delivered the opinion of the court.
This is a bill to prevent the City of New York from completing the levy of a tax and thereby creating a cloud upon the plaintiff’s title. The plaintiff owns lots numbered 592, 594 and 596 on Seventh avenue, subject .'to mortgages for $70,000 and $45,000, given by him. The premises have been valued, as the first step toward taxation, at $160,000, and it. is alleged upon 'information and belief that this valuation make's no deduction for the mortgages. The ground of the bill, so far as it is before us, is that the tax if completed will be contrary to the Fourteenth Amendmеnt. . Some criticism might be made, and was made on the form of the allegations, but we will take them as presenting what we believe they were intended to present, the question whether, consistently with the Constitution of the United States, a man owning land subject to a mortgage can be taxed for the full value of the land, while at the same time the mortgage debt is not deducted from his personal estate. A demurrer to the bill was sustained by the courts below.
The plaintiff has many difficulties in his way. In the first place the modе of taxation is of long standing, and upon questions of constitutional law the long settled habits of the community play a part as well as grammar and logic. If we should assumе that, economically speaking, the present system really taxes two persons for the same thing, the fact that the system has been in force for a very long time is of itself a strong reason against the belief that it has been overthrown by the Fourteenth Amendment, and for leaving any improvement that may be desired' to the legislature.
The weight of the plaintiff’s argument is that he is taxed for what he does not own. The bill seems to have been drawn on the dominant notion of a right' attached specifically to the mortgaged property, that is to say, the notion that the property represents so many units of value, from which the mortgage subtracts so many, leaving оnly the remainder subject to be taxed; and this is .the plaintiff’s view. But there is a subordi *449 nate averment that the plaintiff has not been assessed for taxes in respect of рersonal property, and the allegation seem? to convey, by indirection, that no deduction of. the mortgage debt has been made from personal рroperty, and to admit that such a deduction would have set the city right As to the former notion, it will be observed that the mortgages were given by the plaintiff, and therefore charged him, as well as his land. If he should die, by the law of New York his personal property would have to exonerate the realty, so far as it would go. If he lives, and remains solvent, the chances are that he will pay the mortgages out of personalty. Therefore, the true deduction is not the amount of the mortgages, but the sрeculative chance that the land may have to be sold for the debt— a chance uiat would be insured at. different rates to different persons. The other theory regards the mortgage debt as a deduction from total riches, to be compensated by an allowance to them indifferently, either in the valuation of the land or by a deduction from personal estate. And this logically leads to the conclusion that no scheme of taxation is constitutional that does not makе allowance for all obligations and debts; a conclusion that the plaintiff seems to .accept, while he does not make it plain that he does not rеceive both in law and in fact such an allowance by a deduction of debts from personal éstate.
It cannot matter to the plaintiff’s argument whether the obligаtion is directed to a specific object or to the whole mass of objects owned by the party bound. In the one case, as much as in the other, the obligаtion will take certain'units of value from his riches, when under the compulsion of the law it is performed. But it is an amazing proposition of constitutional law that the law cannot fix its eye on tangibles alone and tax them by present ownership without regard to obligations that, when performed, would make some of them change hands; for instance, that under the Fourteenth Amendment a man having a thousand sheep as his only property could not be taxed for their full value without allowance for an unsecured debt of five thousand dollars, even if his creditors should be left untaxed.
*450
a matter that hardly would concern him.
Bell’s Gap R. R. Co.
v.
Pennsylvania,
The plaintiff’s contention that the mortgage must be deductеd from the land, whether the mortgage is taxed or not, stated a little differently, is that he was entitled to an apportionment of the tax to his interest, and that if the title to a lot is split up the government cannot tax it as a whole. To this we cannot agree, although it should be mentioned that the Greater New York Charter permits the owner of any interest to redeem it separately.' Sec. 920. We have assumed so far that the tax on this real estate is a debt that might be collected by a personal suit against the plaintiff. As a matter of fact it is not collected in that way and we gather, from what was said and admitted at the argument that it is doubtful at least whether such аn action would lie. See
Durant
v.
Albany County,
If there is no personal liability in New York the levy of a tax is a proceeding
in rem,
whatever rеquirements may be made for notice by naming parties in interest, and even if naming them is a condition to the validity of the tax. Indeed, it may be assumed that primarily it is such a prоceeding in any event, and as a proceeding
in rem
might be sustained, even if the personal liability failed. A tax on special interests is not unknown,
Baltimore Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co.
v.
Baltimore,
More might be said, but we will add only that while in order to meet the plaintiff's arguments we have taken his bill as presenting the question that we believe it was intended to present, the assumption hardly could be made if our opinion otherwise was on his side. It does not appear that he has not received *452 an allowance for his mortgage debt except by a conjectural inference. Among the matters that we do hot consider is whether the plaintiff has any remedy except proceedings for an abatement, when he admits that he was liable to a tax and disputes only the amount.
Judgment affirmed.