Argument for the United States. 214 U.S. inal law, extended to any and all state banks an exemption from taxation upon their circulation when the same was reduced to an amount not exceeding five per cent of the capital, and the exemption aforesaid proceeded upon the assumption that five per cent of outstanding circulation was lost or destroyed. When, therefore, Congress carried this general principle of tax exemption into the Revised Statutes, and in express terms provided that the benefits of the principle should be extended to national banks, it thereby intended to apply to the circulation of national banks the same principle which it had theretofore applied to the circulation of state banks. Any other construction would involve a direct discrimination in that regard against national banks. Mr. Assistant Attorney General John Q. Thompson and Mr. Philip M. Ashford for The United States: It is the primary duty and object of the court to ascertain the intention and purpose of the legislative body in the enactment of any legislation which may come before the court for construction and interpretation. If such intention and purpose are clearly set forth in the act, then the statute is said to interpret itself, and needs no interpretation or construction by the court. But if the intention of Congress is not clearly expressed, and doubt exists as to the construction intended to be given by the law-making power, then it becomes the province of the court to ascertain the objects and purposes which the legislation was intended to subserve. Smythe v. Fiske, 23 Wall. 374, 380; Hamilton v. Rathbone, 175 U. S. 419, 421. Therefore, it is the province of the court, if necessary, to examine the title of the chapter containing the sections under consideration, and resort may be had to the history of the original act to the extent that the court may refer to the journals of the legislative body for the purpose of ascertaining the circumstances and conditions which gave rise to the enactment. And this may be done where the ambiguity refers, not merely to 214 U. S. Argument for the United States. the meaning of particular words, but to such ambiguity or doubtful meaning as may arise in respect to the general scope and meaning of the statute when all of its provisions are considered. Endlich on Interpretation of Statutes, § 86, p. 115; United States v. Moore, 95 U. S. 760; United States v. Union Pacific R. R., 91 U. S. 72; Kohlsaat v. Murphy, 96 U. S. 153, 160; Platt v. Union Pacific R. R., 99 U. S. 48, 63, 64; Coosaw Mining Co. v. South Carolina, 144 U. S. 550; Hamilton v. Rathbone, 175 U. S. 414, 419. Considering the object and purposes for which § 5214 was originally enacted, it is apparent that Congress has made no exceptions to the application of said section, or attempted by any legislation to exempt any national bank or association from paying the tax therein provided. A review of the legislation of Congress with respect to state and national bank circulations, and such cases as Twin City v. Nebeker, 167 U. S. 196, 203; Veazie Bank v. Fenno, 8 Wall. 533, 549; National Bank v. United States, 101 U. S. 1, 6, clearly show that it was the legislative intent in the enactment of §§ 6 and 14 of the act of June 30, 1864, now §§ 3410, 3411, 3412 and 3416, Rev. Stat., so far as they relate to the subject under discussion, to exempt from taxation on circulation only the five per cent of state bank notes which might be outstanding. This being so, it follows that appellant was bound to pay the tax on its own notes without regard to the percentage of its capital stock represented thereby. For forty years the treasury department officials have given to the sections in question the construction for which we here contend. Until about the time the appellant made application to the Treasurer for the refund of the duties or taxes paid, the national banks universally acquiesced in that construction. Such long-continued interpretation and practice by the treasury officials must have very great weight with the court in determining the construction or application of the sections in question. United States v. Finnell, 185 U. Ś. 236, 244, and cases cited. MR. JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the court. Organized as a state bank in 1834, the appellant was converted, in June, 1865, into a national banking association. For nearly thirty years after its organization as a national bank, that is, up to July 1, 1904, the bank was assessed for and paid the duty of one-half of one per cent upon the average amount of its notes in circulation, in conformity with § 5214, Rev. Stat. Availing itself of the right conferred by § 5218, Rev. Stat., copied in the margin,' the bank made application to be refunded the sum of $4,713.01, on the ground that in making certain of the half-yearly payments under § 5214 there had been a miscalculation, and besides, because of an error of law, some of the half-yearly payments had been exacted when the bank was exempt. We put aside so much of the claim as was based upon mere errors of calculation, as no contention on that subject is here presented. The alleged error of law or asserted right to exemption rests upon the assumption that by the operation of § 3411, Rev. Stat., the bank was not liable to pay the half-yearly duty on its outstanding circulation whenever the amount of its circulation fell below five per cent of its capital, a contingency, which it was insisted, had arisen during certain of the half-yearly periods between January, 1888, and July, 1904. The request to be refunded having been rejected by the Treasurer of the United States, this suit was commenced and this appeal was taken from a judgment in favor of the United States. 42 Ct. Cls. 6. In the argument for the bank it is stated that all the errors relied upon are embraced in the following propositions: 1 SEC. 5218. In all cases where an association has paid or may pay in excess of what may be or has been found due from it, on account of the duty required to be paid to the Treasurer of the United States, the association may state an account therefor, which, on being certified by the Treasurer of the United States and found correct by the First Comptroller of the Treasurer, shall be refunded in the ordinary manner by warrant on the Treasury. "1. The said court erred in holding and deciding that the claimant, being a national bank, was not exempt from taxation on its notes in circulation during the half-yearly periods when the average amount of its said notes was less than five per centum of its chartered capital. "2. The said court erred in holding and deciding that § 3411, Revised Statutes, relates solely to the taxation of the outstanding circulating notes of state banks which had ceased to exist or had been converted into national banks, and did not limit the claimant's liability to taxation on its own outstanding circulation." Without presently determining whether the right to be refunded, even if otherwise well founded, was without merit because of the voluntary nature of the payments or the effect of the statute of limitations, we come to consider the merits of the contention. It depends upon whether § 5214, Rev. Stat., is limited and controlled by the provisions of § 3411, Rev. Stat. The two sections are as follows: "SEC. 5214. In lieu of all existing taxes, every association shall pay to the Treasurer of the United States, in the months of January and July, a duty of one-half of one per centum each half-year upon the average amount of its notes in circulation, and a duty of one-quarter of one per centum each half-year upon the average amount of its deposits, and a duty of onequarter of one per centum each half-year on the average amount of its capital stock, beyond the amount invested in United States bonds." "SEC. 3411. Whenever the outstanding circulation of any bank, association, corporation, company, or person is reduced to an amount not exceeding five per centum of the chartered or declared capital existing at the time the same was issued, said circulation shall be free from taxation; and whenever any bank which has ceased to issue notes for circulation deposits in the Treasury of the United States, in lawful money, the amount of its outstanding circulation, to be redeemed at par, under such regulations as the Secretary of the Treasury shall prescribe, it shall be exempt from any tax upon such circulation." It is insisted that the sections, considered as applicable to the same subject, are harmonious, and that giving effect to both, while leaving a national banking association liable to the duty imposed by § 5214, will yet entitle it to the exemption provided in § 3411 when the contingency stated in that section has come to pass. And as this result, it is argued, is clear and free from all doubt, considering the text of the two sections, recourse may not be had to legislation prior to the Revised Statutes, from which the provisions of the sections were drawn, in order to arrive at their correct meaning. Reference to such prior legislation, it is insisted, cannot be resorted to for the purpose of creating a doubt, but only to solve one otherwise arising from the text, citing Hamilton v. Rathbone, 175 U. S. 418; Bate Refrigerating Co. v. Sulzberger, 157 U. S. 1, 36, and cases cited. Accurately considering the text of the two sections and the context of the respective titles of the Revised Statutes in which they are found, we think the contention that the sections are free from ambiguity and may be harmoniously applied without the necessity of construction, is without merit. It is conceded that for the more than thirty-five years since the enactment of the Revised Statutes, in the administration of the national-bank. act, national banking associations have been required to and have without question paid the half-yearly duty on circulation, wholly irrespective of the exemption provided in § 3411, a condition which clearly suffices, to say the least, to engender doubt as to the correctness of the belated contention now urged. Besides, the sections are in different titles of the Revised Statutes, the one (§ 3411) Internal Revenue, the other (§ 5214) National Banks. While § 5214 and the other sections contained in the title in which it is found leave no doubt that § 5214 was intended to deal with the outstanding circulation of national banks, not only the text of § 3411, but the other sections of the chapter under the general |