Opinion of the Court. has been agreed to be paid. By no other construction of the statute can effect be given to the clause forfeiting the entire interest, which the note, bill or other evidence of debt carries, or which was agreed to be paid, but which has not been actually paid. It is said that, within the meaning of the statute, interest is "paid" when included in a renewal note, and when suit is brought upon the last note, calling for interest from its date, only the interest accruing on the apparent principal of that note is subject to forfeiture. We think that the statute cannot be so construed. If, within the meaning of the statute, interest is "paid" simply by including it in a renewal note, it would follow that as soon as the usurious interest is included in a renewal note, the borrower or obligor could sue the lender or obligee and "recover back twice the amount of the interest thus paid," when he had not, in fact, paid the debt nor any part of the interest as such. This cannot be a sound interpretation of the statute. The words "in case the greater rate of interest has been paid," in section 5198, refer to interest actually paid, as distinguished from interest included in the note and only "agreed to be paid." If, for instance, one executes his note to a national bank for a named sum as evidence of a loan to him of that amount to be paid in one year at ten per cent interest, such a rate of interest being illegal, and if renewal notes are executed each year for five successive years, without any money being in fact paid by the borrower each renewal note including past interest, legal and usurious the sum included in the last note, in excess of the sum originally loaned, would be interest which that note carried or which was agreed to be paid, and not, as to any part of it, interest paid. - It is difficult to tell from the record when there were actual payments of usurious interest as such. Sometimes interest is said to have been paid when it is evident that it was only included in a renewal note. But that, as we have said, was not payment within the meaning of the statute. Driesbach v. National Bank, 104 U. S. 52. If the note when sued on includes usurious interest, or interest upon usurious interest, Opinion of the Court. agreed to be paid, the holder may, in due time, elect to remit such interest, and it cannot then be said that usurious interest was paid to him. McBroom v. Scottish Mortgage & Land Investment Co., 153 U. S. 318, 328; Stevens v. Lincoln, 7 Met. 525, 528; Saunders v. Lambert, 7 Gray, 484, 486; Stedman v. Bland, 4 Iredell, Law, 296, 299. If at any time the obligee actually pays usurious interest as such, the usurious transaction must be held to have then, and not before, occurred, and he must sue within two years thereafter. It is proper to state that the judgment before us for review was not in accordance with the views of the Court of Appeals of Kentucky as expressed when the case was first before that court on appeal. 92 Kentucky, 607. The ruling then made by that court was not followed in the subsequent case of Snyder v. Mount Sterling National Bank, 94 Kentucky, 231, in which the language of Judge Acheson in Farmers & Mechanics' Bank v. Hoagland, 7 Fed. Rep. 159, 161, was approved, as follows: "By the terms of the act of Congress [the national bank act] the charging of such rates of interest [in excess of the legal rate] worked a forfeiture of the entire interest which the several notes carried with them. Now such forfeiture was not waived by the giving of subsequent notes, although, as respects them, the agreed rate of interest was a legal rate. They were mere renewals, and given without any new consideration. Nor did the new notes operate as payment of the debts for which they were given. In so far, then, as the notes in suit embraced the forfeited interest, they are without consideration. Moreover, it is an established principle that if there be usury in the original transaction, it affects all consecutive securities, however remote, growing out of it; and neither the renewal of the old, nor the substitution of a new security, between the same parties, can efface the usury. The bank incorporated in the new notes usurious interest, previously charged, as a part of the new principal, and this illegal consideration pervaded the whole subsequent series of notes. Upon each fresh renewal interest was charged upon usurious interest, which had entered into the prior notes as principal." Counsel for Parties. It was contended in the Court of Appeals of Kentucky in the present case that its ruling, when the case was first before it, was different from its subsequent ruling in Snyder v. Mount Sterling National Bank. That court conceded that the two cases were not in harmony on the question whether the bank could recover the usurious interest embraced in the renewal notes. "Nevertheless," the court said, "we hold that the judgment on the former appeal is the law of this case." It was the latter view which made it necessary for the appellants to prosecute the present appeal. As the judgment in this case did not proceed upon the principles herein stated, but rested upon an erroneous interpretation of the statute, it must be reversed. The necessary calculations can be made in the state court. For the reasons stated the judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. SAVINGS AND LOAN SOCIETY v. MULTNOMAH COUNTY. APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE DISTRICT OF OREGON. No. 69. Argued October 29, 1897. - Decided March 7, 1898. The statute of Oregon of October 26, 1882, taxing mortgages of lands in that State to the mortgagees in the county where the land lies, does not, as applied to mortgages owned by citizens of other States and in their possession outside of the State of Oregon, contravene the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. THE case is stated in the opinion. Mr. Milton W. Smith for appellant. Mr. Walter S. Perry was with him on the brief. Mr. John H. Hall for appellee. with him on the brief Mr. W. T. Hume was Opinion of the Court. MR. JUSTICE GRAY delivered the opinion of the court. This was a bill in equity, filed in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Oregon, by the Savings and Loan Society, a corporation and citizen of the State of California, against Multnomah County, a public corporation in the State of Oregon, and one Kelly, the sheriff and ex officio the tax collector of that county, and a citizen of that State, showing that in 1891 and 1892 various persons, all citizens of Oregon, severally made their promissory notes to secure the payment of various sums of money, with interest, to the plaintiff at its office in the city of San Francisco and State of California, amounting in all to the sum of $531,000; and, to further secure the same debts, executed to the plaintiff mortgages of divers parcels of land owned by them in Multnomah County; that the mortgages were duly recorded in the office of the recorder of conveyances of that county; that the notes and mortgages were immediately delivered to the plaintiff, and had ever since been without the State of Oregon, and in the possession of the plaintiff at San Francisco; that afterwards, in accordance with the statute of Oregon of October 26, 1882, taxes were imposed upon all the taxable property in Multnomah County, including the debts and mortgages. aforesaid; that, the taxes upon these debts and mortgages not having been paid, a list thereof was placed in the hands of the sheriff, with a warrant directing him to collect the same as upon execution, and he advertised for sale all the debts and mortgages aforesaid; and that the statute was in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, as depriving the plaintiff of its property. without due process of law, and denying to it the equal protection of the laws. The bill prayed for an injunction against the sale; and for a decree declaring that the statute was contrary to the provisions of the Constitution of the United States and therefore of no effect, and that all the proceedings before set out were null and void; and for further relief. The defendants demurred generally; and the court sus Opinion of the Court. tained the demurrer, and dismissed the bill. 60 Fed. Rep. 31. The plaintiff appealed to this court.. The ground upon which the plaintiff seeks to maintain this suit is that the tax act of the State of Oregon of 1882, as applied to the mortgages, owned and held by the plaintiff in California, of lands in Oregon, is contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, as depriving the plaintiff of its property without due process of law, and denying to it the equal protection of the laws. The statute in question makes the following provisions for the taxation of mortgages: By § 1, "a mortgage, deed of trust, contract or other obligation whereby land or real property, situated in no more than one county in this State, is made security for the payment of a debt, together with such debt, shall, for the purposes of assessment and taxation, be deemed and treated as land or real property." By $§ 2, the mortgage, "together with such debt, shall be assessed and taxed to the owner of such security and debt in the county, city or district in which the land or real property affected by such security is situated;" and may be sold, like other real property, for the payment of taxes due thereon. By § 3, that person is to be deemed the owner, who appears to be such on the record of the mortgage, either as the original mortgagee, or as an assignee by transfer made in writing upon the margin of the record. By § 4, no payment on the debt so secured is to be taken into consideration in assessing the tax, unless likewise stated upon the record; and the debt and mortgage are to be assessed for the full amount appearing by the record to be owing, unless in the judgment of the assessor the land is not worth so much, in which case they are to be assessed at their real cash value. By §§ 5, 6, 7, it is made the duty of each county clerk to record, in the margin of the record of any mortgage, when requested so to do by the mortgagee or owner of the mortgage, all assignments thereof and payments thereon; and to deliver annually to the assessor abstracts containing the requisite information as to unsatisfied mortgages recorded in his office. By § 8, a debt secured by mortgage of land in a county of this State "shall, |