hands of the creditors. With them they are property, "but to call them property in the hands of the debtors is simply to misuse terms." Shares in a corporation are also the shares of the stock. holder wherever he may have his domicile, and if taxed to him as his personal estate, can only be so taxed by the jurisdiction to which his person is subject, whether the corporation be foreign or domestic.2

If it were practicable to do so, the taxes levied by any govern ment ought to be apportioned among the people according to the benefit which each receives from the protection the government affords him; but this is manifestly impossible. The value of life and liberty, and of the social and family rights and privileges cannot be measured by any pecuniary standard; and by the general consent of civilized nations, income or the sources of income are almost universally made the basis upon which the ordinary taxes

1Case of State Tax on Foreign Held Bonds, 15 Wall., 300, 319, 320, per Field, J., overruling several Pennsylvania cases. See also Hayne v. Deliesseline, 3 McCord, 374; Oliver v. Washington Mills, 11 Allen, 268.

Great Barrington v. County Commissioners, 16 Pick., 572; Newark City Bank v. The Assessor, 30 N. J., 13; State v. Branin, 23 N. J., 484; State v. Bentley, 23 id., 532; Whitsell v. Northampton County, 49 Penn. St., 526; post ch. III. This statement must, however, be subject to the qualification that a foreign corporation must always accept the privilege of transacting business in a state, on such terms as the state may see fit to exact.

Mr. Thorold Rogers says, in his Treatise on Political Economy, that if taxation were determined by the comparative protection accorded to individuals, women and children should pay a higher rate than strong and healthy adults, since they have more need of assistance; and, if the law be effectual, get more. And this, he shows, was in fact the theory of medieval (feudal) finance. "The lord protected his vassal, the vassal assisted his lord by his service or by his purse. But minors under the English military tenures, and women under some forms of the military assize, were in the hands of guardians, who were enabled to take the rents or profits of their estates, without account, during legal incapacity. The reason given was that there was no reciprocity of service in these cases, and the plea might be justified, because, in an age of violence, weakness taxes the energies of defense more than it excites the sentiment of pity. A more generous and less utilitarian theory has gradually prevailed. It is held that for practical purposes, and under the conditions of organized society, the strongest is too much indebted to the security which a wise and just government gives, to allow any such comparison between his condition and the condition of the weakest, as shall tend to lay a heavier im. post on the latter." Ch. 21. See also Mill, Pol. Econ., b. v. ch. 2, § 3.

are estimated. This is upon the assumption, never wholly true in point of fact, but sufficiently near the truth for the practical operations of government, that the benefit received from the government is in proportion to the property held, or the revenue enjoyed under its protection;1 and though this can never be arrived at with accuracy, through the operation of any general rule, and would not be wholly just if it could be, experience has given us no better standard, and it is applied in a great variety of forms, and with more or less approximation to justice and equality. But, as before stated, other considerations are always admissible; what is aimed at is, not taxes strictly just, but such taxes as will best subserve the general welfare of the political society.”

1 "The idea of property consists in an established expectation, in the persua sion of being able to draw such or such an advantage from the thing possessed, according to the nature of the case. Now this expectation, this persuasion can only be the work of the law. I cannot count upon the enjoyment of that which I regard as mine, except through the promise of the law which guaranties it to me. It is law alone which permits me to forget my natural weakness. It is only through the protection of the law that I am able to inclose a field, and to give myself up to its cultivation with the sure though distant hope of harvest." * “Property and law are born together and die together. Before laws were made there was no property; take away laws and property ceases." Bentham, Theory of Legislation. Works, Edinb. ed., vol. I, p. 308. And speaking of the right to property, he justly adds: “It is that right which has vanquished the natural aversion to labor; which has given to man the empire of the earth; which has brought to an end the migratory life of nations; which has produced the love of country and a regard for posterity." See Wayland, Pol. Econ., b. 4, ch. 3, §1; Rogers' Pol. Econ., ch. 21.

**

'An early Maryland law recited that, "fines, duties or taxes may properly and justly be imposed or laid with a political view for the good government and benefit of the community." Upon this Chancellor Bland comments as follows: "A citizen may have a fine imposed upon him as a punishment for his misdemeanor or crime; a duty may be imposed as a means of insuring good conduct, and in aid of the police, as in the form of a duty for a license to keep a tavern, to retail spirituous liquors, to keep a billiard table, etc.; a treble tax may be imposed with a political view, as upon non-jurors during a war, etc." Williams's Case, 3 Bland Ch., 186, 257. In the same case the learned Chancellor refers to statutes of the colony which taxed bachelors as such. This was not because they had more to be protected by the government than other persons, but probably from a variety of reasons, one of the most influ ential being that presumptively, they were better able to bar the burdens of government, than men with families dependent upon the, or unmarried females whose income would commonly be less.

The taxes governments have been accustomed to lay. In modern times, governments have been accustomed to levy a great variety of taxes; sometimes relying upon a single kind for all the needs of the state, and sometimes levying a number of different kinds with a view to distribute the burden more equally or more to the general acceptance. None of these can invariably operate justly, but all have advantages that may make one desirable under one set of circumstances, and another the best when circumstances have changed. Those which have been most common will be briefly referred to.

Capitation Taxes. These are not a common resort in modern times, and only in a few cases could they be either just or politic. As they regard only the person, they must be shared equally by all, except under governments where privileged orders are recognized, and where they might be graded according to the orders to which the several persons taxed belong. If the tax is graded by property, it is obviously something besides a capitation

tax.

Land Taxes. These may be measured by the production, by the rent, or by the value. The first method has seldom been resorted to in enlightened periods. To some extent it would operate as a discouragement to industry; and, while it might not be burdensome to the cultivators of very productive estates, it might preclude poor lands, whose production would barely pay for cultivation, from being cultivated at all; in other words, would be equal to the whole rental value. A tax, measured by rents, will usually come nearer to being a tax on the actual revenue of the land proprietor; and this standard is more common. A variety of land taxes, under different names, has been levied in Eng

'The taxes assessed by this name have not always been taxes levied on persons, but sometimes taxes exacted from districts or provinces, and measured by the capita. Such were the capitation taxes levied under the Roman Empire, in apportioning which among individuals, one might represent several capita, according to his wealth in land, while others escaped the tax entirely. Gibbon's Decline and Fall, ch. 17.

'It was made use of under the Roman Empire. Gibbon's Decline and Fall, ch. 17. It has been occasionally employed in recent times. Tithes for the support of the Established Church in England were so measured.

land, merging at last in a general land tax, measured by rent, and apportioned to the municipal divisions. As, however, this tax is based upon valuations made in the fourth year of William and Mary (1692), it is extremely unequal, and perhaps only continues to be acquiesced in because a very small portion only of the whole revenue is raised by it.1 In this country, land taxes are commonly laid by value. This is subject to some objections. In order to insure equality, it is necessary, in a new and rapidly improving country, that there should be frequent valuations, and this requires a great official force, and involves heavy expense. The apportionment of this expense among towns or other small divisions of territory, the people of which are allowed to choose the officers, reconciles them to the burden, and, in many of the states, a new valuation is made annually. An objection, theoretically more serious, is, that a tax by assessed value is often (where the land is poor and unproductive, or where it is wild and uncultivated) a tax which is paid from capital instead of from revenue. A tax to be thus paid cannot long continue, and is seldom to be purposely laid; but, in particular instances, almost any tax will be such. And in this country, where a considerable portion of the community invest in lands with a view to profit from the rise in value, unproductive and uncultivated lands cannot be exempted from taxation because of the hardships of individual cases, without exempting a large portion of the wealth of the state now legitimately invested where it is insuring large profits to the owner.

Taxes on Houses. These, except where the houses are treated. as appurtenances to the lands, have been measured by rents, and

11 Bl. Com., 307; 1 Broom & Hadley's Com., 368, 372.

In the light of the experience we have of the American system, it is interesting to note what is said by Adam Smith: "A land tax assessed accordding to a general survey and valuation, how equal soever it may be at first, must, in the course of a very moderate period of time, become unequal. To prevent its becoming so would require the continual and painful attention of government to all the variations in the state and produce of every different farm in the country," * * "an attention so unsuitable to the nature of government, that it is not likely to be of long continuance, and which, if it is continued, will probably, in the long run, occasion much more trouble and vexation than it can possibly bring relief to the contributors." Wealth of Nations, b. v, ch. 2, pt. 2.

sometimes by hearths and windows. A hearth tax was obnoxious, because, among other reasons, it involved inquisitorial visits of officers to inspect rooms; and both hearth and window taxes tended to limit among the poor the use of these conveniences, so important not only to comfort, but to health. Both are now abolished in England.

Taxes on Income. These may be on all incomes, or on all with such exemption as will enable the tax payer in a frugal manner to support himself and his family. The latter is the course usually adopted, and in some cases incomes in excess of the exemption have been taxed a larger percentage as they increased in amount. The reasons which favor this discrimination would also justify a heavier proportionate tax on the thrifty classes in other cases; and the principle once admitted there is no reason but its own discretion why the legislature should stop short of imposing the whole burden of government on the few who exhibit most energy, enterprise and thrift. Such a discrimination is a penalty on the possession of these qualities. But any income tax is also objectionable, because it is inquisitorial, and because it teaches the people evasion and fraud. No means at the command of the government has ever enabled it to arrive with anything like accuracy at the incomes of its citizens, and they resist its inquisitions in all practical modes, not only because they desire to avoid as far as possible the public burdens which they are certain are not to be equally imposed, but also because they are not willing that their private affairs and the measure of their prosperity should be exposed to the public.1 The taxes imposed on incomes by the United States during and immediately following the late war were escaped by a large proportion of those who should have paid them, and the assessors' returns were a wholly inadequate indication of the annual private revenue of the country. In the United States, also, such a tax is unequal because those holding lands for the rise in value escape it altogether—at least until they sell, though their actual increase in wealth may be great and sure.

Taxes on Employments. A tax on the privilege of carrying on

1 Gibbon refers to torture employed under the Empire to ascertain the profits of employments. See Decline and Fall, ch. 17. Its employment upon the Jews in England is a familiar fact in history.