Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 5.djvu/338

322 322 HAR VARD LA W RE VIE W. that the sugar bounty is not payable to any particular individuals, but that to any one who may care to invest the time and capital in the growing and manufacture of raw sugar the offer of the government is open. ... As will be seen from the records of the Internal Revenue Bureau, the number of applicants for bounty under this law is about five* thousand, and they are distributed over twenty-four States (p. 72). It may be assumed that (apart from its previous revenue con- ditions as a " protected " article) the industry of raising raw sugar differs in no essential particular from any of the other innumer- able industries in the country. The question fairly raised on this branch of these cases therefore is this : Has Congress the consti- tutional power to tax the people of the United States for the pur- pose of raising money with the direct object of giving it away to persons engaged in a particular industry, in order to encourage them to continue or expand it ? Let us take this as a subject for brief examination. In looking over the field, the inquiry seems naturally to divide itself into three questions : I. For what purposes is taxation legal ? II. How have these purposes been defined ? III. Does the Federal Constitution confer on Congress addi- tional powers ? I. PURPOSES OF TAXATION. They are easily stated. Taxation can only be for a "public purpose." Judge Cooley (Law of Taxation, p. 55) lays it down that It is the first requisite of lawful taxation that the purpose for which it is laid shall be a public purpose. Again {Ibid., p. 103) : It is implied in all definitions of taxation that taxes can be levied for public purposes only. Differences of opinion frequently arise concern- ing the power to impose taxation in particular cases, but all writers who treat the subject theoretically and all jurists agree in the funda- mental requirement that the purpose shall be public, and they differ, when they differ at all, upon the question whether the particular pur- pose proposed is within the requirement. There is, of course, abundant authority for this elementary proposition.