Moreover, the bonds which had been so lightly voted, proved a real burden on the scanty population of the counties, which was in no adequate way offset by increases in the assessment rolls. Indeed, the railroads in early years were assessed at figures that were remarkably low. In Placer County, for instance, the Central Pacific insisted that its road should be assessed at $6,000 per mile, and succeeded in carrying its point in 1865, 1866, and 1867. In 1868 the assessment was raised to $12,000 per mile. The railroad protested, and when forced to submit, increased the rate of freight to all points in Placer County about 40 cents a ton.[64] Nor were taxes even on such modest valuations easily collected. Between 1866 and 1887 railroad tax cases were almost constantly before the courts. At times the Central Pacific refused to pay any taxes at all, on the ground that it held a “federal franchise,” and at other times it objected to the terms of the law or to the amount of the assessment.[65] The result was to throw the local tax system into complete confusion. Experience of Placer County Let us refer again to the experience of Placer County. In 1863 the Central Pacific asked for a subscription of $250,000, promising to add $9,000,000 to the taxable property of the county. The county tax rate as fixed in February, 1863, for the following year, was 35 cents on $100, and the assessed valuation of the county was $3,071,911.78, yielding a revenue from county taxes of $10,751.69. The railroad company issued an address while the matter of a subscription was under consideration, pointing out that 8 per cent on a bond issue of $250,000 would amount to $20,000, while a tax rate of 35 cents on $9,000,000 of increased valuation would yield $31,500, or a clear excess of $11,500, to the county without considering the effect of the railroad in increasing the valuation of real estate. These were the results which voters were led to expect. What happened was that the assessed valuation of the property of the Central Pacific in Placer County was $6,000 per mile as late as 1870, when the county sold its railroad stock; that the total railroad valuation was therefore $553,500, and that the county tax rate rose from 35 cents to $1.73½. Moreover, the railroad taxes for 1868 and 1869 were still unsettled and in dispute in 1870 and remained so until 1873. The total receipts of the county from all sources in 1869 were $127,492.54, of which $46,499.66 were for the state. Against the $80,992.88 remaining, the $20,000 of interest on the subsidy bonds was evidently a material charge.