", 141 U.S. 40 (1891), McReynolds noted that none of these cases turned on the unique contractual relationship between the private company and the government (as the majority had distinguished them) but rather on the mere fact that a tax was laid on a corporation engaged in carrying out the duties assigned to it by the federal government under its constitutional mandates.The Court had long held, he claimed, that taxes (such as an estate tax on an estate that held government bonds) which only indirectly impinged on the relationship between the federal government and a private entity were valid.