Whatever may be the general language to be found in some judicial decisions, and whatever may be the extreme power of our state legislatures in the abstract, it is hardly conceivable that any state would attempt to escheat or confiscate all the property of decedents to the exclusion of children and near relatives, or that it would wholly deny the right of testamentary disposition. At any rate, if escheat or confiscation were ever decreed, it would have to be by laws applying equally to all decedents, and not merely to a selected class. The guaranties of the fourteenth amendment would prevent any discrimination. But, however unlimited the power of the states may be in this regard, there can certainly be no doubt that it was not the intention of the framers of the Constitution of the United States to delegate to Congress the power to regulate successions to the estates of decedents or the privilege of testamentary disposition or inheritance. No one has yet seriously claimed that any such authority is within the legitimate sphere of the national government as contemplated by its founders. The power of regulating successions to the property of decedents was reserved to the states, and the courts would undoubtedly hold that any direct attempt on the part of Congress to regulate successions as such, or the ownership or transfer of property, was in excess of its powers. In dealing with successions, therefore, Congress can only exercise the power of taxation. Yet it is urged that, as Congress has the power to tax successions, it may under the guise of exercising that power regulate inheritances and thereby break up large fortunes and force a redistribution of wealth. In other words, the argument is that Congress may, under the cover or pretense of a tax law, accomplish indirectly an object which, for want of power, it could not accomplish directly, although the accomplishment of this object would constitute a deliberate encroachment upon the reserved rights of the states.