Opinion of the Court. it; but if they believe such schedule does not contain a full and fair statement of the property of the company subject to taxation in such county, made out and valued in accordance with the requirements of the law, the board is authorized to assess, or cause it to be assessed, in accordance with the rules prescribed for assessing such property. Scates' Comp. 1105. Bureau county, in which these proceedings originated, it is admitted, is under township organization, and the above provisions of the law are applicable to them. The appellees, in the attempted performance of the duty enjoined on them by these statutes, presented their list, or schedule of their taxable property, for 1863, owned by them in Bureau county, to the clerk of the County Court, in all respects, as alleged by them, in strict compliance with the statute; which the clerk laid before the board of supervisors when they met to equalize the assessments in that county. This schedule presented an aggregate valuation of $282,383, of their property owned in Bureau county, which, by the action of the board was increased to $395,336,7%, being forty per cent above the valuation by the company. Availing of the act of 1861, by which an appeal is allowed to the Circuit Court from the action of the board of supervisors, the company took an appeal to the Circuit Court of Bureau county, and, by change of venue, the cause was transferred to La Salle county, in the Circuit Court of which county, at the March Term, 1866, such proceedings were had as resulted in a deduction by that court of the per cent thus imposed by the board of supervisors, leaving the schedule of the company as originally presented to the county clerk intact. To reverse this judgment, the county of Bureau bring the case here by appeal, and assign various errors, which we have fully considered. The first question they make is, that the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction of the appeal,- that it was a case not provided for by the fundamental law, and we are referred to that clause of the Constitution conferring judicial power, in support of the position. Section 1 of article 5 declares, that the Opinion of the Court. judicial power of the State shall be vested in one Supreme Court, in Circuit Courts, in County Courts and in justices of the peace. Provided, that inferior local courts of civil and criminal jurisdiction may be established by the general assembly in the cities of this State, but such courts should have a uniform organization and jurisdiction in such cities. By section 8 of the same article, it is provided, that there shall be two or more terms of the Circuit Court held annually in each county of this State, at such times as shall be provided by law; and said courts shall have jurisdiction in all cases at law and equity, and in all cases of appeal from all inferior courts. It is argued with great force and ability, that, inasmuch as the board of supervisors is in no sense a court of any description, an appeal cannot lie to the Circuit Court from any of its determinations, and, consequently, the act of 1861, allowing an appeal by a railroad company from their determinations, is unconstitutional and void. Much ingenious, forcible and persuasive argument has been used by appellants here in support of this view, but we are not convinced by it. Even if we had a doubt of the power of the legislature to make this enactment, we should be constrained, under repeated rulings of this court, to solve the doubt in favor of the legislature; for this court has declared, that it is only in a very clear case, where the violation of the Constitution is plain and palpable, that we will so pronounce. Lucas v. Harris, 20 Ill. 164; The People ex rel. v. The Auditor, 30 id. 434; City of Chicago v. Larned, 34 id. 203. In considering the legislation of this State of a character analogous to this act of 1861, we are by no means convinced of the want of power in the legislature to allow this appeal. It may be the board of supervisors of a county is not a court in the legal acceptation of that term, but it has power conferred upon it, by the wanton and unjust exercise of which the most vital interests of parties before it may be rendered totally valueless. Perilous indeed would be their condition, if those great interests were at the mercy of irresponsible men, bent, it may be, on inflicting injury for which they could not Opinion of the Court. atone. It is going a great way to say, that any act of the legislature a co-ordinate department of the government, and whose speciality is the enactment of laws-that any one of their enactments has no foundation in the Constitution,--an instrument which the law makers are sworn to support, and which we must not suppose they have violated, in the absence of the clearest proof. Hence, courts have always approached this subject with great delicacy, and have ever manifested a disposition to sustain the law, in the absence of an entire conviction of its unconstitutionality. This much of respect is certainly due to that department of the government, and this court has always most cheerfully extended it, and ever will. To insist that a board of supervisors is not a court, does not decide the question, as we think. In our legislation, several acts may be found, giving an appeal to the Circuit Court in cases confessedly not originating in the exercise of judicial power by a court. As for example, in the case of the trial of the right of property by a sheriff's jury. The case of Rowe v. Bowen, 28 Ill. 118, was such a case, in which we held, that an appeal lies in many cases not growing out of judicial proceedings, as upon assessments of damages by commissioners for roads, or for city improvements. So, also, in the case of the establishment of a road by commissioners, as was held in the case of The County of Peoria v. Harvey, 18 id. 364. So, where the statute gives an appeal from an assessment of damages for a right of way. Joliet & Chicago R. R. Co. v. Barrows, 24 id. 562; the case of the Ohio and Mississippi R. R. Co. v. The County of Lawrence, 27 Ill. 71, occurring before 1861, very distinctly intimates that legislative action was necessary to uphold the appeal, and if that existed, the right to appeal was free from doubt. The act of 1861 gives an appeal in express terms. In view of this legislation, and these judicial decisions, it is too late to urge a want of jurisdiction in the Circuit Court to try the appeal from the board of supervisors, and we must hold, that the jurisdiction was complete under the act of 1861, and that statute is not in conflict with any provision of the Constitution, considered in the light of long continued analo Opinion of the Court. gous legislation under it. In counties not adopting township organization, individual tax payers had an appeal from the county assessor to the County Court, and from that court, through the auditor of public accounts, to the Supreme Court. Scates' Comp. 1040. Railroad companies are entitled to as much favor in this regard as individuals, and we have no difficulty in deciding the Circuit Court had full jurisdiction of the appeal. Having disposed of this preliminary question, the other points arising in the case may be grouped into the consideration of the instructions given for appellees, and which is the most important error assigned. For the appellees, the court instructed the jury, if the company valued their property in their schedule or return, so that it bore a just relation to other property in the county, then the board of supervisors had no power to increase the valuation, and they should find for the company; and, further, if the jury believed that the addition of forty per cent to the aggregate valuation returned by the company so increased the valuation that it bore an undue proportion of the taxes of the county, then such increase was unwarranted by law, and the jury would be authorized to reduce the assessment, so that it would bear a proper proportion to such taxes, but they could not reduce it below the valuation fixed upon it by the company. Appellants asked instructions directly opposite to those given for appellees, which were refused by the court. The instructions so given announce principles so congenial to justice, and so consonant with the principles of equity, and so reasonable, as to challenge the approbation of all rightminded men, and they ought to be sustained if they are in accordance with the law under which the proceedings were had. This, then, becomes the main point of inquiry. It is insisted by appellees, that their property, by this addition of forty per cent on its valuation, as returned by them to the county clerk, placed on it by the board of supervisors, has the effect to cause them to pay a greater proportion of the revenue than is demanded of individuals listing their property Opinion of the Court. for taxation in the same county. If this be so, no just mind, with the Constitution of the State before him, could sanction the proceeding. The great central and dominant idea in that instrument is, uniformity of taxation; and no power exists, or should exist, in any corporate authority to go counter to this command of the fundamental law. A mode has been furnished by law by which this uniformity shall be attained; and that is, that property shall be assessed at its actual value, and the rate of taxation placed upon it shall be the same regardless of persons or ownership. Persons are elected to ascertain this value, and the rate is prescribed. It sufficiently appears, that the schedule returned by the appellees to the clerk of the County Court, fixed the value of the property owned by them in Bureau county on the same, or on a more liberal basis, than the several assessors in the various towns fixed upon the property of individuals in the same county, though in neither case was the property valued at any thing near its actual cash value. For instance, while the valuation of the property of individuals ranged from one-fifth to one-third of its cash value, that of the appellees ranged from one-third to one-half of its actual value. The requirements of the law, that each separate parcel of property shall be valued at its true value in money, though simple as a proposition, is not always easy to obey; nor is that requiring personal property to be valued at the usual selling price of similar property at the time of listing. So many elements enter into the price of an article, even one in common use, that it is difficult to put a selling price upon it. Upon railroad property it is still more difficult, as their personal property has no market value. Their property is sui generis, not affected by the principles of supply and demand, and is, for the most part, unsalable except in emergencies, when competing lines may need rolling stock or other portions of their equipments. It cannot be affirmed of a railroad in running condition, that its properties are marketable. What they cost is no evidence of their real value; nor do we know of any means an assessor or a board of supervisors may have at command by |