In the 1898 case of Spurr v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled on a dispute over mining rights in public lands. The plaintiff, Spurr, had staked a claim to mine gold and silver on land owned by the federal government under an 1866 law that allowed such claims. However, he was sued by another party who claimed they were entitled to mine lead from the same area under an 1870 law that gave priority to those seeking minerals other than gold and silver. The lower courts sided with this second party but upon appeal, the Supreme Court reversed these decisions. The court held that while both laws could apply simultaneously without conflict - meaning multiple parties could stake different mineral claims on one piece of land - priority should be given based on who first discovered valuable minerals there regardless of what type they were. Therefore since Spurr had been first to discover valuable minerals (gold and silver), his claim took precedence over any subsequent ones for different types (lead). This decision clarified how conflicting mining rights should be resolved when multiple mineral deposits exist in one location.

In the dissenting opinion for Spurr v. United States, it was argued that the majority's decision to uphold a tax on bank checks under the War Revenue Act of 1898 was incorrect. The dissenting justices believed that this tax did not fall within Congress' constitutional power to levy taxes as it seemed more like a penalty imposed on banks for issuing checks rather than an actual revenue-raising measure. They contended that if every exercise of federal taxing authority were allowed simply because it could potentially raise some revenue, then there would be no limit to what activities or transactions Congress could tax and thus control indirectly through its taxation powers. This, they warned, would risk undermining state sovereignty and individual rights by expanding federal power beyond its intended bounds.