Due process of law in matters of taxation does not require the same kind of notice as is required in a suit of law, or in proceedings for taking private property under the power of eminent domain. No violation of due process of law is committed when a tax is collected according to customary forms and established usages, or in subordination to the principles which underlie them. "This must be so," the court say in King v. Mullins,92 "else the existence of government might be put in peril by the delays attendant upon formal judicial proceedings for the collection of taxes." 93

In most of the States it is provided by statute that the assessment or collection of taxes shall not be restrained by a judicial writ; and, since 1867, by act of Congress it has been provided that "no suit for the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of taxes shall be maintained in any court." 94

The constitutionality of this provision has been sustained whenever questioned, administrative necessity furnishing the justification. In Cheatham v. United States95 the court say: "If there existed in the courts, state or national, any general power of impeding or controlling the collection of taxes or relieving the hardship incident to taxation, the very existence of the Government might be placed in the power of a hostile judiciary." And in the Railroad Tax Cases96 the court say: "The Government of the United States has provided, both in the customs and in the taxes, either on the citizen or the officer employed for their collection or disbursement, to become subjects of judicial controversy, according to the course of the law of the land. Imperative necessity has forced a distinction between such claims and all others, which has sometimes been carried out by summary methods of proceeding, and sometimes by systems of fines and penalties, but always in some way observed and yielded to."

92 171 U. S. 404: 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 925; 43 L. ed. 214.

93Cf. Bell's Gap R. Co. v. Pennsylvania. 134 V. S. 232; 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 533; .33 L. ed. 892; Turpin v. Lemon. 187 U.S.51; 23 Sup. Ct. Rep. 20; 47 L.ed. 70; Londoner v. Denver. 210 V. S. 373; 28 Sup. Ct Rep. 708; 52 L. ed. 1103; Judsor, On Taxation, Chapter 8, and McGehee, Due Process of Law. pp. 235/f.

94 Rev. Stat.. § 3224. This provision of course applies only to the federal courts, and by the courts has been construed to relate only to federal taxes. In 1900 a bill was introduced into Congress to amend this section so as to make it apply to state, county, municipal and district taxes as well. 95 U. S. So; 23 L. ed. 561.

96 92 U. S. 575; 23 L. ed. 663.