46. In the operations of government, the delegation of authority by the executive, the legislative, or the judiciary is rare. The constitutional test, in either case, is purpose and authority. Thus a municipal corporation is a representative not only of the State, but is a portion of its governmental power. It is one of its creatures, made for a specific purpose, to exercise within a limited sphere the powers of the State. “The action is no less a portion of the sovereign authority when it is done through the agency of a town or city corporation.”[120] Thus a tax authorized by the State Legislature, to be imposed by a municipal corporation is a good tax in law, provided it is for a public purpose. This is not a delegation of the taxing power, but is the exercise of it by the Legislature. The municipality itself has no power to tax, or even to be a municipality, save by authority of the State, usually by the constitution, vested in its Legislature. The amount of the tax, the subjects of taxation, the method of assessment and of collection are wholly within the discretion of the Legislature. The exemption of churches, schools, colleges, and charitable institutions may or may not be required by a State constitution. If this is silent on the subject, the question is wholly one of legislative discretion. A charitable institution has no fundamental right to exemption from taxation, as a person has a fundamental right to “due process of law.”[121] The principle of exemption from taxation is that taxation of the person or the property tends to destroy the powers or to impair the efficiency of the State.[122] 47. A tax must not only be laid by authority but it must be for a public purpose. Thus any assessment imposed upon persons or property by the government, State or federal, for the gain, emolument, or advantage of a private person, or an official, is unconstitutional. The purpose must be public, as for example, for schools, highways, canals, public buildings, markets, asylums, jails, or to keep the same in repair and to use them for public purposes. The Legislature cannot authorize a town or a county, or any subdivision of the State, to raise money for other than public purposes and uses. It cannot confer benefits on individuals, however meritorious, by taxation.[123] 48. Taxes, imposed under the Constitution, have been classed as direct or indirect,—the direct being apportionable among the States according to population; the indirect being uniform throughout the United States.[124]