en fixed by
appropriate procedure, collection of a tax by distress and seizure of
his person does not deprive him of liberty without due process of
law.[620] Nor is a foreign insurance company denied due process of law
when its personal property is distrained to satisfy unpaid taxes.[621]

The requirements of due process are fulfilled by a statute which, in
conjunction with affording an opportunity to be heard, provides for the
forfeiture of titles to land for failure to list and pay taxes thereon
for certain specified years.[622] No less constitutional, as a means of
facilitating collection, is an _in rem_ proceeding, to which the land
alone is made a party, whereby tax liens on land are foreclosed and all
pre-existing rights or liens are eliminated by a sale under a decree in
said proceeding.[623] On the other hand, while the conversion of an
unpaid special assessment into both a personal judgment therefor against
the owner as well as a charge on the land is consistent with the
Fourteenth Amendment,[624] a judgment imposing personal liability
against a nonresident taxpayer over whom the State court acquired no
jurisdiction is void.[625] Apart from such restraints, however, a State
is free to adopt new remedies for the collection of taxes and even to
apply new remedies to taxes already delinquent.[626]

EMINENT DOMAIN

Historical Development

"Prior to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment," the power of
eminent domain, which is deemed to inhere in every State and to be
essential to the performance of its functions,[627] "was unrestrained by
any federal authority."[628] An express prohibition against the taking
of private property for public use without just compensation was
contained in the Fifth Amendment; but an effort to extend the
application thereof to the States had been defeated by the decision, in
1833, in Barron _v._ Baltimore.[629] The most nearly comparable
provision included in the Fourteenth Amendment, was the prohibition
against a State depriving a person of property without due process of
law. The Court was accordingly confronted with the task of determining
whether this restraint on State action, minus the explicit provision for
just compensation found in the Fifth Amendment, afforded property owners
the same measure of protection as did the latter in its operation as a
limitation on the Federal Government. The Court's initial answer to this
question, as set forth in Davidson _v._ New Orlean