The objection to such statutes is that they deprive the citizen of a valuable property right, to wit: the right to pursue a lawful calling.1 It is claimed to be in violation of the due process of law clause of the state and federal constitutions, as well as the privilege and immunity clause of the federal constitution. The sole question is this: Is the evil of unrestricted banking so great that the police power can take it wholly away, or is the legislature required, the business not being a nuisance,2 to prevent the evil by proper regulation? It is not impossible, it would seem, by requiring the capital stock of a private banker to be paid in, and by providing in some safe way for the double liability of that capital stock, by a deposit of securities to make private banking as safe as corporate banking. But it is apparent that, if this were done, and the private banker required to deposit securities, to make his responsibility equal to the double responsibility of the stockholders of a corporation, the private banker would cease to exist. This is, perhaps, the easiest way for a legislature to accomplish indirectly such a result,'if it is so desired. The objection of class legislation, and of a discrimination against the private banker, would need to be met and overcome; but it could be said that the law, applying to all private bankers alike, could not be class legislation. If the legislation attacked consists, however, of a positive prohibition against private bankers, the constitutional question must be fairly met. It is likely that the decision will depend upon the private views of the members of the court upon the proper system of political philosophy. If they are devotees of the laissezfaire doctrine of government, they will adopt the rule of non-prohibition. If, however, they belong to the opposing school of political thought, they will follow the opposite rule, for the question belongs far more to politics than it does to law. It will require a very accurate knowledge of the general opinions of the judges composing a court of appeal to form any conjecture as to the probable decision. We are likely to have much judicial exposition upon this question in the near future.3

2 Nance v. Hemphill, 1 Ala. 551; State v. Stebbins, 1 Stew. (Ala.) 299. Chief Justice Taney, in Bank of Augusta v. Earle, says that the case of State v. Stebbins could only be considered as applying to banks of issue.

3 State v. Woodmansee, 1 N. Dak. 246.

4 State v. Scougal, 3 S. Dak. 55.

1 The usual authorities are cited in the cases above noted. For discussions of the general subject, not confined to banking, see 25 Am. Law Rev. 871, and 27 Am. Law Rev. 857.

2 Attorney-General v. Bank of Niagara, 1 Hopk. Ch. 403; Attorney-General v. Insurance Co., 2 Johns. Ch. 371. Both these oases held that an injunction would not lie at the suit of the state against the unlawful exercise of banking privileges.

'The flow of judicial rhetoric, which is not always in the best literary taste, has already begun. ""Whence, then," the justice writing the opinion in State v. Scougal, supra, indignantly exclaims, "did the legislature of this state derive its power to farm out these privileges to corporations, and to deny to individual citizens the right to exercise them, which he and his-