mote and difficult character to receive adequate handling by any merely human tribunal. The obligation of assisting other individuals in their private pursuits, as, for example, by giving alms, must necessarily lie largely, if not entirely, within the sphere of individual determination, because it involves an element of self-sacrifice. Some self-sacrifice is demanded from each member of society, but what and how great it shall be is left to the conscience of the individual. Others cannot decide such a question for me, nor I for others, and even the most perfect and enlightened jurisprudence would refuse to enter upon such an undertaking. As a general rule, then, it is true that the state has refused to lend its sanction to the duty of co-operation as between its citizens.
There are certain notable exceptions, however. The state may, in pursuance both of its right and of its duty, declare that certain acts are so important to the general welfare that a specific obligation to perform them should be laid upon its citizens, and hence result certain statutory duties, such as the duty of abutting owners to keep their sidewalks clear of snow. The act of the legislature decreeing them is but declaratory of the previously existing ethical obligation. If it were not declaratory, it would be without the justification either of the right of the state or of its duty, and therefore in contradiction of its own organic law. In all communities, however, mistakes may and do occur, and it 'sometimes happens that really unjustifiable laws are in fact promulgated.
Such laws have the exact force of the state behind them, and nothing more; but to that extent they become for the citizen real rules of conduct, and must be accepted as part of his legal duties. Such duties, as has been said, are commonly owed to the state; but there are instances where they are owed by one citizen to another. Such a case is that of half-pilotage fees, mentioned by Professor Keener. A California statute imposed upon masters of vessels the duty of employing pilots in the harbors of the State, and provided that, when a vessel was spoken by a pilot and his services were declined, the master should nevertheless pay him half his usual fee.[1] The justification of such a statute lies in the public need. It in effect imposes a tax upon the individual for the preservation of harbors and of human life, and it supports quasi-public officers to secure those two objects.
A curious instance of such a right existing independently of
- ↑ Steamship Co. v. Joliffe, 2 Wall. 450; Keener on Quasi-Contracts, 16
