required to pay more or allowed to pay less than his just proportion, then there is no tyranny in taxation, even if the methods employed, without any such intent, may incidentally promote private interests and sumptuary purposes. But if, on the other hand, a just and equitable method of taxation will not promote these purposes, and, as usually the case, the state resorts to methods that are not just, not equitable, and imposes upon some citizens an undue share of the general public burden, then to that extent taxation becomes tyrannical, and can not be justified except upon the assumption that there is no limitation on the right of a state to interfere with individual rights to property; which is the same thing as asserting that the state in question is not "free," but is a "despotism." In short, the proposition would seem to be clear that the state can not, without violating that simple principle of justice which prescribes equality in taxation, use its taxing power for effecting any other purpose whatever except to raise money.[1]
The principle here involved may be further illustrated by reference to a curious chapter of railroad experience. Some years ago the managers of one of the great railroads of the United States appropriated a part of its receipts from the carriage of freight and passengers to the support of an opera house and a corps of ballet dancers. Extraordinary as was this procedure, there was no question that the directors, who were trustees for the stockholders, had the right to determine how the earnings of the road should be applied, so long as the stockholders failed to restrain them or prevent their continuance in office; and as they did not, no legal action or restraint of their singular use of the receipts of the property was attempted. But if these same directors had decided not to take money directly from the aggregate earnings of the railroad for the furtherance of their peculiar views, but that in addition to certain rates for transportation all passengers and freight should pay a special sum (tax) for the support of the opera house, the state would have undoubtedly and properly intervened and forbidden its collection, on the ground that the railroad was not chartered (called into existence) for any such purpose, and that the attempt to use any power other than what was granted or contemplated in its charter was illegal and unwarranted.
Again, if the legislative department of the state decides that
- ↑ A legal writer of eminence (Justice Cooley) has recently contended that this is not a correct view, for the reason that it is one which finds no "countenance in the practice of our Government, or indeed that of any other." But if this contention is valid, then it may be pleaded with equal effect for the justification and continuance of every practice which old-time views and long usage have tolerated, but which a higher civilization or a broader culture demands shall be abrogated.
