of the road and make any earnings whatever. If it be assumed that after the lands became the property of the company it was at that moment no more restricted in their sale than any other corporation organized to buy and sell real estate, and that it had the entire right to sell, or not to sell, or to mortgage to whom and at what price it might obtain, and that it owned the land like an individual, still the question is presented as to what was the actual condition of affairs when the act of 1883 was passed. At that time these lands were so closely connected with the railroad, its construction and operation, as in effect to be part and parcel thereof; they stood as security for millions of bonds issued to secure the construction and operation of the road, and upon these facts the reason and justification for a classification, such as was made in that act, are plainly apparent. At that time totally different circumstances than those which surround an individual in the absolute ownership of his property existed in relation to these lands. As they made the gross earnings possible, it cannot be said, with the least regard to the fact, that those earnings did not in part issue out of the lands upon the same principle that they partly issued out of the right of way, the roadbed, track, engines, cars, tanks and other confessedly "railroad property." There is no difference in principle between the two classes of property so far as this question is concerned. Then, too, the road of the company runs through the whole State, hundreds of miles; it owns thousands upon thousands of acres therein, granted it for the purposes stated, and these lands it has accordingly pledged to redeem its bonds issued as mentioned. Its building was a work of national importance, and it was built for use by the Government, as well as for other purposes. Surely all these various facts justify a classification of such an entity for taxation by a different method and upon different lines than the Opinion of the Court. individual, and lands thus situated and owned are in a materially different condition from lands absolutely owned by an individual. It is said this reasoning, while it might be applicable to the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, would not be applicable to many other railroads which had no land grants, or which were not situated as is the company in question, and that as the law is in its terms general and applies to all roads, this company cannot obtain its benefit without showing that it is a valid provision in regard to all railroad property. But if the property of this company is so situated and the facts regarding it are so materially different from other real estate as to fulfil the conditions upon which a general classification may be proper, we think the company could avail itself of the act even if some other companies could not. Many cases are cited, in the brief of counsel, from the different States having provisions in their constitutions somewhat similar to those found in the organic act of Dakota, and in which States it has been held that the legislature is not confined to taxation in precisely the same method for all classes of property, but that it has power to classify and to provide different methods of taxation of the property so classified. The particular facts arose in and the cases are cited from Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Missouri and Illinois. They are cited in the margin.1 1 Wisconsin Central Railroad v. Taylor County, 52 Wisconsin, 37; Griswold College v. Iowa, 46 Iowa, 275; Missouri River &c. Railroad v. Morris, 7 Kansas, 210; Francis v. Atchison, Topeka &c. Railroad, 19 Kansas, 303; Louisiana State Lottery Company v. New Orleans, 24 La. Ann. 86; New Orleans v. Kaufman, 29 La. Ann. 283; New Orleans v. Davidson, 30 La. Ann. 554; New Orleans v. Fourchy, 30 La. Ann. 910; People v. The Auditor, 7 Michigan, 84; Youngblood v. Sexton, 32 Michigan, 406; State ex rel. Vail's Executors v. Runyon, 41 N. J. Law, 98; Kittanning Coal Company v. Commonwealth, 79 Penn. St. 100; Mississippi Mills v. Cook, 56 Mississippi, 40; Crow v. State, 14 Missouri, 237; Hamilton v. St. Louis County Court, 15 Missouri, 3; State v. North, 27 Missouri, 464, 483; Illinois Central Railroad v. McLean County, 17 Illinois, 291; State v. Crittenden County, 19 Arkansas, 360; St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railroad v. Berry, 41 Arkansas, 509; Arkansas Midland Railroad v. Berry, 44 Arkansas, 17. Opinion of the Court. Upon a full consideration of the subject, we are persuaded that there is nothing in any provision of the act of 1883 for the taxation of the gross earnings which violates the letter or the spirit of the organic act. Objection is also made to the act of 1883 on the ground that it is in violation of the commerce clause of the Federal Constitution in that by its terms taxes are laid upon earnings arising from the transportation of persons and property between different States, etc. In other words, that the tax is not confined to earnings which arise from the transaction of its business wholly within the State. It is said that the case of State Tax on Railway Gross Receipts, 15 Wall. 284, holding that the imposition of taxes upon gross receipts of railway companies was not illegal, although the gross receipts were made up in part of freights received from the transportation of merchandise from one State to another or through one State into another, has been overruled by the subsequent cases in this court, among which are those of Fargo v. Michigan, 121 U. S. 230, 244; Philadelphia & Southern Steamship Company v. Pennsylvania, 122 U. S. 326; and it is claimed that the case is not brought under that of Maine v. Grand Trunk Railway Company, 142 U. S. 217, in that there is no provision for ascertaining the amount of gross earnings derived from interstate commerce and for the taxation of the balance only. A perusal of the first section of the act does not render it at all clear that there was intended to be a tax of any portion of the gross earnings of the corporation which arose from interstate commerce. The language of the act which declares that the tax should be paid into the treasury of the Territory upon a percentage of all gross earnings of the corporation owning or operating such railroad "arising from the operation of such railroad as shall be situated within the Territory," gives great reason to doubt the correctness of the construction. which would levy the tax upon the earnings derived from interstate commerce. But there is great force in the claim that the act is not subject to the objections mentioned in the above cases reported in 121 and 122 United States, and the cases Opinion of the Court. therein referred to. In those cases there was a distinct tax upon the gross earnings without reference to any other tax, and not in substitution or in lieu of another tax, while in this case the act plainly substitutes a different method of taxation upon the property of a railroad company. It is a tax upon the lands and all the other property of the company, but instead of placing a valuation upon the lands and other property, and apportioning a certain amount upon such valuation directly, as was the old method, a new one is established of taking a percentage upon the gross earnings as a fair substitute for the former taxes upon all the lands and property of the company, and when it is said, as it is in this act, that the tax collected by this method shall be in lieu of all other taxes whatever, it would seem that it might be claimed with great plausibility that a tax levied under such circumstances and by such methods was not in reality a tax upon the gross earnings, but was a tax upon the lands and other property of the company, and that the method adopted of arriving at the sum which the company should pay as taxes upon its property was by taking a percentage of its gross earnings. We do not think it necessary, however, to decide this question, because we are of opinion that, by the act of 1889, the legislature proffered the company a compromise as to the taxes claimed to be due and the company accepted the same. Construing the act of 1883 as we do, and as meaning to exempt the company from the payment of all other taxes than those therein named, upon all its property of every name and nature, we find that in 1889 this company had been in default in the payment of its taxes under the act of 1883 for the years 1886, 1887 and 1888. It owed nearly two hundred thousand dollars in taxes for those years under that act. The taxing authorities of the county of Richland had also assumed to tax the lands of the company for the year 1888 in the same way as if owned by individuals, but the tax as thus assessed had not been paid by the company. In this state of affairs the act of 1889 was passed, the effect of which was to say to the company, if you will pay all the taxes that are due under the act of 1883, you may then accept and come in under Opinion of the Court. the provisions of this act. And there is in addition to this offer a clear and necessary implication from the language used in the act that if the company would pay those taxes in full which were thus in arrear such payment would operate as a discharge of all claims for taxes, including those claims made by virtue of the proceedings to tax the lands of the company under the general law. It certainly is not possible to believe that the legislature intended to make it a condition for the acceptance of the act of 1889 by the company that it should not only pay all the taxes which were provided for under the act of 1883, (and which by the terms of that act were in full of all other taxation,) and for the payment of which the company might be in default, and yet and in addition should still be liable to pay the taxes as assessed in Richland County under the general law. We cannot suppose the legislature intended to compel the payment of taxes twice, and therefore the language of the act of 1889 providing for the payment of all taxes in arrear under the act of 1883 as a condition for the acceptance of the act of 1889, implied that such payment should also be in full of all other claims for taxes assessed for the same years. Such a condition and proposition were entirely within the power of the legislature to impose and make, and when the proposition was accepted and the condition performed by the payment of money into the treasury of the Territory, all claim for taxes under any general law levied directly upon the lands necessarily fell with such payment and acceptance. This implied release of the taxes for the year 1888, which the authorities had assumed to levy under the general law and not under the provisions of the act of 1883, arises from the language of the act of 1889, and is just as strong and just as clear as if it had been stated in so many words in that act. That which arises by plain and clear implication from the language used in an act is as much a part of the act as if the implication had been embodied in so many words. It may be said that the money should have been paid, if at all, within thirty days after the passage of the act. Possibly, if the payment had not been made within that time and the |