(1838) 7 Watts (Pa.) 152, 32 Am. Dec. 750. See also Kribben v. Haycraft (1858) 26 Mo. 396, and O'Reilly v. Cleary (1879) 8 Mo. App. 186.

This doctrine seems to have been designed to protect the exercise of the pardoning power from abuse through the intervention of designing persons; and the fact that in the particular instance no improper influences were resorted to did not prevent the operation of the rule, even though, as between the parties, it was unjust to a claimant who had rendered valuable service for another.

Under the doctrine of these cases there can be no recovery on a quantum meruit for what an attorney might legally do in the procuring of a pardon, when the contract is one to procure a pardon without limiting his services to such as could be legally contracted for. Brown V. Young (1886) 7 Ky. L. Rep. 664 (abstract).

In McGill v. Burnett (Ky.) supra, an agreement to pay one a certain sum, “in consideration of his services and labor to be performed in and about the management of a petition to the governor in case a certain forfeiture described in the contract was remitted by him," was held illegal and unenforceable. The court said: "The contract is in effect to pay the plaintiff for his management, whether fair or foul, in inducing the governor to remit a forfeiture. Such contracts tend to obstruct a correct administration of the government; he who labors for the reward promised will be induced to use his influence for the money he is to obtain, when as a patriot and citizen he should only act for the good of his country and under an impartial sense of justice, tempered with mercy. We can readily imagine the dangers likely to result from the corrupt artifices of mercenary managers in procuring pardons and remissions."

So, an agreement to obtain the commutation of a sentence was held illegal and void in Kribben v. Haycraft (1858) 26 Mo. 396, the court stating that the distinction between such an agreement, and an agreement to obtain a pardon, which is contrary to public policy and void, is nominal; that the

principle is the same in both cases, and all considerations that uphold the propriety and wisdom of the rule in one case apply to the other.

And a mortgage given upon consideration that the mortgagee, without improper means, would obtain a nolle prosequi from the governor of an indictment for conspiracy to defraud found against the mortgagor, was held in Wildey v. Collier (1854) 7 Md. 273, 61 Am. Dec. 346, to be against public policy and void. The court said that it was easy to perceive that the danger of abuse in the exercise of the pardoning power and in granting writs of nolle prosequi would be greatly increased, where the party urging the application is, unknown to the executive, the paid agent of the accused or the convicted, or is acting under the strongest inducements to varnish or misrepresent the facts by reason of his own interest in the success of the measure.

So, in Hatzfield v. Gulden (1838) 7 Watts (Pa.) 152, 32 Am. Dec. 750, it was held that a contract to secure signers to a petition for a pardon was illegal and unenforceable, especially where, as in this case, it appeared that the party was acting not from pity, nor from a sense that the punishment was too severe, nor from friendship to the prisoner, but for his own gain and emolument. The court stated that it was not necessary to say whether, after the whole transaction is closed, a person who incidentally paid some postage, or who under special circumstances carried a petition the signatures to which were spontaneously made, may not receive his actual expense in daily pay, but that it would be a very special case, however, to justify even this; and adds that this was not a special case, and that it is undesirable to see advertisements that pardons will be obtained at the lowest price, or anything approaching to it; and that, generally, all contracts to change the course of trials, or the effect of trials, whether to obtain a liberation of a prisoner by money to the jailer, or to obtain a pardon by the use of money, directly or indirectly, must be void.

So, one who has paid money under an illegal contract to secure a pardon cannot, after the contract is executed, recover such money back. O'Reilly v. Cleary (1879) 8 Mo. App. 186. It is otherwise, however, if the contract is unexecuted. Adams Exp. Co. v. Reno (1871) 48 Mo. 264.

But while a contract to procure a pardon or release of one convicted of crime by a legally constituted tribunal having the constitutional right to try and punish the offender is contrary to public policy and void, an agreement by an attorney to use his personal influence with the commanding general to secure the discharge of a client who had been convicted by a military tribunal of being a guerilla and sentenced to be executed, or to have his punishment commuted, is not contrary to public policy, where it appears that the trial of the client by

a military court was unauthorized by law and forbidden by the Constitution, and the sentence consequently a nullity. Thompson v. Wharton (1870) 7 Bush (Ky.) 563, 3 Am. Rep. 306. The court said that the use of personal influence to save the unfortunate man from the impending danger of a threatened execution under an illegal sentence could not be regarded as an agreement to obstruct the proper administration of the government, or to defeat the ends of justice.

And a release from all liability for damages, given by one convicted of illegal liquor selling, under a statute the constitutionality of which was doubted, in consideration that the released parties and others would take steps to procure the pardon of the releasor, was held in Timothy v. Wright (1857) 8 Gray (Mass.) 522, not to be illegal and contrary to public policy. G. S. G.

Taxes, § 201

V.

No other legislative power than that of Congress can be exercised over lands within a state, purchased by the United States with the consent of the state for one of the purposes designated, and such consent under the Constitution operates to exclude all other legislative authority. If the United States has the right of exclusive legislation over the ceded lands it also has exclusive jurisdiction. The right of exclusive legislation gives exclusive jurisdiction.

Foley v. Shriver, 81 Va. 568; Bank of Phoebus v. Byrum, 110 Va. 708, 27 L.R.A. (N.S.) 436, 135 Am. St. Rep. 953, 67 S. E. 349; Com. v. Clary, 8 Mass. 72; Ft. Leavenworth R. Co. v. Lowe, 114 U. S. 525, 29 L. ed. 264, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 995.

Messrs. John R. Saunders, Attorney General, and E. Warren Wall for the Commonwealth.

Prentis, P., delivered the opinion of the court:

E. N. Nikis has been found guilty of conducting a retail merchandise business without having first obtained a license therefor, in accordance with the requirements of the Virginia statute, and fined $30 and the costs of the prosecution.

It is shown that he conducted a mercantile business in the station of the Washington-Virginia Railway Company at the south end of the Francis S. Key bridge, in Arlington county, Virginia. This station is located on land which was purchased by the United States government, with consent of the state of Virginia, to be used for an approach to the bridge. The accused denies his liability for the license tax upon the ground that the commonwealth of Virginia has no jurisdiction of the premises. The contention is that the United States government has the right of exclusive legislation there, under the United States Constitution, art. 1, § 8, cl. 17, and that, so having exclusive legislative authority, the state has no jurisdic

tion, and its laws for the imposition

of taxes are inoperative there.

The clause of the Federal Constitution cited reads: "Congress shall have power .. to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the Legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings."

The state of Virginia has given its consent to such purchase by an act approved March 6, 1886 (Acts 188586, chap. 424), which reads thus:

"1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia, that the consent of this state be and is hereby given to the purchase or acquisition, by gift or concession of the owners, by the government of the United States, or under the authority of the same, of land in the county of Alexandria; necessary for the abutment and approaches of the proposed bridge across the Potomac river, anywhere in the county of Alexandria, not exceeding ten acres, and to the building of such abutment and approaches upon the land that may be so acquired, and to the exercise of such jurisdiction by the United States over the same as may be necessary. But this consent is given subject to the following terms and conditions, to wit:

"First. That this state retains concurrent jurisdiction with the United States over such land, so that the courts, magistrates and officers of this state may take such cognizance, execute such process, and discharge such other legal functions within the same as may not be incompatible with the consent hereby given.

"Second. That if the purpose of this grant should cease, or there should be, for five years consecutively, a failure on the part of the United States to use said land for said purpose, then the jurisdiction hereby ceded shall cease and determine, and the same shall revert to the commonwealth of Virginia.

"2. The land acquired, and the abutments and approaches built for the purposes aforesaid, shall be exempt from taxation by this state, or by the constituted authorities of the county of Alexandria; but this exemption shall continue only so long as the United States shall continue to be owner of the land and the erections thereon.

"3. This act shall be in force from its passage."

Two Virginia cases appear to be relied upon to support this contention. Foley v. Shriver, 81 Va. 568, is one. While there may be expressions there which appear to justify such reliance, the case presents quite a different question from that here presented. The object of that suit was to recover a debt from a nonresident defendant, and to garnishee funds belonging to him which were held by the "National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers," and the process was served on the secretary of that corporation. It appeared that the garnishee, the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, was indebted to the defendant; that it was a corporation created by the Congress of the United States and was supported by appropriations made by Congress. It was held that the state court had no jurisdiction over the garnishee. There it appeared from the act of cession (Acts 1869-70, p. 479) that the board of managers of the National Asylum for Disabled Soldiers desired to locate a branch of such asylum within this state, and that the necessary expenditures could be made for buildings and for the improvements only on property under the control of the national government. The consent of the legislature was given, and the act express

ly provided that such jurisdiction was ceded to the United States over this land, as is within the contemplation of the seventeenth clause of the eighth section of the first article of the United States Constitution, and the state reserved concurrent jurisdiction with the United States for the execution of process, etc., as might not be incompatible with the consent thereby given. So that reference to that act of cession shows that it was intended expressly to confer upon the federal government the exclusive jurisdiction provided for by that clause; that is, exclusive legislative power corresponding with that exercised over the District of Columbia, and authority like that which is exercised over land acquired by the United States for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards and other needful buildings, as expressed in the clause.

A similar question arose in Ohio. There the act of the state (Act April 13, 1867 [64 Ohio Laws, p. 149]), ceding to the United States its jurisdiction over lands for the purpose of a National Asylum for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, contained a proviso to this effect: "That nothing in this act shall be construed to prevent the officers, employees, and inmates of said asylum who are qualified voters of this state, from exercising the right of suffrage at all township, county, and state elections, in the township in which the said national asylum shall be located."

It was held that upon a purchase of the territory, with the consent of the state, the United States became vested with exclusive jurisdiction over it and its appurtenances in all cases whatsoever; and that the inmates of such asylum resident within the territory, being within such exclusive jurisdiction, were not residents of the state of Ohio so as to entitle them to vote, within the meaning of the state Constitution, which conferred the elective franchise upon its residents alone. Sinks v. Reese, 19 Ohio St. 306, 2 Am. Rep. 397.

The other Virginia case relied upon is Bank of Phoebus v. Byrum, 110 Va. 708, 27 L.R.A. (N.S.) 436, 135 Am. St. Rep. 953, 67 S. E. 349. In that case the plaintiff sought by attachment to subject money belonging to the defendant, Byrum, deposited in a local bank, upon the ground that the defendant was not a resident of the state of Virginia. Byrum was then an enlisted soldier in the army of the United States, at Fortress Monroe. It was held that the attachment could be maintained, and that Byrum, who had been domiciled in another state and came to Fortress Monroe for the purpose of enlisting, having enlisted in the army, did not thereby acquire a residence in this commonwealth so as to defeat the right of a creditor to issue an attachment against him as a nonresident.

The question here at issue, however, is whether the land in Arlington county, purchased for an approach to the Key bridge, by the United States, with the consent of the state of Virginia, is land over which the Congress has exclusive legislative jurisdiction, just as it has over the District of Columbia and over lands purchased by consent of the state for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings. If it can be so held, then Congress having the exclusive legislative power, the state of Virginia has no jurisdiction and cannot impose a fine upon the accused for refusing to pay a state license tax for transacting business in that territory.

In Ft. Leavenworth R. Co. v. Lowe, 114 U. S. 525, 29 L. ed. 264, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 995, and Chicago, R. I. & P. R. Co. v. McGlinn, 114 U. S. 542, 29 L. ed. 270, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1005, the constitutional provision cited and relied upon is strictly construed, and it is held that the word "purchase," as used in the clause of the Constitution under consideration, has not the general technical meaning attached to it at common law as including any acquisition of lands by some other way than

such actual purchase, and that, if the United States acquires land by direct cession from a state of its own land (as distinguished from a purchase by consent), it may be upon such conditions as the state may determine to impose, not inconsistent with the free and effective use of such land for the purposes intended. Applying this construction, the state of Kansas having ceded a part of its territory for the Ft. Leavenworth military reservation, and having in the conveyance retained "the right to tax railroad, bridge, and other corporations, their franchises. and property, on said reservation," such retention of this power to tax was upheld.

That the right of a state to tax the property of others located upon lands owned by the United States, al- state to tax though it cannot tax property on such lands, will not

Taxes-power of

Federal land.

be held to be abandoned by the state, except for the most compelling reasons, is quite manifest from several decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States.

In Thomson v. Union P. R. Co. 9 Wall. 579, 19 L. ed. 792, it was held that the Union Pacific Railroad Company, Eastern Division, incorporated by the territory of Kansas, authorized to construct a railroad under the direction and authority of Congress for the use and purposes of the United States, is not exempt from taxation by the state, in the absence of any legislation by Congress to that effect. In this connection, Chief Justice Chase said: "We perceive no limits to the principle of exemption which the complainants seek to establish. It would remove from the reach of state taxation all the property of every agent of the government. Every corporation engaged in the transportation of mails, or of government property of any description, by land or water, or in supplying materials for the use of the government, or in performing any service of whatever kind, might claim the benefit of the exemption.