Opinion by PORTER, J. The interest it assumes to protect is that belonging to the debtor, be it more or less. The ownership of the team may be joint or several; it may be limited or absolute. Whatever it be, within the limitations of the statute the debtor's interest is exempt, in view of his own necessities, and of the probable destitution to which its loss might reduce a family dependent on him for support. The judgment should be affirmed. JOEL TIFFANY, State Reporter. Opinion by PARKER, J. STEPHEN W. HOWELL, APPELLANT, . THE CITY OF BUFFALO, RESPONDENT. Taxation-Powers of Legislature-Municipal Officers. The people have not ordained that taxation shall be general, so as to embrace all persons or all taxable persons within the State, or within any district or territorial division of the State, nor have they forbidden that it shall be apportioned according to the benefits which each taxpayer is supposed to receive from the object on which the tax is expended. The Legislature have authority to authorize a city to make an apportionment of a tax upon the profits of persons benefited by an improvement made, and for which the money had been expended, even though the city had paid for the improvement, and sought to raise the money by a tax to reimburse the corporation. PARKER, J.-This action was brought in the Superior Court of the city of Buffalo, under the authority of chapter 438 of the Laws of 1864, to test the validity of a certain assessment made by the city upon the lands of the Plaintiff, and others, by virtue of an act of the Legislature of this State, passed April 21, 1863, entitled "An act authorizing the Common Council of the city of Buffalo to make re-assessments to defray the expenses of local improvements on Niagara Street in said city." (Chap. 196, Sess. Laws of 1863.) The Defendant is a municipal corporation, and has power, under certain restrictions, to cause streets to be paved, and other local improvements to be made, and the expense thereof to be assessed upon the parcels of land in such city to be benefited by the improvement, in proportion to such benefit. As appears by the complaint, in 1859 the Defendant ordered Niagara Street to be graded and paved, and the expense thereof to be assessed upon the real estate benefited thereby. The assessment was accordingly made, amounting to $37,762, whereby the Plaintiff's lands, among others, were assessed. The Defendant contracted for the making of the improvement at the sum above mentioned, and it was made, and the contractor fully Opinion by PARKER, J. paid and satisfied therefor, $8,700 of the required sum being received from parties assessed, who voluntarily paid their assessments; and the balance, over $29,000, being borrowed from the general fund of the city. The lands-the assessments on which were not paid, including the Plaintiff's-were sold for the nonpayment of the respective assessments thereon, and were bid off at such sale by the Defendant, in default of other bidders, pursuant to a requirement in its charter, for the term of 100 years. The general fund was subsequently made good for the sum so borrowed from it by the issue and negotiation of bonds of the city, pursuant to another provision of the charter. The order directing the said improvement to be made, was adjudged by the Superior Court of the city of Buffalo, in November, 1862, to be without jurisdiction, and void, by reason of the want of the certificate of the city assessors, required by section 19 of title 8 of the city charter, as amended by the act of 1854. (Sess. Laws of 1854, chap. 69.) Thereupon the Defendant applied to the Legislature of the State and procured the passage of the act of April 21, 1863, above referred to; which act, after reciting the fact of the aforesaid order for the grading and paving of Niagara Street, in said city of Buffalo, and of the said assessment, and that the same had been declared null and void; and that the said improvement had been fully completed, and that it was just and equitable that the expense thereof should be paid by the owners of the real estate benefited thereby, and that the same should not be a charge upon all the taxable property of said city, enacted that the Common Council of the city of Buffalo, for the purpose of defraying the expenses of said improvement, are authorized and empowered to re-assess the sum of $32,266.76 on the real estate benefited by said improvement. On the 21st of September, 1863, the Common Council of the city of Buffalo directed the city assessors to assess that sum upon the real estate in said city benefited by said improvement, in proportion to the benefit resulting therefrom. Whereupon the assessors, pursuant to the authority of said direction and said act, made a re-assessment of said sum on said real estate, including the Opinion by PARKER, J. real estate of the Plaintiff, in the complaint described, which reassessment was confirmed by the Common Council of said city, and the roll of said re-assessment was placed in the hands of the receiver of taxes for said city for collection. The Plaintiff avers, that if the sum of $2,000 and proceeds (parcel of said re-assessment of $32,266.76) so assessed upon the premises of the Plaintiff shall not be paid, the said several parcels of land of the Plaintiff will be sold for such non-payment. The Plaintiff demands judgment declaring the said re-assessment, as to the lands of the Plaintiff, illegal and void; and that the Defendant and its agents be perpetually enjoined from enforcing or collecting the same. The Defendant demurred to the complaint, and the Court, in General Term, sustained the demurrer, and gave judgment for the Defendant. The ground upon which the Plaintiff resists the enforcement of the re-assessment is, that the act of the Legislature, under and by virtue of which it was made, is unconstitutional and void. The doctrine that a statute which authorizes a municipal corporation to grade and improve streets, and to assess the expense among the owners and occupants of lands benefited by the improvement, in proportion to the amount of such benefit, is constitutional, as was held by this Court in the People v. Mayor, &c., of Brooklyn (4 Coms. 419), is not controverted by him, but that inasmuch as the assessment in question was made after the improvement had been paid for by the city, and after the Plaintiff had come into the full enjoyment of its benefits, and the money raised by such assessment was, by the act, required to be paid into the treasury of the city, for the purpose of reimbursing it for moneys advanced to defray the expenses of said improvements, it was not an assessment to pay for the improvement, and so not within the rule of the case above referred to. And his And his proposition is, that to make the assessment valid, the benefit must be conferred at the time, and as a result and necessary consequence of the making and collection of the assessment; that if this is not so it violates that part of section 6 of article 1 of the Constitution which is as follows: "Nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." It is settled by the Opinion by PARKER, J. case above cited, that an assessment for local improvements, when made upon the owner of lands benefited in proportion to the amount of such benefit, is an exercise of the taxing power. The levying and collection of taxes is not within the meaning of the clause of the Constitution referred to-the taking of private property for public use; but this provision applies to the taking of property under the exercise of the right of eminent domain. This is evident from the following provision in the next section of the article (art. 1, § 7): "When private property shall be taken for any public use, the compensation to be made therefor, when such compensation is not made by the State, shall be ascertained by a jury, or by not less than three commissioners appointed by a Court of Record, as shall be prescribed by law." This requirement is clearly inapplicable to the collection of taxes, and shows that the prohibition against the taking of private property for public use, without just compensation, is not contravened by the act in question. It is equally manifest that the other constitutional prohibition, also contained in art. 1, § 6, that no person shall "be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law," could not have been intended as a restriction upon the taxing power of the Legislature, and has not been violated by this act. In discussing the power of taxation vested in the Legislature, the learned Judge who gave the opinion of this Court in the case of The People v. Mayor, &c., of Brooklyn (supra), said: "It must be conceded that the power of taxation, and of apportioning taxation, or of assigning to each individual his share of the burthen, is vested exclusively in the Legislature, unless this power is limited or restrained by some constitutional provision. The power of taxing, and the power of apportioning taxation, are identical, and inseparable. Taxes cannot be laid without apportionment; and the power of apportionment is, therefore, unlimited, unless it be restrained as a part of the power of taxation. There is not, and since the original organization of the State government there has not been, any such constitutional limitation or restraint. The people have not ordained that taxation shall be general, so * |