The charter of the remaining bank was to the same effect, omitting the direction to the comptroller-general and his action thereon.
Reverting now to the five earlier banks and to recharters of them, the reader will remember that in the recharters of the Bank of the State of South Carolina, made, first in 1832 and again in 1852, 'the same,' the old charter of 1812-including, of course, the sixteenth section-was continued. And that the same thing was true of the four other banks, so far as related to their recharters as made in 1822, 1830, and 1833. But while in regard to the Bank of the State of South Carolina, no variation was made on the old charter during the active existence of the bank, nor until the legislature in 1868 passed the act to close its operations, the same was not true of the other four early banks which we have spoken of chiefly in connection with it. A variation was finally made on them. And when, after their recharters of 1822, 1830, and 1833, they were again rechartered in 1852 and 1853, the old sixteenth section was not re-enacted in regard to them, but they were made subject to the last above-quoted restriction of the later banks; the banks, namely, incorporated between the years 1831 and 1836.
In this condition of State legislation, one Wagner, who was indebted to the State for taxes for the year 1870, tendered to a certain Stoll, a collector of taxes, whose duty it was to collect and receive such taxes, in payment of his taxes, bills of the already mentioned 'the President and Directors of the Bank of the State of South Carolina,' or as more briefly called the Bank of the State of South Carolina, or Bank of the State. The bills were issued after December 20th, 1860, though not in aid of the rebellion. At the time of their presentation the bank did not redeem its notes in specie. The officer refused to receive them, and Wagner presented his petition to the court below for a mandamus to compel him to receive the same.
The question in the case was the nature and extent of the obligation of the contract which, under the sixteenth section of the charter of the Bank of the State, arose between the State of South Carolina and the holder of bills of the bank to receive the bills in payment of taxes due the State.
It was asserted by Stoll, the tax collector, that the sixteenth section of the charter of the bank had been repealed or so far modified by the act passed in 1843-enacting that 'all taxes for the use and service of the State shall be paid in specie, paper medium, or the notes of specie-paying banks of this State'-that thereafter the bills of the bank in question were not receivable for taxes due to the State, unless the bank was in fact at the time the taxes became payable a bank that redeemed its notes in specie; the argument being that although by this sixteenth section of the charter of the bank the receivability of its notes in payment of taxes or other moneys due to the State, was guaranteed, whether they were or were not in fact redeemed in coin when presented for payment; yet that the act of 1843 prohibited the receipt in payment of taxes of the notes of any bank which did not in fact redeem its notes in specie when presented for payment, and that the latter act being inconsistent with the former effected its repeal or modification.
The Supreme Court of the State thought this argument sound, and adjudged that the tax collector of the State was not bound to receive them, and refused the mandamus.
To reverse that judgment this writ of error was taken. The case was twice argued: first at the last term, and now, again, much more fully at this.
Messrs. W. W. Boyce, A. G. Magrath, and B. R. Curtis, for the plaintiff in error; Mr. D. H. Chamberlain, contra.
Mr. Justice HUNT delivered the opinion of the court.