60 Miss. 282 | Miss. | 1882
delivered the opinion of the court.
On the 1st of March, 1875, the State was, or claimed to be,, the owner of an immense quantity of land, which had been sold to it for taxes of preceding years. These lands were, as the property of the State, exempt from taxation, and a general distrust as to the validity of the sales under which they had been acquired deterred persons from purchasing them from the State. A considerable portion of them had been purchased by the State prior to the year 1861; and in the destruction of records caused by the war, all evidence of title, as to a large portion of them, had been lost. Others of them had been acquired under tax-sales, made during the war, and the taxes for which they had been sold were composed in pai’t of levies for the support of the armies of the Confederate States.. Such sales had been declared void by the courts. The proceedings under which by far the greater part of them had been sold, were invalid, because of irregularities in the assessment and sales. The owners of these lands, finding them assessed to the State, and thus freed from taxation, and knowing that no title could be conferred by sales to purchasers from the State, were content to permit the continuance of the shadow which protected them from taxation, but did not threaten their possession. The evil was not only serious as it
Further confusion was obtained by referring in other parts of the act to forms and instructions - prepared in the auditor’s office, for the purpose of keeping correct accounts with the various' tax-collectors of the ¡State. An examination of this act has impressed us with the conviction that what was the Legislative will and intention as to the various details of the act can never be known and scarcely approximated. Fortunately, however, a greater p'ortion of it consists of instructions for settlements between the different fiscal agents of the State, and more fortunately still, the adoption in the ninth
There are two important inquiries involved in the consideration of sales made under this act, both of which are presented in the case before us. .
First, did the Legislature contemplate a sale of the title only which the State then had in the lands, derived from previous tax-sales, or was it intended that the lands should again be proceeded against for the taxes of 1874 ; and second, if it was a new procedure against the lands, were the titles which would be conveyed by the sales dependent for their validity upon the regularity of the assessment of 1871 and of the orders of the Boards of Police of the different counties in levying the taxes of 1874, or did the act adopt the rolls as they then appeared, and the levies of taxes theretofore made, as fixing a valuation of the lands and the amount of the taxes for which it was subject for that year, curing, by such adoption, all irregularities which it was in the power of the Legislature to cure?
The act is stated by its title to be an amendment to that of April 2, 1874, which in turn was amendatory to the act of April 7, 1874, which was itself amendatory to the act of April 5, 1872. The acts of 1872, 1873, and 1874 in effect provided that the auditor of public accounts should furnish to the clerks of the Circuit Courts of the various counties the lists of lands held by the State under sales for taxes made subsequent to the first day of October ; that the circuit clerks should, for a certain length of time, hold said lands subject to redemption by the owners, after which time the lands should be subject to entry or purchase by third persons, and if purchased, the clerks should “ execute said purchaser a deed conveying the State’s title to the same.” Acts 1872, sect. 5. Under these acts it is evident that a purchaser would get only the title which the State had acquired by its previous purchases. We think, however, the act of 1875 established a different policy and plan. The acts of 1872, 1873, and 1874 dealt only with lands the title to which was claimed by the State ; that of 1875
This brings us to the consideration of the second question. For its proper consideration we must recur to the evils intended to be remedied, — the end' to be attained. The fundamental idea was to disencumber the State of the apparent ownership of a vast quantity of lands, title to which had not been obtained because of erroneous' proceedings condemning it to sale for taxes. The State proposed to surrender these titles and to begin anew against the lands, for the purpose of
In this condition of affairs the act was passed. It subjected the property thus assessed to the taxes thus levied. The necessity for its passage was the existence of irregularities in previous tax-sales. The object of the law was to enforce, by a valid sale, the charge thus imposed.
It cannot be denied that, for the purpose of making a future sale, the Legislature could, by special act, have cured all errors and irregularities in the assessment of the lands and the levy of the taxes, arising from the non-performance, or irregular performance, of any act which it might constitutionally dispense with for the future. If the act, then, had declared that the valuation of the lands therein mentioned, as appearing on the rolls theretofore filed, should be valid asan assessment, and that the taxes levied by the State and levee laws, and by the orders of the Boards of Supervisors of the'several counties, should be adopted as fixing the charge for which they
We do not decide that the order of the Board of Supervisors, made at its August term, 1871, had reference to the roll of 1870 rather than to that of 1871. This it is unnecessary to determine. If the order referred to the roll of 1871, the assessment was valid and regular; if, on the other hand, it had reference to that of 1870, it would only result in showing that the roll of 1871 had never been approved at all by the board. This irregularity, if it existed, was such as that it might be cured by Legislative action, and was so cured by the operation of the act as above explained.
Affirmed.