PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 609 



according to settled usage, the Government is to provide, from those which, 

 by the liJce usage, are left to private inclination, interest, or liberality. 



Under a constitutional and representative form of government 

 the determination of what constitutes a public purpose in respect 

 to taxation rests primarily in the legislative department of such 

 government ; but legislative determination on this subject is not 

 absolutely conclusive, for the question ultimately is one of law. 

 If this was not so, a Legislature would possess unlimited power 

 to make anything lawful which it might call taxation, which 

 would be equivalent to an unlimited power to plunder the citizen. 



In every case in which the Leg-islature shall have clearly exceeded its 

 authority in this regard, and levied a tax for a purpose not public, it is com- 

 petent for any one, who in person or properly is affected by the tax, to ap- 

 peal to the courts for protection. Cooley, Laiv of Taxation, p. 55. 



Brief references to certain other court cases, in which the 

 validity of this claim that certain taxes, or acts involving the im- 

 position of taxes, were for public purposes, was the question at 

 issue, will also help to an understanding of the subject. 



In 1872 the city of Boston was authorized by the Legislature 

 of Massachusetts to issue bonds to the amount of $20,000,000, 

 the proceeds to be loaned to persons whose property had been 

 destroyed by a recent great fire. The Supreme Court of Massa- 

 chusetts held that, although such " a promotion of the interests of 

 individuals might result incidentally in the advancement of the 

 public welfare," the measure was, "in its essential character, a 

 private and not a public object," and therefore unconstitutional. 

 (Lowell vs. Boston, 111 Mass.) 



A similar statute enacted by the Legislature of South Carolina 

 in aid of sufferers by a fire in Charleston was also declared by the 

 Supreme Court of that State as unconstitutional. (Feldman & Co. 

 vs. City of Charleston, S. C, 57.) 



In 1870 the town of Jay, in Maine, voted to loan $10,000 to a 

 firm of manufacturers, on condition that they would move their 

 works to the town and establish and maintain them there for ten 

 years. This vote, although ratified by an act of the Legislature, 

 the Supreme Court of the State declared void. (Allen vs. Jay, 60 

 Maine, 124.) 



In connection with this case the Legislature of the State of 

 Maine officially put the following question to the justices of its 

 Supreme Court : " Has the Legislature authority under the Con- 

 stitution to pass laws enabling towns by gifts of money to assist 

 individuals or corporations to establish or carry on manufactur- 

 ing of various kinds within or without the limits of said towns ? " 

 The question was answered in the negative. The court used the 

 following language: "There is nothing of a public nature any 



TOL. L. 45 



