324 HAR YARD LA W RE VIE W. under the protection of the government, but at its mercy. A society so constituted would differ in no essential particular either from socialism or despotism. Indeed, a6 has been said by Mr. Justice Miller (Loan Association v. Topeka, 20 Wall., at p. 662) : It must be conceded that there are such rights in every free government, beyond the control of the State. A government which recognized no such rights, which held the lives, the liberty, and the property of its citizens subject at all times to the absolute disposition and unlimited control of even the most democratic repository of power, is after all but a despotism. It is true it is a despotism of the many, of the majority, if you choose to call it so, but it is none the less jj despotism. It may well be doubted if a man is to hold all that he is accustomed to call his own, all in which he has placed his happiness, and the security of which is essential to that happiness, under the unlimited dominion of others, whether it is not wiser that this power should be exercised by one man than by many. 1 II. "PUBLIC PURPOSE." In general, there is little difficulty in deciding what purposes are public. In town or city affairs, " roads are made and kept in repair, school-houses are built and salaries paid to teachers, there are constables to take criminals to jail, there are engines for putting out fires, their are public libraries, town cemeteries, and poor-houses." In State affairs, courts are to be maintained, laws enacted and enforced, judges and State officials paid, jails and prisons maintained, etc. These are public purposes for the obvious reason that the public receives the direct and immediate benefit. This is the first class of cases. All taxation, however, is not so free from the alloy of private interest. The lay-out of a thoroughfare, for example, may be most directly beneficial to cer- tain individuals. Their lands are made accessible, or possibly for the first time brought into market. Cases are readily suppos- able where the advantage to individuals must greatly exceed the advantage accruing to the general public. But still the taxation is for a public object. The direct purpose of the expenditure is public — the lay-out of a highway. The general public enjoy legal rights in and advantages from the new street. The mere fact 1 See, also, Sharswood, Legal Ethics, xix-xxii.
