Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/626

606 is at liberty to take money out of their pockets for any other than a public purpose. "Whenever it can be discovered that a tax is levied for something which properly can not be called such, it may be successfully resisted by all the measures that the law allows in courts of justice."—Miller, Justice S. F., Lectures on the Constitution of the United States, p. 242.

"We have established, we think beyond cavil, that there can be no lawful tax which is not laid for a public purpose."—Loan Association vs. Topeka, United States Supreme Court, 20 Wallace, p. 664.

"Taxation, by the very meaning of the term, implies the raising of money for public uses, and excludes the raising of it for private objects and purposes."—Allen vs. Inhabitants of Jay, 60 Maine (per Appleton, C. J.).

"Taxation is allowable only for public purposes. The name (taxation) is not rightfully applied with reference to objects of a private nature, such as a bridge, manufactory, or foundry owned by individuals. An act of the Legislature authorizing a levy for a mere private purpose, or for a purpose which, though public, is one in which the people from which it is exacted have no interest, would not be a law, but a judicial sentence."—Hillard, Law of Taxation, 1875.

What are public purposes? This question is an embarrassing one, and in attempting to answer it there is opportunity for much latitude of opinion. In the first place, the ordinary or dictionary definition of the term "public," as forming a part of the above question, is certainly infelicitous and ambiguous—namely, "pertaining to a nation, state, or community; extending to the whole people" (Webster). Thus, for example, under a purely despotic form of government any exaction of contributions (taxes) from the people, and expenditures resulting therefrom, which the heads of the state may decree, be it for the expenses of a harem, the amusement or dignity of royalty, the reward or pensions of court favorites, or the maintenance of a military force for the subjugating of the people, would be held to be for a public purpose, and any subject that should undertake to contravene this assumption would be amenable to punishment and perhaps to the charge of treason.

On the other hand, under all popular or constitutional governments it would not probably be disputed, that taxation should have but one object and taxes but one destination—namely, to supply the expenses necessitated by those services which, according to established usage, it is the business of government to provide, and in contradistinction to those which private inclination, interest, or liberality will supply whenever a necessity or demand for such action becomes sufficiently manifest. Any form of levy,