therefore, under such a government upon the person or property of its citizens that does not conform to these conditions is not for a public purpose and is not entitled to be called taxation.
The following further amplification of these propositions by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts has probably also the unqualified indorsement of all judicial authorities in the United States:
"The incidental advantage to the public, or the State, which results from the promotion of private interests and the prosperity of private enterprise or business, does not justify their aid by the use of public money raised by taxation, or for which taxation may become necessary. It is the essential character of the direct object of the expenditure which must determine its validity as justifying a tax, and not the magnitude of the interest to be affected, nor the degree to which the general advantage of the community, and thus the public welfare, may be ultimately benefited by their promotion. The principle of this distinction is fundamental. It underlies all government that is based upon reason rather than upon force."—Lowell vs. Boston, 111 Mass., 454.
"It has become a favorite maxim that it is the duty of government to promote the happiness of the people. The phrase may be interpreted so as to mean well, but it is a very inaccurate and unhappy one. It is the inalienable right of men to pursue their own happiness, each man under such restraint of law as will leave every other man equally free to do the same. The happiness of the people is the happiness of the individuals who compose the mass. Speaking now with reference to those objects only which human laws can reach and influence, he is the happy man who sees his condition in life constantly and gradually, though it may be slowly, improving. Let government keep its hands off, do nothing in the way of creating the subject-matter of speculation, and things naturally fall into this channel."—Sharswood, Legal Ethics.
The distinction between a public and a private purpose in respect to taxation, however, is often a matter of great difficulty and embarrassment; and one eminent jurist and writer on taxation (Cooley) has indeed declared that "there is no such thing as drawing a clear line of distinction between purposes of a public and those of a private nature." But the question at issue has been so often made the subject of definition and illustration by the highest courts of the United States speaking—through jurists of the highest conceded ability—that, although complete unison of opinion does not now and probably never will exist as to whether certain particular purposes, as expenditures by the State for bounties, facilitating transportation, education, charities, amusements, celebrations, and the like, are within the requirements
