Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 5.djvu/346

330 330 HAR VARD LA W RE VIE W. would be to withdraw it from the protection of the Constitution and sub- mit it to the will of an irresponsible majority. It would be robbery and spoliation of those whose estates, in whole or in part, are thus confis- cated. No surer or more effective method could be devised to deter from accumulation — to diminish capital, to render property insecure, and thus to paralyze industry, (p. 142.) The same rule obtains in New York. In Weismer v. Douglas (64 N. Y. 91), for example, the court held void an Act of the legislature authorizing the village of Douglas to take stock in a manufacturing corporation, and to issue bonds to raise the money to pay for such subscription, and to levy and collect taxes for the payment of the principal and interest on said bonds. To the contention that this was a public purpose, in that the growth of the community would be advanced by manufacturing prosperity, the court (Folger, J.) say : It may also be conceded that that is a public purpose, from the attainment of which will flow some benefit or convenience to the public, whether of the whole commonwealth or of a circumscribed community. In this latter case, however, the benefit or convenience must be direct and immediate from the purpose, and not collateral, remote or conse- quential. It must be a benefit or convenience which each citizen of the community affected may lay his own hand to in his own right. 1 In the case of Sweet v. Hulbert (51 Barb. 316), Judge James, in speaking of such an attempt, holds as foUows : If this can be done, it is legal robbery; less respectable than high- way robbery, in this, that the perpetrator of the latter assumes the danger and infamy of the act, while this act has the shield of legislative irresponsibility. In Michigan, similar results are arrived at. An incidental treat- ment of the " bounty " question by Judge Cooley ( People v. Salem, 20 Mich. 452) is interesting in this connection (p. 486) : In the course of the argument of this case allusion was made to the power of the State to pay bounties. But it is not in the power of the State, in my opinion, under the name of a bounty or under any other cover or subterfuge, to furnish the capital to set private parties up in any kind of business, or to subsidize their business after they have entered upon it. A bounty law of which this is the real nature is void, what- ever may be the pretence on which it may be enacted. *The right to hold out pecuniary inducements to the faithful performance of public duty in dangerous or responsible positions, stands upon a different foot- ing altogether; nor have I any occasion to question the right to pay 1 Matter of application, 96 N. Y. 42; Sweet v. Hulbert, 51 Barb. 316, accord.