Very many times the suspicions of the multitude are justifiable: That public office is a private snap; that it confers on the officeholder the right to sell his vote to the highest bidder for cash in advance. We must return the Scotch verdict: "Guilty, but not proven." Quo Vadimus? In the rapids of Niagara approaching the Falls? THE LAW OF LOCAL TAXATION. CHAPTER 1. RESTRAINTS IMPLIED FROM THE NATURE OF FREE GOVERNMENT. On the subject of local taxation, or assessments for local public improvements, we have varied statutes in every state, varied and contradictory, and inconsistent decisions thereon. The Bill of Rights in our state constitutions is substantially the same. We here consider local taxation with reference to only one provision of our Bill of Rights and that is: "Private property shall not be taken or applied to public use without just compensation" (with the additions made to it in the Missouri Constitution of 1875). I shall not call the subject-matter "eminent domain," or "a condemnation proceeding" for that would in the writer's opinion narrow the meaning intended by the framers of the Constitution. The framers of the Constitution evidently intended to prohibit a thing and not a name only. I omit the other (perhaps broader) provision, "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law." No substantial verbal change has been made in the first provision and our reasons or suggestions will be confined mainly, almost entirely, to that provision. The language of the other provision has been changed. It was formerly thus: "Nor shall the accused be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law," seemingly aimed at prosecutions for crime, and seeming to indi cate that if the person was not the accused he was not entitled to life, liberty or property. Hence, seemingly an honest man was not entitled to life, liberty or property, especially if we apply the maxim, "Expressio unius, exclusio alterius." In many of the decisions, the constitutional validity of various statutes is discussed without clearly and distinctly "putting the finger" on the particular provision of the Constitution with which the statute may be said to be in conflict, and without showing clearly and distinctly how or why there is a conflict. In some cases statutes are alleged to be in contravention of one section or clause of the Constitution, or Bill of Rights, and the decision is that the statute is not in conflict with that clause of the Constitution or Bill of Rights. When the same statute is alleged to be in conflict with some other section or clause of the Constitution or Bill of Rights, then the former decision is held binding and conclusive although the point was not raised or discussed by court or counsel. It seems in many cases to be considered that if the constitutional validity of a statute is called in question on one ground, and it is decided that the statute is valid on that ground and as against such objection, then the decision is construed as settling its constitutionality on all possible grounds. In this way these wholesome provisions of our Bill of Rights have been narrowed by judicial decision until now it may be fairly said that in local taxation the legislative power is not governed by the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. In Wells v. Weston, 22 Mo. 384 (decided in 1856, under tax levied in 1851), an act of the state Legislature purported to authorize the city authorities of Weston to levy a tax of one-half of one per cent on all the real estate without the corporate limits of the city and within one half mile of such limits. The state Constitution of Missouri then provided that all property subject to taxation should be taxed in proportion to its |