The substantive issue for decision is the right of the State of Louisiana to exact severance taxes on oil and gas produced under a lease to a private corporation when the land in question is part of a federal enclave, Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier Parish, Louisiana. The district court held that the State may exact such taxes. 247 F. Supp. 819. We reverse. When the United States acquired title to the land, it acquired “exclusive jurisdiction” over the property, precluding the State’s levying and collecting a tax on oil and gas • severed from the land by a third party under a lease from the United States. Article I, Section 8, Clause 17, United States Constitution; Humble Pipe Line Co. v. Waggonner, 1964, 376 U.S. 369, 84 S.Ct. 857, 11 L.Ed.2d 782.
In 1930, the United States, with the consent of the Louisiana legislature,1 acquired from the state the 22,000 acres that comprise the Barksdale base. The defendant, in his capacity as Collector of Revenue, collected the Louisiana severance tax on oil and gas that the Mississippi River Fuel Corporation produced at Barksdale during September, 1963. The Company paid the tax under protest and brought this action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana to recover the amount so paid.2
Before reaching the substantive issue, however, we must decide whether the Eleventh Amendment withdraws jurisdiction over this suit from the federal courts.
I.
Under the Eleventh Amendment, private litigants may not sue a state in federal court without the state’s consent.3 Smith v. Reeves, 1900, 178 U.S. 436, 20 S.Ct. 919, 44 L.Ed. 1140; Hans v. State of Louisiana, 1890, 134 U.S. 1, 10 S.Ct. 504, 33 L.Ed. 842.
A. In the district court, the Collector conceded jurisdiction and defended the case on the merits, but now he urges that this suit is one against the State of Louisiana and that Louisiana has not consented to be sued in a *932federal court. The Collector may question this court’s jurisdiction on the basis of the Eleventh Amendment although he did not raise the issue below. Ford Motor Co. v. Treasury Dep’t, 1945, 323 U.S. 459, 467, 65 S.Ct. 347, 89 L.Ed. 389. Moreover, the Collector’s failure to challenge the district court’s jurisdiction cannot itself constitute the requisite consent of the state; it is conceded that the Collector has no authority to waive the state’s immunity from suit.
B. The Company contends that this suit has been brought against the Collector as an individual and not against the State of Louisiana. Cf. Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. v. O’Connor, 1912, 223 U. S. 280, 32 S.Ct. 216, 56 L.Ed. 436. It also contends that Louisiana has consented to be sued for tax refunds in the federal courts. Since we find the latter contention dispositive of the issue, we do not decide whether this suit could be maintained against the Collector as an individual.
Act 330 of 1938, LSA-R.S. 47:1576, provides that persons wishing to contest the legality of state taxes paid under protest shall have “a legal remedy and right of action in any state or federal court having jurisdiction of the parties and subject matter * * 4 At the time the legislature enacted this statute, Article III, Section 35, of the Louisiana, Constitution limited the legislature’s power to waive the state’s immunity from suit in two ways. It required the legislature to “provide a method of procedure and [to specify] the effect of judgments which may be rendered” whenever the legislature authorizes a suit against the state. In 1946 and again in 1960, however, Article III, Section 35, was amended. The question is whether the 1946 and 1960 *933amendments withdrew the consent to suit in federal court that Act 330 had previously granted.
The present version of Article III, Section 35, provides that suits “authorized under this constitutional provision” shall be instituted only in Louisiana state courts.5 In answer to the contention that this provision prevents the federal courts from' hearing tax refund suits, the Company argues that suits brought under Act 330 are independent of Article III, Section' 35. The Company’s contention derives support from the explicit exemption of taxpayers’ suits from legislation designed to implement the constitutional provision. Act 27 of 1960. Moreover, federal courts have accepted jurisdiction of tax refund suits under Act 330 in cases that arose after the 1946 amendment,6 the first law to include language restricting suits against the state to Louisiana courts.7 And in 1959 the Louisiana Supreme Court declared that such suits may be brought in federal courts.8 In none of these cases, however, was the issue of federal jurisdiction raised; the parties simply assumed that restrictions in Article III, Section 35, had no effect on Act 330. The legislature acted on a similar assumption in 1950 when it incorporated Act 330 in full in the Louisiana Revised Statutes. The revision corrects incongruities and excludes obsolete laws. Act 42 of 1942. See also “Report to Accompany the ‘Projet of Louisiana Revised Statutes of 1950’ ”, 1 LSA p. 5.
The amended version of Article III, Section 35, if applicable to tax refund suits, would not only withdraw Louisiana’s consent to suit in a federal court; it would also affect the procedure for satisfaction of a judgment in favor of a taxpayer. Act 330 requires the Collector to segregate taxes paid under protest and repay them, with interest, if the taxpayer prevails in a suit for a refund; Article III, Section 35, forbids satisfaction of any judgment against the state except by a legislative appropriation made subsequent to the judgment. Although the present case does not directly involve the procedure for satisfaction of taxpayers’ judgments, this second conflict sheds light on the basic issue whether the amendments of 1946 and 1960 should be read to alter Act 330.
If Article III, Section 35, applied to suits to recover taxes unlawfully assessed, legislative appropriations would now be necessary to satisfy judgments in favor of taxpayers successfully challenging a Louisiana tax. Before Act 330, the Louisiana statute relating to reimbursement of unconstitutional taxes paid under protest required such appropriations. Act 16 of 1934, amended by Act 23 of 1935. Because this requirement deprived protesting taxpayers of an adequate remedy at law, a federal court in Texas Co. v. Wilkinson, E.D.La., 1937, 21 F.Supp. 771, issued an interlocutory *934injunction against the collection of a Louisiana tax. The legislature promptly enacted Act 330 to avoid the result in Wilkinson. See A. Sulka & Co. v. City of New Orleans, 1945, 208 La. 585, 23 So.2d 224.
Act 330 forbids Louisiana courts from enjoining the collection of state taxes, and no subsequent legislation, including the constitutional amendments of 1946 and 1960, is inconsistent with this provision. If the amendments to Article III, Section 35, do not affect Act 330, federal courts are similarly powerless to enjoin state taxes, because Act 330 gives the taxpayer an adequate state remedy.9 If, however, the amendments apply to taxpayers’ suits, they have restored the defect that Act 330 was designed to cure and have made federal courts again available to enjoin the collection of unconstitutional taxes. The taxpayer may seek an injunction even though the amendments also repeal the state’s consent to be sued in a federal court; it is settled that a suit to enjoin the collection of unconstitutional taxes is an action against the tax collector as an individual and not against the state. Georgia R. R. & Banking Co. v. Redwine, 1952, 342 U.S. 299, 72 S.Ct. 321, 96 L.Ed. 335; see Ex parte Young, 1908, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714.
The Louisiana Constitution instructs the legislature to “provide against the issuance of process to restrain the collection of any tax and [to provide] for the prompt recovery by every taxpayer of any illegal tax paid by him.”10 This constitutional provision was left intact in 1946 and 1960. In the face of this constitutional policy against actions to enjoin the collection of taxes, we cannot believe that the draftsmen of the 1946 and 1960 amendments intended to return to the situation antedating Act 330. Instead, we hold that taxpayers’ suits are not subject to Article III, Section 35.11
The Collector asserts that Article III, Section 35, is the only section of the Louisiana Constitution that authorizes the legislature to waive the state’s immunity from suit. Therefore, he says, the restriction to state courts of all suits “authorized under this constitutional provision” necessarily applies to the waiver of immunity in Act 330. This argument rests on the hypothesis that the legislature is powerless to waive the state’s immunity from suit in the absence of an affirmative constitutional authorization. Since the state’s immunity does not derive from the Louisiana Constitution, the argument is without merit. As the Louisiana courts have frequently pointed out, the legislature may act in all matters that the Consti*935tution does not prohibit.12 No Louisiana Constitution prior to that of 1898 contained a provision relating to suits against the state, yet in 1890 the Louisiana Supreme Court recognized the legislature’s power to authorize such suits and said that legislative authorizations had been “of common occurrence.” Carter v. State, 1890, 42 La.Ann. 927, 8 So. 836. See also Hood v. State, 1908, 120 La. 806, 45 So. 733; Durbridge v. State, 1906, 117 La. 841, 42 So. 337, 339.13
Even if constitutional authorization were necessary, a- provision other than Article III, Section 35, could justify Act 330. Article X, Section 18, by requiring the legislature to “provide * * for the prompt recovery by every taxpayer of any illegal tax paid by him”, grants the legislature discretion in devising a remedy at law. Act 330 is entitled “AN ACT — To carry into effect Section 18, Article X of the Constitution of Louisiana * * and Louisiana courts have consistently considered the Act to be an implementation of Article X, Section 18, and not of Article III, Section 35.14
Finally, the Collector argues that Act 330 itself does not authorize this suit. He relies on United States v. Cocreham, E.D.La., 1965, 247 F.Supp. 731, where the district court, in dicta, declared that
*936Act 330 does not authorize suits against the state by private litigants, but only by the United States. The conflict that the court perceived between Act 330 and the Louisiana Constitution compelled it to draw this conclusion:
“At first blush it would seem that [Act 330 and Article III, Section 35] * * * are in conflict in that the statute apparently allows a suit to be brought in either the State or Federal Court for recovery of. .taxes paid under protest, while the Constitution of the State of Louisiana prohibits a suit against the State of Louisiana. Actually, these two provisions are not in conflict because of the fact that the statutory provision affording a legal remedy gives a right of action in any ‘state or federal court having jurisdiction of the parties and the subject matter * * *.’ This provision is obviously included for the purpose of giving effect to well settled jurisprudence to the effect that under certain circumstances a state may be sued in a Federal Court even without its consent. Thus, it is well settled that the Federal District Court does have jurisdiction over a case brought by the United States against a state. * * * Also, it is well settled that in such a case, consent of the state is not required. * * * Thus no violence is done to [Act 330] * * * by holding that that statute does not give consent to Chrysler Corporation to maintain this action against the State of Louisiana in a Federal Court. The State of Louisiana is expressly prohibited from granting such authority to be sued in a Federal Court by the provisions of Article III, Section 35, of the Louisiana Constitution * * (Emphasis in original.)
Neither the language of Act 330 nor any previous decision supports the theory that the Act limits access to the federal courts to the United States. The language of Section 2(c) of the Act, which the- district court may have overlooked in United States v. Cocreham, militates against this view. Section 2(c) provides :
“This Section shall be construed to provide a legal remedy in the State or federal courts, by action at law in case such taxes are claimed to be an unlawful burden upon interstate commerce, or the collection thereof, in violation of any Act of Congress or the United States Constitution, or the Constitution of the State of Louisiana, or in any case where jurisdiction is vested in any of the courts of the United States * * * >>
If this section referred only to suits by the United States, it would be superfluous. As the court in United States v. Cocreham recognized, the United States may sue Louisiana in federal court without the state’s consent. The court interpreted Act 330 to limit access to the federal courts to the United States only because of its view that if the Act allowed individuals to sue the state in federal court, it would conflict with Article III, Section 35. Our holding that the 1946 and 1960 amendments to this constitutional provision were not designed to affect Act 330 removes the need for this strained interpretation of the statute.
II.
Under Article I, Section 8, clause 17, of the United States Constitution, Congress has exclusive legislative jurisdiction over areas that the United States has acquired with the consent of the state in which the property is located.15 The parties agree that Barksdale Air Force Base is a federal enclave subject to this constitutional provision. The second *937question that we must decide is whether the State of Louisiana may levy a severance tax on an event taking place within the federal area.
A. Resolution of this dispute requires a reconsideration of this court’s decision in Mississippi River Fuel Corp. v. Fontenot, 1956, 234 F.2d 898. That case, involving the same parties now before the court, held that the Mississippi River Fuel Corporation’s operations at Barksdale Field were not exempt from the Louisiana severance tax.16 Since that decision, the United States Supreme Court has reviewed the problem of state taxation in federal enclaves. In Humble Pipe Line Co. v. Waggonner, 1964, 376 U.S. 369, 84 S.Ct. 857, 11 L.Ed.2d 782, the Court held that the State of Louisiana could not levy an ad valorem tax on privately owned personal property located on Barksdale Field. In the light of the Humble decision, Mississippi River Fuel Corp. v. Fontenot cannot stand.
This court’s decision in Mississippi River Fuel Corp. v. Fontenot rested on two alternate grounds: (1) A provision of the Company’s contract with the federal government requiring the Company “to pay all taxes lawfully assessed and levied” compelled the Company to pay nondiscriminatory taxes that the State of Louisiana imposed; (2) The severance tax did not interfere with the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, since the United States had never held title to the minerals severed.
The Supreme Court clearly rejected the first of these holdings in Humble. The Court held that “[a] contractual requirement to pay taxes lawfully owing, standing alone, cannot be read as manifesting a purpose of the Government to abandon exclusive jurisdiction over one of its important military enclaves.” In the present case neither the district court nor the Collector sought to support the tax on the basis of the Company’s contract with the Government.
The district court did reassert the view that Louisiana’s severance tax is consistent with Congress’ exclusive jurisdiction over Barksdale Field, but we consider that Humble also overruled this second ground of the 1956 Mississippi River Fuel Corp, decision. The Humble opinion was principally concerned with whether Congress had exclusive legislative jurisdiction over Barksdale Field or whether it held the base only in a proprietary capacity. After deciding that Congress had exclusive legislative power, the Supreme Court said, “When Congress has wished to allow a State to exercise jurisdiction to levy certain taxes within a federal enclave it has specifically so stated, as in the Buck Act, 4 U.S.C. §§ 104-110.” The Court concluded therefore that the state’s inability to tax, in the absence of authorization from Congress, followed automatically from a finding that property that the state sought to tax was located in an area under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress. The Court thereby reaffirmed the long line of decisions that a state may not legislate for a federal enclave even if the legislation does not conflict with a regulation of Congress or interfere with a federal function or instrumentality.17
*938In the present ease, the district court, following this court’s 1956 decision, emphasized that under Louisiana law oil and gas is not subject to ownership until it is reduced to possession; accordingly, the United States never held title to the oil and gas underlying Barks-dale Field. Under Humble, however, this principle of Louisiana law does not help the Collector. The personal property that the Supreme Court held exempt from Louisiana’s ad valorem tax in Humble had never belonged to the United States.18
The district court nevertheless concluded that Humble did not overrule Mississippi River Fuel Corp. v. Fontenot, because Humble involved an ad valorem tax while the earlier decision, like the present case, involved a severance tax. While there are differences between the taxes involved, we think that Humble did not rest on the peculiar attributes of the ad valorem tax. It rested instead on the general principle that a state lacks authority to levy any tax in an area under the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States. Just as the state could not tax personal property located on Barksdale Field, it cannot impose a severance tax when the incidence of taxation, the severance of minerals from the soil, takes place on a federal enclave, outside the jurisdiction of the State of Louisiana.
B. The Collector argues that even apart from Mississippi River Fuel Corp. *939v. Fontenot, the Louisiana severance tax is enforcible because it antedated the acquisition of Barksdale Field by the United States. He cites James Stewart & Co. v. Sadrakula, 1939, 309 U.S. 94, 60 S.Ct. 431, 84 L.Ed. 596, and Paul v. United States, 1962, 371 U.S. 245, 83 S. Ct. 426, 9 L.Ed.2d 292, in support of this position. In those cases, the Supreme Court applied to federal enclaves a rule of international law that when one sovereign takes over the territory of another, the municipal laws of the original government remain in effect until changed. This doctrine is consistent with exclusive federal jurisdiction, because the laws adopted become laws of the United States. James Stewart & Co. v. Sadrakula, supra; Mater v. Holley, 5 Cir., 1953, 200 F.2d 123.
In Humble the state argued that this doctrine should apply to tax laws in existence at the time of acquisition. It relied on the same cases that the Collector cites here. The Supreme Court did not consider explicitly the issue of residual jurisdiction, but its holding that Louisiana lacked the power to impose the ad valorem tax indicates that the doctrine of adoption does not apply to state tax laws.
The doctrine of residual jurisdiction has traditionally been limited to “laws which are intended for the protection of private rights,” or “laws affecting the possession, use, and transfer of property, and designed to secure good order and peace in the community, and promote its health and prosperity.” It has not applied to laws “in conflict with the political character [and] institutions * * * of the new government.” Chicago, R. I. & P. Ry. v. McGlinn, 1884,114 U.S. 542, 5 S.Ct. 1005, 29 L.Ed. 270. Blackstone defined a municipal law as “a rule of civil conduct prescribed by the Supreme power of a State, commanding what is right and prohibiting what is wrong.” 1 Blackstone, Commentaries 44.
We consider that the doctrine of residual jurisdiction does not apply to state tax laws. Legislation that a former sovereign enacted to raise revenue for its own purposes is not the kind of law that a new government would adopt as a matter of comity in order to avoid a legislative vacuum in a newly-acquired area.19
C. Finally, the Collector contends that Congress, in the Buck Act,20 retroceded to the State of Louisiana jurisdiction to levy the tax. The portion of the Buck Act on which the Collector relies provides that a state may levy an income tax in a federal enclave within the *940state to the same extent as if the area were not a federal enclave. 4 U.S.C.A. § 106. The Act defines “income tax” as “any tax levied on, with respect to, or measured by, net income, gross income, or gross receipts.” 4 U.S.C.A. § 110(c). The Louisiana severance tax is “levied upon all natural resources severed from the soil * * * including * * * minerals such as oil [and] gas * * *,” LSA-R.S. 47:631, and is measured by the quantity of minerals severed, LSA-R.S. 47:633. Congress has authorized the states to impose an income tax on private persons in federal enclaves, but the Louisiana severance tax is simply not an income tax. We are not free to expand the technical and precise language that Congress has used.
The judgment is reversed.