In the case of Lantry v. Wallace, 1900, the U.S Supreme Court ruled on a dispute involving land ownership in Kansas. The plaintiff, Lantry, claimed that he had purchased certain lands from an individual who was part of a group to whom these lands were granted by Congress under an act passed in 1862 for building railroads. However, the defendant Wallace argued that this grant did not include mineral rights and therefore any sale or transfer of such rights was invalid. The court sided with Wallace's interpretation and held that only surface rights were transferred through the Congressional Act - not subsurface mineral rights which remained vested with federal government until specifically disposed off by it. Therefore Lantry’s claim over minerals found beneath those lands was dismissed as he could not have legally acquired them from his predecessor.

In the dissenting opinion for Lantry v. Wallace, it was argued that the majority's decision to uphold a tax on inheritances violated constitutional principles of equal protection and due process. The dissenting justices believed that this type of taxation unfairly targeted certain individuals based solely on their familial relationships and not their ability to pay or any other relevant economic factor. They also contended that inheritance taxes could potentially lead to double taxation, as inherited property may have already been taxed when initially acquired by the deceased person. Furthermore, they expressed concerns about potential abuses of power by state governments in setting excessively high rates for these taxes without sufficient checks and balances in place. Ultimately, they felt that such practices were fundamentally unjust and incompatible with American values of fairness and equality under law.