Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 5.djvu/349

333 THE SUGAR BOUNTIES. 333 plows and stoves, and for that purpose to issue bonds and levy taxes to pay the principal and interest of the bonds. The Act was adjudged unconstitutional. In the course of a well-considered opinion, Judge Dillon says : Taxation to aid ordinary manufactories or the establishment of private enterprises is a device until recently quite unheard of, and the power muse be denied to exist unless all limits to the appropriation of private property and to the power to tax be disregarded. The question under discussion must be determined upon some principle, and I hold it to be sound doctrine that the mere incidental benefits to the public or the State which result from the pursuit by individuals of ordinary branches of business or industry do not constitute a public use in a sense which justifies the exercise of either the power of eminent domain or of taxation. If this salutary principle be abandoned, we unsettle the foundations of private property, and unwisely open the door for frauds and abuses of the most alarming character. Perhaps the most weighty (certainly the most quoted ) opinions on this subject have been given in the Supreme Court itself. A classic in this branch of the law is the Loan Association v. Topeka (20 Wall. 655). In that case the legislature of Kansas had passed an Act purporting to " authorize cities and counties to issue bonds for the purpose of building bridges, aiding railroads, water- power and other works of internal improvement." Under this Act the City of Topeka issued one hundred bonds for $1,000 each, and gave them as a donation to a company for the manufacture of iron bridges, " to encourage that company in its design of establishing a manufactory of iron bridges in that city." Mr. Justice Miller, in delivering the substantially unanimous opinion of the court that the Act was void, expressed himself with sufficient clearness to justify, it is hoped, the following extract : The theory of our governments, State and National, is opposed to the deposit of unlimited power anywhere. The executive, the legisla- tive, and the judicial branches of the governments are all of limited and defined powers. There are limitations on such powers which grow out of the essential nature of all free governments; implied reserva- tions of individual rights, without which the social compact could not exist, and which are respected by all governments entitled to the name. Of all the powers conferred upon government, that of taxation is most liable to abuse. Given a purpose or object for which taxation may lawfully be used, and the extent of its exercise is in its nature unlim- ited. It is true that express limitation on the amount of tax to be levied on the things to be taxed may be imposed by constitution or statute, but in most instances for which taxes are levied, as the support of gov-