profession, or occupation," and the result of which must have been to provide a complete immunity in slandering persons who were without property, and were not engaged in any business, trade, or occupation: Park v. Detroit Free Press Co., 72 Mich. 560; 16 Am. St. Rep. 544.

The Liberty of Making Contracts is absolutely essential to the acquisition, retention, and enjoyment of property, and still it must necessarily be subject to such restraints as will prevent the enforcement of contracts which are illegal, immoral, or against public policy, and protect infants and persons of unsound mind against engagements to which a more mature or sound mind might not assent; and there are also many classes of persons over which others have a great opportunity to exercise fraud, oppression, and imposi tion, and the law may doubtless interpose safeguards against such exercise, and may perhaps absolutely nullify contracts of such character, and made under such conditions as are likely to be the consequence of fraud, imposi tion, or oppression. On the other hand, the legislature cannot interpose arbitrary and unreasonable restrictions, nor make those contracts criminal or unlawful which are necessarily innocent in purpose.

Statutes enacted in some of the states for the purpose of preventing mer chants from offering to give or giving any article as a gift, prize, premium, or reward to the person purchasing some other article have been assailed as arbitrary infringements upon the right to contract and to do business. In Maryland, a statute of this character was sustained without any apparent con. sideration of the question whether or not it conflicted with the Fourteenth Amendment: Long v. State, 73 Md. 527; ante, p. 606; while in New York, a similar enactment was denounced as in violation of the clause of the state constitution providing that "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law," and as not being an author. ized exercise of the police power of the state: People v. Gillson, 109 N. Y. 389; 4 Am. St. Rep. 465. A like contrariety of opinion has resulted from statutes enacted with a view to protecting certain classes of employees from the supposed opportunity of their employers to impose upon them and oppress them by paying their wages otherwise than in money, or by selling them supplies at a greater price than was charged for like supplies when sold to other persons. A statute of Maryland enacted in 1880 provided that every corporation engaged in manufacturing, or in operating a railroad, in Allegheny County, and employing ten hands or more, should pay its employees the full amount of their wages in legal-tender money of the United States, and that any contract by or in behalf of such corporation for the payment of any part of such wages in any other manner shall be and is illegal and void, and every such employee shall be entitled to receive from any such corporation the whole or so much of the wages earned by him as shall not have been actually paid him in legal-tender money of the United States, without set-off or deduction, of his demand in respect to any account or claim whatever, and that the making of any contract forbidden in the statute shall be an indictable offense. This statute was sustained, as against the corporation resisting it, on the ground that as the legislature had the right at any time to alter or amend its charter at pleasure, it could forbid its paying its employees otherwise than in money, and making contracts for such payment: Shaffer v. Union M. Co., 55 Md. 74. A statute making void contracts whereby employees agreed in advance to accept payment in any. thing else than money for services to be rendered by them was also sustained in Indiana: Hancock v. Yaden, 121 Ind. 366; 16 Am. St. Rep. 396. On the other hand, the judiciary of the states of Illinois, Pennsylvania, and AM. ST. REP., VOL. XXV.-56

West Virginia have regarded every attempt by the legislatures of those states to make void contracts or other dealings between employers and employees as "infringements alike on the right of the employer and the employee, as insulting attempts to put the laborer under legislative tutelage, which is not only degrading to his manhood, but subversive to his rights as a citizen of the United States ": Millett v. People, 117 Ill. 294; 57 Am. Rep. 869; Godcharles v. Wigeman, 113 Pa. St. 431; State v. Goodwill, 33 W. Va. 179; ante, p. 863; State v. F. C. Coal etc. Co., 33 W. Va. 188; post, p. 891. This interesting question has not yet been settled by the adjudications of the national courts. To us it seems that the existence of a necessity of protecting certain classes of employees from oppression and imposition by their employers, and the means by which that necessity shall be met, if found to exist, are questions within the police power of the several states, and that when they, in the assumed exercise of that power, determine that such necessity does exist, and devise measures calculated to overcome or mitigate it, their action is not annulled by the Fourteenth Amendment. Police Power and the Fourteenth Amendment. In determining whether or not an enactment infringes upon the Fourteenth Amendment by abridging privileges or immunities of a citizen of the United States, we must inquire whether the alleged privilege or immunity which it abridges or destroys is such as was possessed by citizens of the United States before the adoption of the amendment. When, however, the enactment is assailed on the ground that it deprives some person or class of persons of liberty or property without due process of law, or denies to some person or class of persons the equal protection of the laws, the effect of the amendinent must be consid ered in connection with the police power of the state; for it is settled beyond further judicial controversy that these inhibitions do not limit, and were not “designed to limit, the subjects upon which the police power of the state may be exerted": Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27; Minneapolis R'y Co. v. Beckwith, 129 U. S. 29; Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 663. On the other hand, it is equally certain that the legislature cannot, by assuming to exercise the police power, act upon subjects which do not and cannot fall within its dominion, nor impose restrictions or create or enforce discriminations which are not in the legitimate exercise of that power; and that while the judgment of the legislature is accepted upon doubtful subjects: Powell v. Commonwealth, 114 Pa. St. 265; 60 Am. Rep. 350; State v. Moore, 104 N. C. 744; 17 Am. St. Rep. 696; yet the courts must, in others, overrule it, and refuse to sustain, as exercises of the police power, enactments not sanctioned by it: People v. Gillson, 109 N. Y. 389; 4 Am. St. Rep. 465.

The Police Power "is but another name for that authority which resides in every sovereignty to pass all laws for the internal regulation and government of the state, necessary for the public welfare. The existence of this power is universally recognized. All property, all business, every private interest, may be affected by it and be brought within its influence. Under this power, the legislature regulates the uses of property, prescribes rules of personal conduct, and in numberless ways, through its pervading and everpresent authority, supervises and controls the affairs of men in their relations to each other and to the community at large, to secure the mutual and equal rights of all, and promote the interests of society. It has limitations; it cannot be arbitrarily exercised so as to deprive the citizen of his liberty or property. But a statute does not work such a deprivation in the constitutional sense simply because it imposes burdens or abridges freedom of action, or regulates occupations, or subjects individuals or property to restraints

in matters indifferent, except as they affect public interests or the rights of others. Legislation under the police power infringes the constitutional guar anty only when it is extended to subjects not within its scope and purview as that power was defined and understood when the constitution was adopted. The generality of the terms employed by jurists and publicists in defining this power, while they show its breadth and the universality of its presence, nevertheless leave its boundaries and limitations indefinite, and impose upon the court the necessity and duty, as each case is presented, to determine whether the particular statute falls within or outside of its appropriate lim its ": People v. Budd, 117 N. Y. 1; 15 Am. St. Rep. 460; State v. Moore, 104 N. C. 714; 17 Am. St. Rep. 696.

Under the definition given of the police power, that it is the authority residing in every sovereignty to pass laws "for the internal regulation and government of the state, necessary for the public welfare," and the judicial concession that this power is not impaired by the Fourteenth Amendment, there is grave danger that that amendment will become irretrievably lost within the illimitable or indescribable boundaries of the police power. Furthermore, it is conceded that all doubtful questions are to be resolved in favor of the police power: State v. Moore, 104 N. C. 744; 17 Am. St. Rep. 696; and that not only does the police power confer upon each state the right to legislate for the public welfare and the preservation of the public health, safety, and morals, but that the power of determining what will injuriously affect either is also primarily vested in the state. "Power to determine such questions, so as to bind all, must exist somewhere, else society will be at the mercy of the few, who, regarding only their own appetites or passions, may be willing to imperil the peace and security of the many, provided only they are permitted to do as they please. Under our system, that power is lodged with the legislative branch of government. It belongs to that department to exert what are known as the police powers of the state, and to determine, primarily, what measures are appropriate or needful for the protection of the public morals, the public health, or the public safety": Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 660. We do not assert that any decision has held the legislative determination conclusive, but merely that it must, if the power to determine at all be conceded, be conclusive, unless the statute enacted apparently or professedly to accomplish some of the legitimate objects of the police power “has no real or substantial relation to those objects": Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 661. Manifestly, it is only in extreme cases that the judiciary will, with respect to a matter which it concedes a co-ordinate branch of the government had power, primarily, to determine, overrule, and set at naught the determination there made, when to do so it must, in substance, declare that such determination was in effect a sham, a mere pretense, -a legislative decision which had no real or substantial relation to the objects in furtherance of which it was professedly pronounced. Whenever it is claimed that the grant of a special privilege, or the imposition of a special burden or restriction, must be disregarded, because in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, we must inquire whether it is one which the legislature might have granted or imposed in good faith, in an honest desire to promote the public morals, health, safety, or welfare, and if so, it can rarely, if ever, be declared void because of this amendment.

Local and Special Legislation, otherwise valid, and not directed against any particular race or nationality, is not invalidated by the Fourteenth Amendment: Missouri R'y Co. v. Mackey, 127 U. S. 209; Dent v. West Virginia, 129

U. S. 114; Bell's Gap Road Co. v. Pennsylvania, 134 U. S. 237; State v. Schlemmer, 42 La. Ann. 1166; Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27, and whether it is intended to operate against one race or nationality, rather than against another, or is otherwise prohibited by the amendment, must be determined from an inspection of the statute, because "the rule is general with reference to the enactments of all legislative bodies, that the courts cannot inquire into the motives of the legislators in passing them, except as they may be disclosed on the face of the acts or inferable from their operation, considered with reference to the conditions of the country and existing legislation. The motives of the legislators, considered as to the purposes they had in view, will always be presumed to be to accomplish that which follows as a natural and reasonable effect of their enactments": Soon Hing v. Crowley, 113 U. S. 703. It is no objection to a statute that it is special or local, “if all persons subject to it are treated alike under similar circumstances and conditions in respect both to the privileges conferred and the liabilities imposed": Missouri R'y Co. v. Mackey, 127 U. S. 209; Missouri v. Lewis, 101 U. S. 22; Hayes v. Missouri, 120 U. S. 68. Therefore the following special legislation has been sustained: A statute subjecting railway corporations whose tracks have not been fenced to double damages for injuries to animals on such tracks: Missouri Pac. R'y Co. v. Humes, 115 U. S. 512; Minneapolis & St. L. R'y Co. v. Beckwith, 129 U. S. 26; or applying to municipal corporations and giving them privileges to which private persons or corporations, or even other municipal corporations, are not entitled: Preston v. Louisville, 84 Ky. 118; providing that in prosecutions for crime in cities having a population of more than five hundred thousand inhabitants the state shall be allowed fifteen peremptory challenges to jurors, while elsewhere it is allowed but eight: Hayes v. Missouri, 120 U. S. 68; local-option laws which restrict the sale of intoxicating liquors in such cities as may adopt them by a majority vote: Ex parte Swann, 96 Mo. 44; municipal ordinances prohibiting the carrying on of public laundries within certain prescribed limits in a city from ten o'clock at night until six o'clock in the morning: Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 23; a statute giving miners or others employed in or about coal mines a prior lien on mining property for work and labor, and land-owners a prior lien for royalty: Warren v. Sohn, 112 Ind. 213; or dispensing with undertakings in proceedings by attachment, when the defendants are nonresidents: Head v. Daniels, 38 Kan. 1; or with the signature of a wife who is not and has never been a resident of the state to a conveyance by her husband of property, in effect releasing her right to dower by such conveyance, though had she been a resident her signature would have been indispensable: Buffington v. Grosvenor, 46 Kan. 730; making every railway corporation organized and doing business in the state liable for damages done to any employee of such company in consequence of any negligence of its agents or by any mismanagement of its engineers or other employees to any person sustaining such damage: Missouri Pac. R'y Co. v. Mackey, 127 U. S. 205; Minneapolis etc. R'y Co. v. Herrick, 127 U. S. 210; Pierce v. Central I. R'y Co., 73 Iowa, 140; Rayburn v. Central I. R'y Co., 74 Iowa, 637; creating a presumption of negligence against railway corporations, when damage has been done by fire or other means: Missouri Pac. R'y Co. v. Merrill, 40 Kan. 404; Augusta etc. R. R. Co. v. Randall, 79 Ga. 304; excluding the defense of contribu tory negligence when injuries have resulted from the failure of railway corporations to fence their tracks: Quackenbush v. Wisconsin etc. R'y Co., 62 Wis. 411; Curry v. Chicago etc. R'y Co., 43 Wis. 665; or their failure to give signals or warnings when approaching crossings: Kaminitsky v. Northeastern

R. R. Co., 25 S. C. 53; punishing employees of railway corporations for mutilating, disfiguring, burning, hauling off, or burying any dead carcass of any animals that shall be killed by any railway in the state without first notify. ing two citizens of the neighborhood: Bannon v. State, 49 Ark. 167; declar ing that any person having in his possession Texas cattle shall be liable for any damages that may accrue from allowing such cattle to run at large and thereby spreading the disease among other cattle, known as "Texas fever," and also subjecting him to fine and imprisonment: Kimmish v. Ball, 129 U. S. 217; exempting growers of tobacco or purchasers thereof who pack the same in the county or the neighborhood where it was grown from having it opened and inspected before being exported from the state, if they have first marked it with the full name of the owner and place of his residence, though other persons are required to submit to such opening and inspection: Turner ▼. Maryland, 107 U. S. 38; affirming 55 Md. 240; restricting the amount of land which may be cultivated by one family or household within the limits of a municipal corporation: Town Council v. Pressly, 33 S. C. 56.

Special Punishment for Crimes.-"The Fourteenth Amendment undoubtedly forbids any arbitrary deprivation of life, liberty, or property, and in the ad. ministration of criminal justice requires that no different degree or higher punishment shall be imposed on one than is imposed on all for like offenses, but it was not designed to interfere with the power of the state to protect the lives, liberty, or property of its citizens, nor with the exercise of that power in the adjudication of the courts of the state in administering the process provided by the law of the state": In re Converse, 137 U. S. 624; Leeper v. Texas, 139 U. S. 462. Nor is it universally true, as stated in this quotation, that no higher punishment can be "imposed upon one than is imposed on all for like offenses.' Not only may the state prescribe different punishments for different acts constituting the same offense in different degrees or by different classes of persons: Ex parte Garza, 28 Tex. App. 381; 19 Am. St. Rep. 845; but it may doubtless provide that a person who has been be fore convicted of crime may suffer a more severe punishment than for a first offense against the law: In re Boggs, 45 Fed. Rep. 475; and that minors below a specified age shall not be subject to the death penalty, though their crime, if committed by an adult, would be rewarded by that punishment: Ex parte Walker, 28 Tex. App. 246. A statute is not invalid because it punishes adultery between persons of different races more severely than if they belonged to the same race: Pace v. Alabama, 106 U. S. 583.

Taxation.The Fourteenth Amendment has not impaired the power of each state to select the subjects of taxation and provide the modes of assess inent and collection. The different classes of property may be subject to different modes and degrees of taxation. No one has a right to insist that no property shall be exempt, or that the value of all property shall be ascer tained in the same manner, or subject to the same mode or amount of taxation: Charlotte etc. R. R. Co. v. Gibbes, 142 U. S. 386; The Delaware R. R. Tax, 18 Wall. 206; Maine v. Grand Trunk R'y Co., 142 U. S. 217; State R. R. Tax Cases, 92 U. S. 575; Kentucky R. R. Tax Cases, 115 U. S. 321. If the uses to which any particular class of property is devoted are such that it must be specially benefited by some service rendered by the government, or some department thereof, the expenses of such service may be imposed upon it. Hence a statute providing for a state railway commission, and that the salary of its members shall be borne by the several companies operating railways within the state, is not invalid: Charlotte etc. R. R. Co. v. Gibbes, 142 U. S. 386. So persons carrying on various occupations may be required to take out a