New York could not have given force and effect to the prohibitions of the constitution of Ohio. Nevertheless, whether rightly or wrongly, the New York courts held that there was no violation of the constitution of Ohio, the Court of Appeals saying in its opinion:

"At the death of the testator the general statutes of Ohio provided that corporations might be formed for any purpose for which individuals might lawfully associate themselves, except for carrying on professional business. 2 Bates's Ann. Ohio Statutes (6th ed.), p. 1836.

"Subsequent to the death of the testator and in March, 1902, an act was passed by the general assembly of the State of Ohio entitled 'An act to provide for the administration of charitable trusts in certain cases.' If we assume that such act was passed to aid in the incorporation of the Andrews Institute for Girls, it is not necessarily unconstitutional for that reason. It is not an uncommon thing in any State for questions to arise making it desirable or perhaps necessary for further general legislation to enable persons interested to carry out desired and desirable measures. The fact that such further general statute is passed to aid a particular person for the time being does not make the act a special, as distinguished from a general one. Whether an act, general in form, is a mere device to evade a wholesome constitutional provision is largely dependent upon the special circumstances of each case. If the act relates to persons, places and things as a class, and is neither local nor temporary, the mere fact that its practical effect is special and private does not necessarily prove that it violates constitutional provisions against special legislation. Matter of N. Y. El. R. R. Co., 70 N. Y. 327-344; In the Matter of Church, 92 N. Y. 1; Matter of Henneberger, 155 N. Y. 420, 426; People v. Dunn, 157 N. Y. 528; Kittinger v. Buffalo Traction Co., 160 N. Y. 377; People ex rel. Clauson v. Newburgh & S. Plank Road Co., 86 N. Y. 1; Matter of N. Y. & L. I. Bridge Co., 148 N. Y. 540; Waterloo W. M. Co. v. Shanahan, 128 N. Y. 341; Ferguson v. Ross, 126 N. Y.

459; Sun P. & Pub. Association v. Mayor &c. of N. Y., 152 N. Y. 257.

"The act so passed by the general assembly of the State of Ohio in 1902 would not seem to be in violation of the constitution of that State. Platt v. Craig, 66 Ohio St. 75; State ex rel. v. Spellmire, 67 Ohio St. 77; Gentsch v. State of Ohio, 71 Ohio St. 151; Cinn. Street R. R. Co. v. Horstman, 72 Ohio St. 93; State of Ohio v. Sherman, 22 Ohio St. 411.

"Subsequent to the death of the testator, and on the 8th day of May, 1902, 'The Andrews Institute for Girls' was incorporated pursuant to the laws of the State of Ohio 'for the purpose of receiving the property devised and bequeathed in and by the wills of Wallace C. Andrews and Margaret M. St. John Andrews, late of the city and State of New York, to the corporation therein directed to be formed and for the purpose of carrying out the charitable purposes in such wills expressed, and of establishing and maintaining the institution therein provided for.'

"The articles of incorporation include a complete copy of the will of the testator and also of the will and codicil of Margaret M. St. John Andrews. They also provide that the corporation shall be located in the town of Willoughby, Ohio, and name as members of the corporation the persons proposed in the will of said testator, together with two other persons in the State of Ohio, which persons so named constitute the board of directors for the administration and management of the property and trust or other funds of the corporation, and for the control and management of said institution. Said act of the general assembly of the State of Ohio among other things provides: 'The attorney-general of the State of Ohio shall in his official capacity have power to bring proceedings in any court of record and enforce any such devise or bequest whenever he deems such action necessary for the protection and carrying out of the purposes named in said last will and testament without waiting for the organization of such corporation.'"

That there is some foundation for the conclusion reached by the Court of Appeals is obvious from the opinions of the Supreme Court of Ohio, cited in the foregoing quotation. It is unnecessary to hold that there was no error in the ruling of the Court of Appeals. It is enough for the purposes of this case to hold that that court did not question the validity of any provision of the constitution of the State of Ohio, and did not sustain any act or incorporation which it held to be in conflict with such provision. At most, there was simply a matter of error and not a repudiation of the obligations of the Federal Constitution.

We do not see that any provision of the Federal Constitution has been violated, and the writ of error is

Dismissed.

THE CHIEF JUSTICE did not hear the arguments and took no part in the decision of this case.

MERCHANTS NATIONAL BANK OF BALTIMORE v. UNITED STATES.

APPEAL FROM THE COURT OF CLAIMS.

No. 20. Argued March 12, 15, 1909.-Decided May 17, 1909.

Where two sections of the Revised Statutes when taken together are not free from ambiguity and cannot be harmoniously applied, recourse may be had to legislation prior to the Revised Statutes from which the provisions of those sections were drawn in order to arrive at the correct meaning. Hamilton v. Rathbone, 175 U. S. 418, and Bate Refrigerating Co. v. Sulzberger, 157 U. S. 1, distinguished. Sections 5214 and 3411, Rev. Stat., cannot be so construed together, and effect given to both, as to leave a national bank liable to the duty imposed by § 5214 and yet entitle it to the exemption provided by § 3411 under the contingency stated therein.

The provisions in § 3411, Rev. Stat., exempting banks from taxation VOL. CCXIV-3

on

Argument for Appellant.

214 U.S.

circulation, does not relate to national banks but to state banks

only. One of the public policies of the National Bank Act was to secure the public credit and encourage the issue of notes to circulate as currency founded upon United States bonds, and § 3411 will not be construed as intending to exempt those national banks that allowed their circulation to fall below five per cent of their capital from the taxation provided by § 5214 to create a fund to bear the burden common to all national banks for engraving and printing the notes. A uniform construction ever since its enactment for a long period, in this case over thirty-five years, engenders doubt of a new and different construction.

42 Ct. Cl. 6, affirmed.

THE facts are stated in the opinion.

Mr. James H. Hayden and Mr. R. E. Lee Marshall, with whom Mr. J. Hanson Thomas was on the brief, for appellant:

The sections of the Revised Statutes drawn in question are without inconsistencies or ambiguities. They must be enforced in accordance with their terms. Resort to the acts of Congress, in which they had their origin, for purposes of interpretation, is not permissible.

The Revised Statutes must be treated as a legislative dec-> laration by Congress of what the statute law of the United States was on December 1, 1873, on the subjects they embrace, and when the meaning of the language employed is plain the court cannot look to the statutes which have been revised to see if Congress erred in that revision. United States v. Bowen, 100 U. S. 509; Arthur v. Dodge, 101 U. S. 34; Victor v. Arthur, 104 U. S. 498; Myer v. Car Co., 102 U. S. 1; Cambria Iron Co. v. Washburn, 118 U. S. 57; Rose's Notes on the U. S. Reports, 860, 861; Bate Refrigerating Co. v. Sulzberger, 157 U.S. 30; Hamilton v. Rathbone, 175 U. S. 418; Cheney v. State, 74 N. E. Rep. 892, 893.

The words and context of the Revised Statutes in question are fairly susceptible of but one meaning, namely, that the liability of national banks to taxation under § 5214, is limited

214 U.S.

Argument for Appellant.

by § 3411. They should be administered accordingly. But, whether taken by themselves or construed in connection with the antecedent legislation, the intention of Congress to extend the exemption prescribed by § 3411 to national bank circulation is equally clear.

It must be presumed that when the Revised Statutes were enacted Congress was apprised, not only of the scope and meaning of the previous law, which it carried into the Ret vised Statutes, but also of the policy and intent thereof and of the reasons which originally led to the passage of the same. Congress must be presumed, therefore, to have known the reason and theory which had led to the enactment of the five per cent exemption of banking circulation from taxation, the specific conditions which it was designed to meet, and the kind of circulation to which it originally referred, and, further, to have known that mainly, if not entirely, as a result of the previous legislation in question, national bank circulation had superseded state bank circulation and had become the recognized form of currency of the country. With full knowledge of these facts Congress deliberately enacted, under § 3411, the provisions of the previous law, and exempted the outstanding circulation of any bank from taxation when the same was reduced to an amount not exceeding five per cent of its capital, as the percentage of bank notes likely to be lost or destroyed in circulation is at least as great in the case of national banks as of state banks, and theoretically the principle of the exemption is equally as appropriate to the one kind of circulation as to the other.

The construction placed by the court below upon § 3411, is not tenable, for the reason that it would render § 3416 nugatory. The result of such a construction would be an unjust discrimination against the circulation of national banks.

Upon any principle of construction the Court of Claims erred in restricting the general language of § 3411 to the particular case of national banks succeeding state banks by conversion, and rightly construed, § 3411, as it stood in the orig