In the 1896 case of Aberdeen Bank v. Chehalis County, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on a dispute involving taxation and banking laws in Washington state. The Aberdeen Bank had challenged an assessment by Chehalis County, arguing that it was unconstitutional because it taxed bank shares at their full market value rather than deducting debts owed by the bank from this valuation as required under state law for other types of property. The court sided with the county, holding that banks were not exempt from local taxes and could be assessed based on share values without deductions for debt. This decision affirmed that different methods of tax assessment could be applied to different classes of property without violating constitutional equal protection principles.

In the dissenting opinion for Aberdeen Bank v. Chehalis County, it was argued that the majority's decision to uphold a tax on bank shares violated both state and federal law. The dissent contended that Washington State law exempted banks from taxation beyond what they paid on their real estate and mortgages, thus making any additional taxes illegal. Furthermore, they asserted that this extra tax also contravened federal legislation which stipulated how national banks could be taxed by states. They believed these laws were designed to protect national banks from excessive or discriminatory taxation by individual states and should have been upheld in this case. Therefore, according to the dissenters' interpretation of both state and federal statutes, Chehalis County had no legal right to impose its disputed tax on Aberdeen Bank's shares.