Wills

If the plaintiff’s land had been- sold by the defendant as Tax Collector for. the alleged taxes, and a tax deed had been made to the purchaser, would the deed have been void on its face ? For if so, it would have imposed no cloud on' the plaintiff’s title, and the threat to sell would not, under such circumstances, have amounted to legal duress. ( Bucknall v. Story, 46 Cal. 589 .) The only authority in law there was for the levy of a State tax for the fiscal year 1872-3, is to be found in sec. 3696 of the Political Code as it then stood. That section was under review by this Court in the case of Houghton v. Austin, 47 Cal. 646 , and it was decided that so much of the section as authorized the State Board of Equalization, in determining the rate of the State tax, to make an allowance for delinquency in the collection of taxes, was unconstitutional and void. The exigency of the case did not require the Court to decide, and it did not decide, whether the whole section was void on its face. But we think the logical result of the decision is, that the whole section was unconstitutional and void per se. The clause requiring an allowance to be made for delinquency in the collection of…