626 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The right of taking private property for public use is an inci- 

 dent to the sovereignty of every government ; eminent domain, or 

 inherent sovereign power, gives this control to the legislature 

 the interest of the public is deemed paramount to the individual, 

 but the obliation is concomitant that in the exercise of the right 

 full compensation shall be made. This is a fundamental doctrine, 

 founded on national equity and a principle of universal law. As 

 we have seen, however, there is a distinction made between prop- 

 erty taken by right of eminent domain and that taken under the 

 police power. In the former case just compensation must be 

 made, in the latter none, although the act prohibited may have 

 been lawful under previous statutes. There would seem to be no 

 just reason for this difference. In either case the individual suf- 

 fers for the benefit of the state. Indeed, in the exercise of the 

 latter power the injury is often greater, in that it is unexpected, 

 and hence can not be provided against. 



Again, in the case of a contract made by a State directly with 

 her citizens, as in the issue of bonds for the raising of revenue, 

 there being no remedy by a suit against the State, the contract is 

 substantially without sanction except that which arises out of the 

 honor and good faith of the State itself, and these are not subject 

 to coercion (Louisiana vs. Jumel, 17 Otto, 711). And although 

 the State may, at the inception of the contract, have consented as 

 one of its conditions to subject itself to suit, it may subsequently 

 withdraw that consent and resume its original immunity without 

 a violation of the obligation of its contract in the constitutional 

 sense. Thus the State of Louisiana entered into certain engage- 

 ments with her creditors ; she embodied them in the most solemn 

 form in her statutes and in her organic law ; she provided for the 

 levying of a tax to pay them ; she prescribed certain duties for 

 designated officers to perform in their collection and disburse- 

 ment ; she declared that no further legislation should be necessary 

 for the collection of a tax or the appropriation of the proceeds, 

 and that for the collection of the tax the judicial power should be 

 exercised whenever necessary. In spite of all these seeming obli- 

 gations and safeguards the Supreme Court, by a divided bench, 

 decided that there was no power to stay repudiation. Substan- 

 tially the same decree was made in the Virginia tax cases (exparte 

 Ayres, 123 United States, 443). In these instances the States, 

 after entering into the most solemn obligations with their citizens, 

 deliberately and openly violated every principle of honor and good 

 faith. To say nothing of the infamous wrongs inflicted, the influ- 

 ence of such actions on the morals of the people must be wide- 

 spread. 



The complications arising under the divorce laws of the vari- 

 ous States have been dwelt upon at length of late by various 



