reference is made to holding for an unexpired term in case of vacancy, or to the provision in relation to filling a vacancy. The Surrogate of New York, elected in 1876 on the happening of a vacancy, claimed that by the later act the former limita. tion was repealed and that he was entitled to hold for the full term. But the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals decided otherwise. The latter Court say: "There is no more inconsistency between the provision which fixes the term of office and that which provides for filling a vacancy for an unexpired. terin, when contained in two acts, than when contained as they originally were, in one act."

But it is said the fellows are not trustees, a point to be proved. Not only the act of 1792, but also the act of 1819, calls the fellows of the college trustees, using the terms synony mously. The act of 1792 enacts that "the governor, lieutenant governor and six senior assistants in the council of the State shall ever hereafter be trustees or fellows of said college, and shall together with the present president and fellows constitute one corporation." The act of May, 1819, in like words enacts that "the governor, lieutenant governor and six senior senators for the time being shall ever hereafter by virtue of their said offices be trustees or fellows of said college and together with the president and fellows of said college and their successors shall constitute one corporation." The use of one instead of the other of these equivalent names does not carry the consequences supposed. The fellows are "the true and lawful sucof the original trustees, deriving their title as such from them, are trustees in the management of the same college and same property, upon the same trust and with the same power of appointment and removal of officers and instructors, and are in substantial identity with the original trustees and their successors. They also with the president compose the same corporation, as did the rector and trustees.

cessors

We read the act as it is. We do not read between the lines of that or any other composition, for there is nothing to be read there. Lord Granville lately remonstrated in the British parliament against what was called reading between the lines, giving the same reason and adding in substance, as nearly as we can recollect, that it was a way of imputing the supposi

tions, conjectures, and inferences of the reader to the writer. It is believed to be a late invention.

It is difficult to see what toleration could have had to do with the question, if it had been raised, between clergymen and laymen, but toleration did not about this time begin to appear upon the statute book, but began to disappear. "In 1708, an act of toleration was passed, copied from the celebrated toleration act of William and Mary, declaring that all persons who should conform to that act should have liberty of worshiping God in a way separate from that established by law; but should not be excused from paying taxes to the approved ministers of the churches, established by law." In 1727 an act was passed that where there was a society of the Church of England, with a person in orders according to the canons of that church, settled and abiding among them and performing divine service, so near to any person who had declared himself to be of that church, that he could conven. iently, and did ordinarily attend public worship there, his tax should be paid over to the minister of such church, and if the taxes so collected were insufficient for his support, the society might tax themselves. In 1729 similar exemption was granted to Quakers and Baptists. But in May, 1743, the act of toleration passed in 1708 was repealed. The repealing act disappeared five years after the act of 1745 in the revision of 1750, as did also the act next mentioned. This is the notorious and disreputable ministers' vagrant act passed in 1742, "intolerant" Dr. Woolsey calls it, a reference to which we have hitherto avoided, and to which we will only thus briefly refer; the policy of which was continued in a further act of 1743, also disappearing at the same time. The act of 1742 is said to have only affected Congregationalists, but did Presbyterians also. (Prof. Kingsley's Hist. Dis., note I; note by the revisers of the revision of 1821, pp. 431, 432; Woolsey's Hist. Dis., 106.)

The heated protest as it has been called of President Clap and the tutors in February, 1745, against Mr. Whitefield could not have shown much of the spirit of tolerance and conciliation. It could not have equalled in extravagance the denunciation of Rev. Gilbert Tennent, one of his followers or adherents, by Dr. Cutler, ex-Rector (Woolsey's Hist. Dis., 107).

Statutory exposition from a phrase in a diary is unusual. The words "new charter" applied by President Stiles in a place in his diary to the act of 1745 probably mean or may mean only a new grant to the college. The word, charter [charta], was formerly used for a deed or grant, especially from other than private individuals (Black. Com., chap. 20, Webster's and Burrill's Dicts. on words charta and charter,) as the sovereign or legislature. So President Clap in his argument as to the right of visitation speaks of the "first charter or grant" and Ch. J. Parker in the quotation already made from him of "this grant or charter" of Harvard College. So the great charter, Magna Charta, is a grant bestowing and assuring certain rights and privileges. The statute referred to was a new charter in this sense, a new legislative grant, but what the second president afterwards called it is unimportant.

We have so far not gained much additional light by our patient analysis, but this completes the arguments in favor of repeal, except certain opinions, which were expressed and events which occurred some years subsequently, and which could not influence the act in question or its construction, the opinions being expressed in three anonymous pamphlets from 1755 or ten years after the passage of the act to 1784, nineteen years still later, strengthened as is said by the want of contradiction, and also a suggestion to President Stiles by Governor Trumbull in 1777, and the events the election of Dr. Day and Dr. Woolsey as President, who were not then ordained ministers of the gospel, but who became such before they were admitted to the presidency or assumed its duties. The cases of the president and the fellows are distinct, though perhaps leading separately to similar results.

"Nil agit exemplum, litem quod resolvit lite."

It is useless to try to settle an unsettled point by a point, which itself remains unsettled. It is useless to argue that the president may be a layman, and therefore that the fellows may be laymen, until the point assumed be clearly established, and even then the argument will be entirely inconclusive. In the instances of Drs. Day and Woolsey, the corporation judged, as we may infer from their acts, that it was sufficient, that they

were ordained ministers, when they were "associated" and became president. This appeared to it to be in substantial conformity with the intent and requirement of the charter. An argument founded upon a particular construction of the charter and statute cannot be supported by a practice under a different construction. The votes that the presidential committee in concurrence with them take measures for their "ordination" as well as "induction into office" were adopted by the corporation as a corporate not an ecclesiastical body. They were ordained of course by ecclesiastical councils for the usual reasons and the usual purpose, to preach the gospel.

WM. BLISS, 51 William St., City of New York.

[To be continued.]

ARTICLE VIII.-TAXATION IN THE UNITED STATES.

I. THE RIGHT OF TAXATION.

PHILIPPE AND Co., manufacturers, of Geneva, Switzerland, recently sold a consignment of watches to Brown and Co., of New York, merchants, for one thousand dollars, charges for shipment included. The goods were seized by the government upon arrival at New York, partly for verification of the accompanying invoice, partly as security for the ad valorem duty of twenty-five per centum; that is, they were subject to a farther charge of two hundred and fifty dollars before delivery to the consignees. The full value of them having been already paid the manufacturers, what right had the government, or since the government is but the arm of the law, and the law but the articulate expression of the will of the people, what right had the people to impose the additional charge? In other words, what exactly are the origin, nature, and limits of the right of taxation.

It is clear to begin with that the perfect legality of the act does not at all determine its moral character. The people is well able to will what it pleases and to express its will with all due formality, but if the thing willed is itself wrong the effect of the law is simply to generalize the wrong by extending it to include all cases of the same kind. Summum jus summa injuria; the worst injustice is the literal construction and strict enforcement of an unjust law. So there is really no property within its reach which the people cannot most lawfully appropriate. But like other moral agents it can rightfully appro priate only what belongs to it; a self-evident truth of ethics and in logic an identical proposition. What the people rightfully appropriates is its own; what is not its own it cannot rightfully appropriate. So in the case supposed, the govern ment is ready if need be to enforce through its tribunals the claim of the manufacturers to the stipulated price of the watches; put upon its defense outside of them it must be able to show that its own title to the duty upon the watches is