—in this state distinctly decided, that the legislature has the right, under the power of taxation, to confer upon municipalities the authority to require local improvements, such as the laying out or widening of streets, to be borne by those owning property in the vicinity of the improvement, and who are specially benefited by reason of it; that this is a legitimate exercise of the …

The statutes which have long existed in many states, authorizing the majority of the owners in severalty of adjacent meadow or swamp lands to have commissioners appointed to drain and improve the whole tract, by cutting ditches, or otherwise, and to assess and levy the amount of the expense upon all the proprietors in proportion to the benefits received, have been …

In 1851, the New York Court of Appeals considered the constitutionality of special assessments imposed to pay the cost of grading and pavement of roads.

"The State's sole duty is the protection of property. Granted this premise. ¹Cooley, Taxation, pp. 2, 20, 24."

Nor was it denied that it is the settled law of the State of New York that the method prescribed, of meeting the expense by apportioning the entire cost of such an improvement upon the abutting land according to the foot-front rule, is a valid exercise of legislative power.

By the decisions of the highest court of the State of New York, the Legislature of that State had the power to enact this law.

Each of these things was within the power of the legislature, whose action cannot be reviewed in the courts upon the ground that it acted unjustly, or without appropriate and adequate reason.

This idea seems to be expressed or implied in nearly "Victor Rosewater, Special Assessments, pp. 85-89."

“Eminent domain differs from taxation in that, in the former case, the citizen is compelled to surrender to the public something beyond his due proportion for the public benefit. The public seize and appropriate his particular estate, because of a special need for it, and not because it is right, as between him and the government, that he should surrender it. To him, therefore …

The security for the abuse of this power is to be found in the responsibility of the members of the Legislature to their constituents and not in the courts

[CITATION] PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA v. CENTRAL PAC. E. CO. FOR TAXES OF

[PDF] FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT