—the Supreme Court of the United States held that the apportionment of the entire cost of a street pavement upon the abutting lots on a foot-frontage basis, without any preliminary hearing as to the benefits conferred upon such property, may be authorized in a city charter by the legislature, and that such procedure does not constitute a taking of property without due …

A six-justice majority of the Supreme Court, however, has taken a different view, writing: "[A] s the [][Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments] were ingrafted upon the Constitution at different times and in widely different circumstances of our national life, it may be that questions may arise in which different constructions and applications of their provisions may be proper."

—adopting Judge Dillon's synthesis that the levy of "special assessments" is "a branch of the taxing power, or included within it

The reluctance must be redoubled when, as here, the opinion of that court confirms a specific determination concerning the same spot, previously reached by the body that made the law.

And no reason exists for applying a different rule against a state in the case of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Supreme Court described the act of governmental unit levying the tax as "an orderly procedure under a scheme of local improvements prescribed by the legislature and approved by the courts of the state as consistent with constitutional principles."

—provisions may be proper... However, we... shall proceed, in the present case, on the assumption that the legal import of the phrase'due process of law'is the same in both amendments. Certainly, it cannot be supposed that, by the Fourteenth Amendment, it was intended to impose on the states, when exercising their powers of taxation, any more rigid or stricter curb than …

When the assessment is made in accordance with a fixed rule adopted by a legislative act, a property owner is not entitled to be heard in advance on the question of the amount and extent of the assessment and the benefits conferred.

The distinction is fundamental between the incurring of the indebtedness and the imposition of the lien.

The state in its discretion may lay such assessments in proportion to position, frontage, area, market value, or to benefits estimated by commissioners.