Section 115. The various States have enacted statutes prescribing the method and procedure of assessing and collecting taxes, and unless otherwise specially provided by law, it is obligatory upon the municipality to follow the statutory and charter provisions in relation thereto. So where the organic law of a town gave it power "to levy and collect taxes," and also provided, in another section, that "if any person fail to pay any tax levied on his property, the town collector may recover the same by civil action in the name of the corporation," it was held that the payment of taxes must be enforced by suit, and that it was not competent for the corporation to pass an ordinance providing for their collection, by seizure and sale, before judgment, since the mode of collection specified in the statute excluded all other modes.13

In some of the States the authorities have held that a tax legally levied and assessed by a municipal corporation pursuant to its charter creates a legal obligation to pay such tax and the city can maintain an action of assumpsit against the person in whose name the assessment is made.14

13 Alexander vs. Helber, 35 Mo., 344; Dillon, Mun. Corp. (3rd Ed.), Par. 816.

14 Ellis vs. The People, 199 III., 548. "The right of recovery is in the People of the State of Illinois, in whose name the suit may be instituted for the recovery of all taxes due and unpaid, and it is unimportant that a portion sued for may be due to the State, another to the county, and still other parts of it to various municipal and quasi-municipal corporations within the county, to whom it must upon collection, be finally distributed." City of Jones-borough vs. McKee, 2 Yerg. (Tenn.), 167.