thought desirable to treat bank stock at parity with all other stock for purposes of this tax.
It is not the duty of this court to legislate nor to search for a hidden meaning of plain and hithero unambiguous words employed by the legislature. We are not free to enter into the realm of speculation. Clearly the expression “bonds and stocks” employed in the Money and Credits Act included stocks, and was intended to include stocks, of the very character of those in question here. Had it been desired to limit its application so that it would not embrace a distinct class of stocks of the same character as those unquestionably included, such intention could readily have been expressed as it formerly had been. The duty of the court ends when it determines the legal meaning of the words employed. If the words are not ambiguous there is no room for construction.
“This is so, even though the statute so understood ‘leads to absurd and mischievous results * * * ; for courts are not to inquire as to the motive of the legislature, nor to depart from a meaning clearly conveyed in unambiguous words, because the statute, as literally understood, appears to lead to unwise consequences or to contravene public policy.’ 26 Am. Eng. Ency. of Law 599.” State ex rel. Linde v. Taylor, 33 N. D. 76, 98, 156 N. W. 561, 569 (L. R. A. 1918B, 156, Am. Cas. 1918A, 583).
Though the court may find a particular statute offensive to its sense of justice in public affairs, it is powerless to relieve against the consequences if the act were enacted in pursuance of constitutional authority. We are aware of no rule of statutory construction that would justify an effort to except bank stock from the operation of the money and credits statute of 1917.
If construction might be legitimately resorted to in this case, however, we are of the opinion that it would point to the use of the term “bonds and stocks” in its general signification rather than to any possible limited meaning, such as is contended for by the defendants here. There is, perhaps, no rule of construction that equals in potency that which requires an act to be construed, where possible, so as to make it constitutional in its operation. The actual meaning of the legislature is perhaps more often sacrificed to a presumed constitutional meaning at variance with it through the application of this rule of construction than in any other way. Thus this court has held that a statute purporting to extend the period of redemption from mortgage foreclosure was not applicable to existing mortgages and contracts where to have construed
