review consists in failing to distinguish between the mere methods of review provided by the act of 1891, and the distribution made by that act of original and appellate judicial power. More immediately the fault of the argument consists in disregarding the duty of the Circuit Court to apply the law of the case arising from the decision of the Circuit Court of Appeals, an error hitherto pointed out in Aspen Mining & Smelting Co. v. Billings, 150 U. S. 31. That case involved an unsuccessful attempt to obtain a review in this court of a judgment of a circuit court entered in compliance with a mandate of the Circuit Court of Appeals to which the case had been previously taken. In denying the right to review under the circumstances the court said (p. 37): "That court (the Circuit Court of Appeals) took jurisdiction, passed upon the case, and determined by its judgment that the appeal had been properly taken. If error was committed in so doing, it is not for the Circuit Court to pass upon that question. The Circuit Court could not do otherwise than carry out the mandate from the Court of Appeals, and could not refuse to do so on the ground of want of jurisdiction in itself or in the appellate court." But the proposition insisted upon virtually is that this ruling is inapplicable here, since this case involves a question of jurisdiction directly reviewable in this court under the act of 1891. The reasoning sustaining this assumption is as follows: As, it is said, the decision of the Circuit Court was in favor of the defendants, and, therefore, no occasion arose to seek a review of the question of jurisdiction until the decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals, unless it be held that the right exists to review the action of the Circuit Court, it will arise that the right of direct review of the jurisdictional questions, which it was the purpose of the act of 1891 to confer upon this court, will be lost in many cases and thus the purpose of the statute be frustrated. This, however, as already pointed out, in a changed form of statement involves confounding the remedial processes created by the act of 1891, with the distribution of jurisdiction made by that act. True it is that the act confers authority to directly review the classes of jurisdictional questions which the act contemplates. True, also, it is that the act does not deprive judgments of the Circuit Courts of Appeals of their final character and open them to review in this court because alone of the presence of a jurisdictional question susceptible of being reviewed directly from a Circuit Court. But this affords no reason for the exertion of an appellate power not conferred by the act, nor does it justify the assumption that the power of this court to review in such a case would be wanting. On the contrary, as pointed out long ago by this court the remedial processes which the statute of 1891 creates when rightly understood are adequate, by one method or the other, to afford ample opportunity for a review by this court of every judgment or decree of a lower court which the statute contemplated should be reviewed and revised by this court. Robinson v. Caldwell, 165 U. S. 359. Thus, as the case cited points out, if a question of jurisdiction which would be directly reviewable in this court if arising in the Circuit Court, should develop or require decision for the first time in the Circuit Courts of Appeals, the power to certify to this court would afford ample means to obtain a review by this court of such question. And if that right in such a case should not be exerted by the Circuit Court of Appeals, the discretionary right to allow the writ of certiorari which the act confers would afford a complete means of securing, in the fullest degree, the results contemplated by the act. It is, of course, an obvious misconception to indulge in the assumption that it was the duty of the Circuit Court of Appeals to have certified the question of jurisdiction, since the opinion of that court shows that it deemed the case would not have justified a direct appeal to this court had . the question of jurisdiction arisen primarily in the Circuit Court. The fact that after the decision of the Circuit Court of Appeals a petition for certiorari was considered and by this court denied makes it certain that there was opportunity by this court to revise the action of the Circuit Court of Appeals. As it follows that we have no jurisdiction to review by direct appeal the action of the Circuit Court in giving effect to the decision of the Circuit Court of Appeals, it results that the appeal must be dismissed. Appeal dismissed. BERRYMAN v. BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON. No. 95. Argued December 13, 1911.-Decided January 9, 1912. The amount in controversy where the question is whether a contract of exemption from taxation has been impaired by subsequent legislation is measured by the value of the right to be protected and not by a mere isolated element, such as the tax for a single year. In this case the jurisdictional value of amount in controversy held to exceed $2,000, although the actual tax, the collection whereof was sought to be enjoined on the ground that its imposition impaired the obligation of a legislative contract, was less than $2,000. Cases, in which the jurisdictional value of amount in controversy is limited to the single tax involved, reviewed and distinguished. The act of March 2, 1867, 14 Stat. 426, now Rev. Stat., § 1889, prohibiting the granting by territorial legislatures of especial privileges related to conferring new privileges on existing corporations as well as to granting privileges in original charters; and the prohibition included all especial privileges such as exemption from taxation. In construing a statute the court must be controlled by the power 222 U.S. Argument for Appellants. manifested by the act and not by the motive which initiated it; the scope of the act may extend beyond the generating causes thereof. The rule that exemptions from taxation must be strictly construed against the exemption is as broad as the subject to which it relates; the rule applies not only to the extent of the legislative grant itself but also to the power of the legislature to make it. A contract for exemption from taxation is an especial privilege, and is none the less within the prohibitions of § 1889, Rev. Stat., because granted to an educational institution; it cannot be regarded as beyond the prohibition because granted as an equivalent. The fact that Congress failed to disapprove an act of a Territorial legislature does not validate it if the act was passed in direct violation of a prohibitive provision in the organic act. Clayton v. Utah, 132 U. S. 632. THE facts, which involve the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court of the United States on the question of the amount involved and also the validity of an act of the legislature of the Territory of Washington exempting property of an educational institution from taxation, are stated in the opinion. Mr. Everett J. Smith, with whom Mr. Lester S. Wilson was on the brief, for appellants: The amount in controversy is the tax in issue and no more, and as that is less than $2,000, the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction. The effect on future taxation of a decision that the particular taxation is invalid, cannot be availed of to add to the sum or value of the matter in dispute. Holt v. Indiana Mfg. Co., 176 U. S. 68; Clay Center v. Farmers' L. & T. Co., 145 U. S. 224; New England Mortgage Co. v. Gay, 145 U. S. 123; Citizens' Bank v. Cannon, 164 U. S. 319; Rude v. Westcott, 130 U. S. 152; Walter v. Northeastern Railroad, 147 U. S. 370. The prayer for a perpetual injunction against future taxation is superfluous, and is evidently made in aid of Argument for Appellants. 222 U.S. the jurisdictional amount. Brown v. Trousdale, 138 U. S. 389; Smith v. Adams, 130 U. S. 167. The allegation that the amount in controversy is mire than $2,000 is a mere conclusion; and has no weight as against the specific allegations of the bill, failing to show such amount. Fishback v. West. Un. Tel. Co., 161 U. S. 26. The right claimed by appellee of perpetual exemption from taxation of property now owned by it, and of property which it may hereafter acquire, is purely conjectural. It may or may not own a dollar's worth of property at any given time. Kurtz v. Moffitt, 115 U. S. 487. The sum or value of the amount in controversy may not be made up by a computation of the abstract rights of appellee to exemption from taxation upon whatever property, if any, it may at any time in the future own. Washington & G. R. Co. v. Dist. of Col., 146 U. S. 227. The Washington Territorial Exemption Act was not intended to bind the State thereafter to be formed. The taxing power of the State is never presumed to be relinquished, and it exists unless the intention to relinquish it is declared in clear and unambiguous terms, admitting of no other reasonable construction: Southwestern R. Co. v. Wright, 116 U, S. 231. Territorial governments cannot be presumed, where a State would be, to have intended to bind, by a territorial legislative act, States thereafter to be formed from them, in such sweeping and vital matters as to perpetually exempt from taxation all property which a private corporation may at any time acquire, within its borders. Regardless of the intent of the territorial legislature, the exemption act was void, and did not constitute a contract for perpetual exemption from taxation. The territorial legislature was directly prohibited from granting such exemption by the organic act, § 1924, Rev. Stat. Singling out this especial college and enacting a law |