Miller presented the two critical questions in the case: 1) Were there other grounds for a suit other than transfer of title in error, and 2) whether the tax sale had actually transferred title. The members of the Court were agreed that there no errors regarding interpretation of the law by the circuit court, in the jury instructions, or in the documents of the tax sale. But, citing Bennett v. Hunter, 72 U.S. 326 (1869), (which had involved the nearby Abingdon estate); Tacey v. Irwin, 85 U.S. 549 (1873); and Atwood v. Weems, 99 U.S. 183 (1878), the majority reaffirmed that a tax collector's refusal to accept payment was the equivalent of payment. The majority considered whether a rule had been properly adopted by the tax commissioners to accept payment only from the title holder him or her self, and found that it had properly been adopted. However, the majority found that denial of a taxpayer's right to pay through an agent was improper: ...[T]he commissioners, having in the execution of the law acted upon a rule which deprived the owner of the land of an important right, a right which went to the root of the matter, a right which has in no instance known to us or cited by counsel been refused to a tax-payer, the sale made under such circumstances is invalid, as much so as if the tax had been actually paid or tendered. The government claimed that prior Court rulings on tax payment regulations were not applicable because the 1862 the law specifically required payment to be made in person, but the Court disagreed and distinguished its previous decisions as being based on the 1862 law and its 1863 amendments. The government also claimed that the law did not permit payment to be made between the announcement of the tax sale and the date of the sale if the government were the purchaser. But the majority pointed out that this created a contradiction: How could the title holder know that the government was the purchaser until the actual purchase had occurred? This made no sense, and subsequently that section of the law was invalid. The Court next considered whether payment had been attempted. Relying on Cooley v. O'Connor, 79 U.S. 391 (1870), the majority noted that nothing in the law or the Constitution indicated that the government's title to land "should have any greater effect