es other than those above
mentioned, in Colorado, to tunnel, transportation, electric power, and
aerial tramway companies; in North Carolina to flume companies; in
many States for private irrigation districts; in the West generally to
mining or quarrying companies; in West Virginia and other States to
electric power, light, or gas companies; while in North Carolina,
Washington, and Wisconsin, we find the dangerous grant of this great
power to electric-power companies, which are, in Wisconsin at least,
expressly permitted to flood lands by right of eminent domain in order
to form ponds for power purposes. It is easy to see that under such
legislation everybody holds his land not only subject to public need,
but to the greed of any designing neighbor. Perhaps the most important
question of eminent domain is or was whether it authorized
general schemes of internal improvement made by the State or by a
municipality, or, worse still, by a private corporation chartered for
the purpose. The Constitution of Michigan, with those of the Dakotas
and Wyoming, provides that the State cannot be interested in works of
internal improvement, nor, in North Dakota and Wyoming, engage in them
except on two-thirds vote of the people; nor, in Alabama, may it
loan its credit in support of such works; nor, also, in Maryland,
Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin, create or contract debts for them;
nor, in Kansas and Michigan again, be a party to carrying on such
works. But the Tennessee Constitution declares that a well-regulated
system of internal improvement should be encouraged by the
legislature. So, in Virginia, no town or county may become a party to
any work of internal improvement except roads, and they are frequently
forbidden from borrowing money for such purposes. There is, therefore,
considerable constitutional check to legislation in this direction.[1]

[Footnote 1: See "Federal and State Constitutions," book III, secs.
92, 324, 345 370, 391, and 395.]

Taxation, of course, has from all time been the universal limitation
upon property rights, though it is important to remember that until
the present budget there has not in modern times been an attempt at
direct taxation of the capital value of land in England; Cobbett
records many "aids" of a few shillings per hide of land in
Anglo-Norman times. The earliest taxation was the feudal aids imposed
purely for defensive purposes, for building forts and bridges; later
for foreign wars or cru