201 U.S. Argument for Appellant. mental principle of taxation in the State of Michigan. Cases supra and Cooley on Taxation, 2d ed., 61, 62, 63, 141, 142, 241, 242; Metropolitan Police v. Board of Auditors, 68 Michigan, 576; Attorney General v. Detroit Common Council, 58 Michigan, 213; State Railroad Tax Cases, 92 U. S. 575; Heine v. Levee Commissioners, 19 Wall. 655; Meriwether v. Garrett, 102 U. S. 472. The rule that taxes must be for public, and not private, purposes rests upon the same foundation of representative legislation. The people do not tax themselves when a tax is laid by the legislature for a private purpose, because they have not authorized their legislative representatives to act on other than public matters or for other than publie purposes. By Article IV, § 4, the Constitution of the United States guarantees to every State in this Union a republican form of government. Legislation by persons who are not members of the legislature that represents the community subjected to the legislation is not republican government, and a tax laid without the authority of a legislative representative of the community that pays the tax is not due process of law. Due process of law requires, in judicial proceedings, a court having jurisdiction over the subject matter and also over the person or property to be affected by the judgment. Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S. 714, 733. The right of appeal to the courts for relief from action of the legislature which is claimed to violate private rights is requisite to due process of law; and, therefore, a statute which forbids it is unconstitutional. C., M. & St. P. Ry. Co. v. Minnesota, 134 U. S. 418, 456, 457. As to all persons, natural or artificial, in the State, the following statutory and constitutional provisions apply, but are denied to appellants: The amount of state tax is determined by the legislature. Constitution, Art. XIV, §§ 1, 14. The amount of the county tax is determined by the board of supervisors and the electors of the county. Constitution, Art. X, §1; 1 Comp. Laws of VOL. CCI-17 Argument for Appellant. 201 U. S. 1897, § 2484. The township taxes are determined by the electors of the township and the township board. 1 Comp. Laws, §§ 2269, 2349. The amount of school district taxes is determined by the electors of the district or the school district board. 2 Comp. Laws, §§ 4665, 4674. The amount of city and village taxes is determined by the city and village councils, or the electors of the cities and villages, as provided by their special charters, or the general law for the incorporation of cities and villages. Constitution, Michigan, Art. IV, § 38; Art. XV, § 13; 1 Comp. Laws, §§ 3290-3308 (as to cities); 1 Comp. Laws, §§ 2852-2857, 2873 (as to villages). The tax levied upon the railroad companies is strictly a state tax, imposed for state purposes, yet the legislature does not determine the amount of the tax, nor is it determined by any legislative action which considers the subject of the tax, nor is it determined by representatives who are responsible for their action to the stockholders of the railroad companies, who are the real payers of the tax. .Municipal corporations are created for the general purposes of government, in which capacity their action is subject to the control of the legislature. They are also granted powers which they exercise for the benefit of their own citizens. The exercise of these powers is discretionary with them, and they are not subject to the control of the legislature. In the exercise of those powers they act in the capacity of private corporations. It is in the exercise of these powers, and in their character of private corporations, that they provide for the local conveniences for their citizens in furnishing water, light, sewerage, fire protection, public grounds, parks, fountains, adornments, paved streets, water works for private as well as public use, electric light plants for private as well as public lighting, and various other conveniences. Cases supra and Cooley on Taxation, 2d ed., 688, 689; Attorney General v. Burrell, 31 Michigan, 25; Davock v. Moore, 105 Michigan, 120; Ill. Trust & Savings Bank v. Arkansas City, 76 Fed. Rep. 271; People v. Coler, 201 U.S. Argument for Appellant. 166 N. Y. 1; People v. Batchellor, 53 N. Y. 128; Bailey v. Mayor, 3 Hill, 531; Safety &c. Co. v. Baltimore, 66 Fed. Rep. 140. All the various properties acquired by cities, villages and townships for the benefit and enjoyment of their inhabitants are investments, and they are owned by the municipalities in their private character as the property of private corporations. Mayor v. Park Commissioners, 44 Michigan, 602; Mt. Hope Cemetery v. Boston, 158 Massachusetts, 509; Chicago &c. R. R. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U. S. 226. These so-called taxes are not founded upon, or measured by, the State's actual need of revenue, or a legislative estimate of it. They are the outgrowth of a legislative declaration that a railroad must pay, to the State, as much in proportion to the value of its property as other persons throughout the State pay, on the average, for both state and local purposes (i. e., the expenses not only of the State, but of county, city, town, village and school district organizations), whether that amount of tax be what is needed by the State or not. There is no reasonable, or real, relation between the revenue which comes to the State under this statute, as a result of the amounts of tax levies made by local legislatures for local purposes, and the State's need of revenue. The statute turns the general problem of taxation upside down-by making the apportionment of taxation generally, as between all citizens for all purposes, control the amount of the State's revenue. . The power to tax for state purposes is limited by a fair legislative discretion as to the amount of revenue needed by the State. Otherwise, the legislature can take for the State everything its citizens have,-arbitrarily. Reagan v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 154 U. S. 362, 399; Schultes v. Eberly, 82 Alabama, 242. Constitutional limitations may be implied as well as express; and their implication may result either from the essential nature of government or from the general plan of the constitution. Board of Com'rs v. Abbott, 34 Pac. Rep. 416; State v. Barker, Argument for Appellant. 201 U.S. 57 L. R. A. 244, 250; People v. Fire Association, 52 N. Y. 311; State v. Parker, 26 Vermont, 365. It is the right and duty of this court to consider the real tendency of the taxing process prescribed by the statute in hand, with reference to the question whether it establishes a reasonable connection between state tax and the State's need of revenue. G., C. & S. F. Ry. v. Ellis, 165 U. S. 150, 154. The principles of due process of law in respect to taxation, require that the process shall be pursued in the ordinary mode prescribed by law, be just to the parties affected, be adapted to the end to be attained and, when necessary to the protection of the parties, it must give them an opportunity to be heard respecting the justice of the judgment sought, and there must be the observance of those general rules established in our system of jurisprudence for the security of private rights. Hagar v. Reclamation District, 111 U. S. 701; Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U. S. 97; Bell's Gap R. R. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 134 U. S. 232; Lent v. Tillson, 140 U. S. 316; Kentucky Railroad Tax Cases, 115 U. S. 321; Norwood v. Baker, 172 U. S. 269; Roller v. Holly, 176 U. S. 398; Weimer v. Bunbury, 30 Michigan, 201; French v. Barber Asphalt Co., 181 U. S. 324; Miller on the Constitution, 666; Cooley on Taxation, 2d ed., 51; Cotting v. Kansas City Stock Yards Co., 183 U. S. 79; Santa Clara County v. So. Pacific R. Co., 18 Fed. Rep. 385. To determine the tax, when it is an ad valorem tax, requires that the legislature state the amount to be raised or the rate of the tax upon the dollar of the valuation. The determination of the amount to be raised, or the rate of taxation on the valuation is the essential, the chief and necessary act in taxation. In the nature of the case the determination of the amount, or the rate, is a legislative act. Being a necessary act of the legislature it is not in the power of the State in the preservation of the established principles of American law, which constitute the law of the land, to delegate or refer such determination to the action of any other body of officials. It cannot be referred to and made to depend 201 U. S. Argument for Appellant. upon the legislative or discretionary action of the municipalities. Morton v. Comptroller General, 4 S. Car. 430; Houghton v. Austin, 47 California, 646; S. F. & N. P. R. R. v. State Board, 60 California, 12; Constitution of Michigan, Art. XIV, $14. It is an essential of just legislation that the legislature act in view of, and determine the needs of the public in respect to, the objects for which moneys are to be raised by taxation, and of the amount necessary to provide for those needs, and also the extent to which it is just to burden the taxpayers against whom the taxes are to be charged. Midland v. Roscommon, 39 Michigan, 424; Michigan Land &c. Co. v. Township of L'Anse, 63 Michigan, 700. It is an axiom of our law that the power to tax is a power to destroy. Where the amount of the tax to be raised, or the rate of taxation, is determined by the legislature itself, the taxpayers who are to be charged with the taxes have a right to, and an opportunity to, be heard by the legislature upon the whole subject of the taxation, including the purpose of the tax, the needs of the public for the promotion of the object for which the taxes are to be imposed, the amount of taxation required for those needs, and the amount which can be properly and justly charged against the taxpayers. The right to such a hearing is the right of petition to the legislature upon the subject which is pending before the legislature and upon which it is proceeding to act. This right is a part of the law of the land. Cooley on Const. Lim., 7th ed., 497, 498; 2 Story on the Constitution, § 1894; United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542; Citizens' Bank v. Board of Assessors, 54 Fed. Rep. 73. The constitution of Michigan grants to the taxpayers the absolute right to a hearing before the legislature upon the measures to be adopted for their taxation. Article XVIII, § 10; The State Tax-Law Cases, 54 Michigan, 350. This court has held that the determination of a district for taxation—that is, what property shall be subject to taxation |