Opinion of the Court. 276 U.S. shall inure to and become vested in the heirs, devisees, or assignees of such deceased patentee as if the patent had issued to the deceased person during his life." The court noticed this statute, but was of opinion that it "applies to homestead entries and not to Indian allotments." This, we hold, is a mistaken view. The statute was in force long before homestead entries were permitted; and it has been held by this Court to be applicable to patents for Indian selections made under an Indian treaty, Crews v. Burcham, 1 Black 352, 356, and to patents for Indian allotments made under an Act of Congress, United States v. Chase, 245 U. S. 89, 101. True, it uses the term "public lands," which seldom is employed as including lands selected for or allotted to Indians. But the term sometimes is used in a sense which includes such lands where the United States has retained the title. This is illustrated in Kindred v. Union Pacific R. R. Co., 225 U. S. 582, 596, and Nadeau v. Union Pacific R. R. Co., 253 U. S. 442, 444. The question usually is one of intention, considering the nature and object of the particular statute. Here the statute is highly remedial, in that it is designed to relieve from the prior rule that a patent issued after the death of the grantee is inoperative and void. Davenport v. Lamb, 13 Wall. 418, 427. Patents to Indians are not less within the reason for the statute than patents to white men; and we think its letter may and should be taken as including both, as was done in Crews v. Burcham and United States v. Chase. We conclude that by reason of this statute the fee simple patent to Greyhair, although issued 19 days after his death, operated to invest his "heirs, devisees or assignees" with the title, and to divest the United States of it," as if " the patent had been issued to him " during life." Of course those who received the title, whether heirs, devisees or assignees, took it as though it came 431 Opinion of the Court. from him, and not as if they were the immediate grantees of the United States. See Harris v. Bell, 254 U. S. 103, 108. The statute leaves no room for doubt on this point. With the issue of the patent, the title not only passed from the United States but the prior trust and the incidental restriction against alienation were terminated. This put an end to the authority theretofore possessed by the Secretary of the Interior by reason of the trust and restriction so that thereafter all questions pertaining to the title were subject to examination and determination by the courts, appropriately those in Nebraska, the land being there. Brown v. Hitchcock, 173 U. S. 473; Lane v. Mickadiet, 241 U. S. 201, 207, et seq. Under the statute the title did not necessarily go to the heirs. Devisees or assignees, if having a lawful claim, would come first; and there well might be a question as to who were the heirs, or whether there were devisees or assignees having a better right. Such questions would be among those which might be taken into the courts. The contention to the contrary is without support in the congressional statutes to which our attention is invited. They all relate to lands held under trust patents or subject to restriction against alienation, and not to such as have been freed from the trust and restriction, as here, by the issue of a fee simple patent. We are of opinion therefore that there was nothing in the congressional statutes to prevent the local court from taking and exercising jurisdiction of the administrator's suit for specific performance, brought after the issue of the fee simple patent. Of course we accept the ruling of the Supreme Court that there was no want of jurisdiction under the state laws. As the local court had jurisdiction, that enabled it to decide every question of fact or law arising in the suit, including the questions whether Greyhair's contract to Statement of the Case. 276 U S. sell to Osborn was valid or invalid in the circumstances in which it was made, and whether by reason of its partiai performance while Greyhair was living Osborn became an assignee in such a sense that the contract legally and equitably might be enforced as against the heirs. These questions inhered in the suit and necessarily were resolved against the heirs by the decree for enforcement. No effort was made to have the decree reviewed or vacated in any direct proceeding. The attack made on it in the present suit was collateral. Certainly there was no federal right to have it reëxamined or vacated on such an attack. Judgment affirmed. UNTERMYER, EXECUTRIX, ET AL. v. ANDERSON, COLLECTOR. CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT No. 221. Argued February 27, 1928.-Decided April 9, 1928. 1. The gift tax provisions of the Revenue Act, approved June 2, 1924 (see Blodgett v. Holden, 275 U. S. 142), must be construed as applying to gifts made at any time during that calendar year. P. 445. 2. So far as applicable to bona fide gifts not made in anticipation of death, and fully consummated prior to June 2, 1924, those provisions are arbitrary and invalid under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Id. 3. The mere fact that a gift was made while the bill containing the questioned provisions was in the last stage of progress through Congress is not enough to differentiate this cause from the former one and to relieve the legislation of its arbitrary character. P. 445. 18 F. (2d) 1023, reversed. CERTIORARI, 274 U. S. 730, to a judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals which affirmed a judgment of the District Court in favor of the Collector, in an action against him to recover an amount collected as a gift tax. 440 Argument for Petitioners. Mr. Louis Marshall for petitioners. A gift made during the calendar year 1924 and prior to June 2, 1924, when the Act of 1924 became law, was not made taxable by that Act; but if intended that it should be, the Act, in so far as it related to a gift so made, was void because in violation of the Fifth Amendment. Blodgett v. Holden, 275 U. S. 142; Anderson v. McNeir, 16 F. (2d) 970; Shwab v. Doyle, 258 U. S. 529; Union Trust Co. v. Wardell, 258 U. S. 537; Levy v. Wardell, 258 U. S. 542; Knox v. McElligott, 258 U. S. 546; Reynolds v. McArthur, 2 Pet. 417; United States v. Field, 255 U. S. 257; Smietanka v. First Trust & Savings Bank, 257 U. S. 602; Llewellyn v. Frick, 268 U. S. 238; Nichols v. Coolidge, 274 U. S. 531. The tax violates the Fifth Amendment in that it deprives the donor of his property without due process of law. Wynehamer v. People, 13 N. Y. 396; Sherman v. Elder, 24 N. Y. 381; Chicago etc. R. R. Co. v. Englewood Ry. Co., 115 Ill. 375; Jaynes v. Omaha Street Ry. Co., 53 Neb. 631; Smith v. Campbell, 10 N. C. 595; Eaton v. B. C. & M. R. R., 51 N. H. 504; Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U. S. 60. The rules which appertain to a testamentary disposition of property, or to a right of inheritance, or to a so-called estate tax, have no relation to a gift inter vivos not made in contemplation of death. Knowlton v. Moore, 178 U. S. 41; Magoun v. Illinois Savings & Trust Co., 170 U. S. 281; Blackstone v. Miller, 188 U. S. 200. Section 319 is in no manner based upon the theory that the gift tax is imposed for the purpose of preventing the donor from evading the estate tax imposed by the Revenue Act of 1924, or by any predecessor acts based upon that theory. If the gift was made in contemplation of death, the subject-matter, under the conditions specified in § 302 (c), (d), would be treated as a part of the estate of the Argument for Respondent. 276 U.S. decedent, and, thus, taxable. The tax upon a gift inter vivos and not in contemplation of death may not come within the scope of these provisions. Schlesinger v. Wisconsin, 270 U. S. 230. The gift tax is not payable by the donee, but by the donor, and is, therefore, clearly not a succession, estate or inheritance tax or a death duty, but a tax upon the exercise of the constitutional right of the donor to give away his property. Nor is this tax similar to a stamp tax imposed upon the transfer of shares in a corporation. The latter is a creature of government. The transfer of its shares is necessarily made with the sanction of government. Hence the imposition of a stamp duty is based upon the idea that a privilege is conferred upon the transferror. People ex rel. Hatch v. Reardon, 184 N. Y. 431, aff'd 204 U. S. 152; Thomas v. United States, 192 U. S. 363. Nor can it be sustained as a tax within the rule laid down in Nicol v. Ames, 173 U. S. 509, which related to a tax imposed upon the sale of property pursuant to transactions at an exchange or board of trade. The tax imposed is a direct tax and void because not apportioned as required by Article I, § 2, Clause 3, of the Constitution. Mr. Alfred A. Wheat, Special Assistant to the Attorney General, with whom Solicitor General Mitchell and Mr. Robert P. Reeder, Special Assistant to the Attorney General, were on the brief, for respondent. The case of Blodgett v. Holden did not decide that the gift tax provisions of the Revenue Act of 1924 were not retroactive, or that its application to all gifts made prior to June 2, 1924, was unconstitutional. To tax the gift here involved is not to make the law so arbitrary as to be unconstitutional. The provision had been under discussion in Congress for three months, had |