bers of our public servants, and guilty
complicity in it on the part of many more. Under a system of direct
taxation, assessments can be more equitably made, and their expenditure
will be more carefully watched, than in the case of indirect taxation;
while the latter method is more likely to find favor with those who hold
or seek public office, as encouraging a larger freedom of expenditure, and
supporting a larger number of needless functionaries at the public cost.

The law, also, authorizes *the appropriation of specific portions of
property to public uses*, as for streets, roads, aqueducts, and public
grounds, and even in aid of private enterprises in which the community has
a beneficial interest, as of canals, bridges, and railways. This is
necessary, and therefore right. It is obvious that, but for this, the most
essential facilities and improvements might be prevented, or burdened with
unreasonable costs, by the obstinacy or cupidity of individuals. The
conditions under which such use of private property is justified are, that
the improvement proposed be for the general good, that a fair compensation
be given for the property taken, and that as to both these points, in case
of a difference of opinion, the ultimate appeal shall be to an impartial
tribunal or arbitration.

3. *The right to reputation.* Every man has a right to the reputation he
deserves, and is under obligation to respect that right in every other
man. This obligation is violated, not only by the fabrication of slander,
but equally by its repetition, unless the person who repeats it knows it
to be true, and also by silence and seeming acquiescence in an injurious
report, if one knows or believes it to be false. But has a man a right to
a better reputation than he deserves? Certainly not, in a moral point of
view; and if men could be generally known to be what they are, few would
fail to become what they would wish to seem. Yet the law admits the truth
of a slanderous charge in justification of the slanderer, only when it can
be shown that the knowledge of the truth is for the public benefit. There
are good reasons for this attitude of the law, without reference to any
supposed rights of the justly accused party. There is, in many instances,
room for a reasonable doubt as to evil reports that seem authentic, and in
many more instances there may be extenuating circumstances which form a
part of the case, though almost never, of the report. Then, too,