may also legitimately take such property when the interest of the public requires it, through what is called the law or right of eminent domain. The distinction between the power of taxation and the power of eminent domain is, however, clear and well defined. An appropriation of property under the right of eminent domain is a forced sale which its owner is compelled to make for the public good, and for which a pecuniary consideration equal to the estimated full value of what is taken is due from the State. And the exaction can not be considered as a tax "unless similar contributions are made by the public itself, or be exacted rather by the public will, from such constituent members of the same community as own the same kind of property." On the other hand, no pecuniary consideration is paid when money is demanded under the power of taxation, the benefits which the taxpayer is assumed to receive being indirect.
An Important Imperfection or Omission in the Federal Constitution.—Any discussion of the sphere of taxation in the United States would be incomplete that failed to recognize a feature, in the way of imperfection or serious omission, in the Federal Constitution, that hitherto has not attracted the attention it deserves. All powers inherent in the Constitution of the United States were derived from the States, and granted by them in their acts of ratification; and "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the people."—Article X, Constitutional Amendments.
As has been already pointed out, the convention that framed the Constitution was especially solicitous and careful to guard and limit the power of taxation on the part of the new Government which it was proposed to create, so that it could never be arbitrarily or unjustly exercised. They anticipated in action the aphorism of John Stuart Mill, that "men do not need political rights in order that they may govern, but in order that they may not be misgoverned"; for, as was truly said by Guizot, "a constitution is only a device for turning ordinary mortals into tolerable monarchs." At the same time, the convention practically omitted to impose any limit or restriction on the exercise of the power of appropriating private property on the part of the States; or, as Chancellor Kent expressed it in his Commentaries on the Constitution, they left "to a State the command of all its resources and the unimpaired power of taxing the people and property of the State." On this point the only direct provisions of the Constitution are that neither the Federal nor State governments shall take private property for public uses—i. e., by taxation or right of eminent domain—without due compensation; and that no State, without the consent of Congress, shall lay any im-
