Opinion of the Court. for the purposes of taxation, be deemed and considered as indebtedness within this State, and the person or persons owing such debt shall be entitled to deduct the same from his or their assessments in the same manner that other indebtedness within the State is deducted." And by § 9, "no promissory note, or other instrument of writing, which is the evidence of a debt that is wholly or partly secured by land or real property situated in no more than one county in this State, shall be taxed for any purpose in this State; but the debt evidenced thereby, and the instrument by which it is secured shall, for the purpose of assessment and taxation, be deemed and considered as land or real property, and together be assessed and taxed as herein before provided." Oregon Laws of 1882, p. 64. All these sections are embodied in Hill's Annotated Code of Oregon, §§ 2730, 2735-2738, 2753– 2756. The statute applies only to mortgages of land in not more than one county. By the last clause of § 3, all mortgages, "hereafter executed, whereby land situated in more than one county in this State is made security for the payment of a debt, shall be void." The mortgages now in question were all made since the statute, and were of land in a single county; and it is not suggested in the bill that there existed any untaxed mortgage of lands in more than one county. The statute, in terms, provides that "no promissory note or other instrument in writing, which is the evidence of" the debt secured by the mortgage, "shall be taxed for any purpose within this State;" but that the debt and mortgage "shall, for the purposes of assessment and taxation, be deemed and treated as land or real property" in the county in which the land is situated, and be there taxed, not beyond their real cash value, to the person appearing of record to be the owner of the mortgage. The statute authorizes the amount of the mortgage debt to be deducted from any assessment upon the mortgagor; and does not provide for both taxing to the mortgagee the money secured by the mortgage, and also taxing to the mortgagor the whole mortgaged property, as did the statutes of other Opinion of the Court. States, the validity of which was affirmed in Augusta Bank v. Augusta, 36 Maine, 255, 259; Alabama Ins. Co. v. Lott, 54 Alabama, 499; Appeal Tax Court v. Rice, 50 Maryland, 302; and Goldgart v. People, 106 Illinois, 25. The right to deduct from his assessment any debts due from him within the State is secured as well to the mortgagee, as to the mortgagor, by a provision of the statute of Oregon of October 25, 1880, (unrepealed by the statute of 1882, and evidently assumed by § 8 of this statute to be in force,) by which "it shall be the duty of the assessor to deduct the amount of indebtedness, within the State, of any person assessed, from the amount of his or her taxable property." Oregon Laws of 1880, p. 52; Hill's Code, § 2752. Taking all the provisions of the statute into consideration, its clear intent and effect are as follows: The personal obligation of the mortgagor to the mortgagee is not taxed at all. The mortgage and the debt secured thereby are taxed, as real estate, to the mortgagee, not beyond their real cash value, and only so far as they represent an interest in the real estate mortgaged. The debt is not taxed separately, but only together with the mortgage; and is considered as indebtedness within the State for no other purpose than to enable the mortgagor to deduct the amount thereof from the assessment upon him, in the same manner as other indebtedness within the State is deducted. And the mortgagee, as well as the mortgagor, is entitled to have deducted from his own assessment the amount of his indebtedness within the State. The result is that nothing is taxed but the real estate mortgaged, the interest of the mortgagee therein being taxed to him, and the rest to the mortgagor. There is no double taxation. Nor is any such discrimination made between mortgagors and mortgagees, or between resident and non-resident mortgagees, as to deny to the latter the equal protection of the laws. No question between the mortgagee and the mortgagor, arising out of the contract between them, in regard to the payment of taxes, or otherwise, is presented or can be decided upon this record. Opinion of the Court. The case, then, reduces itself to the question whether this tax act, as applied to mortgages owned by citizens of other States and in their possession outside of the State of Oregon, deprives them of their property without due process of law. By the law of Oregon, indeed, as of some other States of the Union, a mortgage of real property does not convey the legal title to the mortgagee, but creates only a lien or incumbrance as security for the mortgage debt; and the right of possession, as well as the legal title, remains in the mortgagor, both before and after condition broken, until foreclosure. Oregon General Laws of 1843-1872, § 323; Hill's Code, § 326; Anderson v. Baxter, 4 Oregon, 105, 110; Semple v. Bank of British Columbia, 5 Sawyer, 88, 394; Teal v. Walker, 111 U. S. 242; Sellwood v. Gray, 11 Oregon, 534; Watson v. Dundee Mortgage Co., 12 Oregon, 474; Thompson v. Marshall, 21 Oregon, 171; Adair v. Adair, 22 Oregon, 115. Notwithstanding this, it has been held, both by the Supreme Court of the State, and by the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Oregon, that the State has the power to tax mortgages, though owned and held by citizens and residents of other States, of lands in Oregon. Mumford v. Sewell, 11 Oregon, 67; Dundee Mortgage Co. v. School District, 10 Sawyer, 52; Crawford v. Linn County, 11 Oregon, 482; Dundee Mortgage Co. v. Parrish, 11 Sawyer, 92; Poppleton v. Yamhill County, 18 Oregon, 377, 383; Savings & Loan Society v. Multnomah County, 60 Fed. Rep. 31. In Mumford v. Sewell, Judge Waldo, delivering the opinion of the court, said: "All subjects, things as well as persons, over which the power of the State extends, may be taxed." "A mortgage, as such, is incorporeal property. It may be the subject of taxation." "Concede that the debt accompanies the respondent's person and is without the jurisdiction of the State. But the security she holds is Oregon security. It cannot be enforced in any other jurisdiction. It is local in Oregon absolutely as the land which it binds." "Since the power of the State over the mortgage is as exclusive and complete as over the land mortgaged, the mortgage is subject to Opinion of the Court. taxation by the State, unless there is constitutional limitation to the contrary." 11 Oregon, 68, 69. "In Mumford v. Sewell," said Judge Deady, in Dundee Mortgage Co. v. School District, "the court held that a mortgage upon real property in this State is taxable by the State, without reference to the domicil of the owner, or the situs of the debt or note secured thereby. And this conclusion is accepted by this court as the law of this case. Nor do I wish to be understood as having any doubt about the soundness of the decision. A mortgage upon real property in this State, whether considered as a conveyance of the same, giving the creditor an interest in or right to the same, or merely a contract giving him a lien thereon for his debt and the power to enforce the payment thereof by the sale of the premises, is a contract affecting real property in the State, and dependent for its existence, maintenance and enforcement upon the laws and tribunals thereof, and may be taxed here as any other interest in, right to, or power over land. And the mere fact that the instrument has been sent out of the State for the time being, for the purpose of avoiding taxation thereon or otherwise, is immaterial." 10 Sawyer, 63, 64. The authority of every State to tax all property, real and personal, within its jurisdiction, is unquestionable. McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 429. Personal property, as this court has declared again and again, may be taxed, either at the domicil of its owner, or at the place where the property is situated, even if the owner is neither a citizen nor a resident of the State which imposes the tax. Tappan v. Merchants' Bank, 19 Wall. 490, 499; State Railroad Tax cases, 92 U. S. 575, 607; Coe v. Errol, 116 U. S. 517, 524; Pullman's Car .Co. v. Pennsylvania, 141 U. S. 18, 22, 27. The State may tax real estate mortgaged, as it may all other property within its jurisdiction, at its full value. It may do this, either by taxing the whole to the mortgagor, or by taxing to the mortgagee the interest therein represented by the mortgage, and to the mortgagor the remaining interest in the land. And it may, for the purposes of taxation, either treat the mortgage debt as personal property, to be taxed, like other choses ini. Opinion of the Court. action, to the creditor at his domicil; or treat the mortgagee's interest in the land as real estate, to be taxed to him, like other real property, at its situs. Firemen's Ins. Co. v. Commonwealth, 137 Mass. 80, 81; State v. Runyon, 12 Vroom, (41 N. J. Law,) 98, 105; Darcy v. Darcy, 22 Vroom, (51 N. J. Law,) 140, 145; People v. Smith, 88 N. Y. 576, 585; Common Council v. Assessors, 91 Michigan, 78, 92. The plaintiff much relied on the opinion delivered by Mr. Justice Field in Cleveland, Painesville & Ashtabula Railroad v. Pennsylvania, reported under the name of Case of the State Tax on Foreign-held Bonds, 15 Wall. 300, 323. It becomes important therefore to notice exactly what was there decided. In that case, a railroad company, incorporated both in Ohio and in Pennsylvania, had issued bonds secured by a mortgage of its entire road in both States; and the tax imposed by the State of Pennsylvania, which was held by majority of this court to be invalid, was a tax upon the interest due to the bondholders upon the bonds, and was not a tax upon the railroad, or upon the mortgage thereof, or upon the bondholders solely by reason of their interest in that mortgage. The remarks in the opinion, supported by quotations from opinions of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, that a mortgage, being a mere security for the debt, confers upon the holder of the mortgage no interest in the land, and when held by a non-resident is as much beyond the jurisdiction of the State as the person of the owner, went beyond what was required for the decision of the case, and cannot be reconciled with other decisions of this court and of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. This court has always held that a mortgage of real estate, made in good faith by a debtor to secure a private debt, is a conveyance of such an interest in the land, as will defeat the priority given to the United States by act of Congress in the distribution of the debtor's estate. United States v. Hove, 3 Cranch, 73; Thelusson v. Smith, 2 Wheat. 396, 426; Conard v. Atlantic Ins. Co., 1 Pet. 386, 441. In Hutchins v. King, 1 Wall. 53, 58, Mr. Justice Field, delivering the opinion of the court, said that "the interest of |