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.

“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 …

Ruggles, J., observes: "Private property may be constitutionally taken for public use in two modes, that is to say, by taxation and by right of eminent domain. These are rights which the people collectively retain over the property of individuals, to resume such portions of it as may be necessary for public use. The right of taxation and the right of eminent domain rest …

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.

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 …

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.

"The power of taxing and the power of apportioning taxation are identical and inseparable. Taxes can not be laid without apportionment, and the power of apportionment is therefore unlimited, unless it be restrained as a part of the power of taxation."

—discussing the “long history” of special assessments in the United States, “reaching back to the seventeenth century,” and

It may create taxing districts without regard to any territorial division of the State, and confine the taxation to the district benefited.

The Mayor, &c. of New York, them, but proceedings imposing a valid tax or assessment, and providing for the future sale of the property assessed for nonpayment is such

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

[PDF] FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT