against the exemption of magistrates, passed unheeded.

On

November 2d, 1680, the deputies passed an order that thereafter "no person of what quality soever" should be exempted from the country rates for either his person or his estate, except such persons as were disabled by sickness, lameness or other bodily infirmity, who should be exempted for their persons only, and elders regularly ordained over churches, who should be exempted for estates of their own, under their own management. This vote, evidently aimed at the magistrates, was lost by the non-concurrence of that body. On the whole, there seems to have been no general or long-continued dissatisfaction on account of exemptions during the period under review.

§ 10. Collection: Officers; Difficulties.

The machinery for collecting taxes in Massachusetts was from the earliest times exceedingly simple. It may have been the fact that the constable was already "armed with very large powers, of arresting and impressing, of breaking open houses and the like," to the end that he might the more successfully perform his general duty of keeping the king's peace in his district, which first suggested him to our ancestors in England. as the most natural officer to whom to commit the collection of taxes a duty in the performance of which it would be necessary, in certain cases, to have recourse to the legal process of distress, or even to imprisonment. Although the first tax act of the court of assistants of the Massachusetts Bay Company in America3 fails to name the officer who should collect the tax, it is evident from the facts that it was to "be collected and levied by distress," and that for many years afterward no officer except the constable is mentioned in connection with collections, that the duties of that ancient

1 Felt's Massachusetts Archives, Vol. 100, p. 262.

2 Blackstone, Commentaries, I., 356.

3 September 28th, 1630.

officer transplanted to New England, as far as they concerned financial matters, had not been abridged by the colonists, and that from the very beginning he held in the financial system of Massachusetts the position which he continues to hold to-day. The difficulty of collecting the taxes at this early period is attested not only by the impowering of the officer to distrain for them,' but by the beginning, as early as 1636, of the practice of dividing a tax granted into two or more payments, several months apart,' and by the specific mention of arrears in acts of 1643 and various subsequent years and in various documents throughout the colonial period. It was largely this difficulty that led to the introduction of excises and imposts in 1644, and to various adjustments of the tariff at subsequent times, with a view to lessening the property tax.

SII. The United Colonies.

We are not surprised to find the principle of taxation according to ability to pay, upon which the Massachusetts system was thus early grounded and which was recognized in all the New England colonies, embodied in the articles of confedera

1 Massachusetts Records, I., 239.

2 Sometimes, as in the case above cited, September 7th, 1636, the second payment would be postponed to a time to be determined by the court in the future; in which case it usually happened that the time was never fixed and the payment never made.

3 The report of the committee to audit the treasurer's accounts, 1669-'70, mentions great delinquency in the payment of taxes outside of Boston and CharlesFelt's Massachusetts Archives, Vol. 100, pp. 147-154.

town.

4 November 13th.

5 The Magts being sensible that the Inhabitants of this Iurisdiction do in many respects Labour under those difficultyes which make the taxes of the country (though small comparatively) to be a great burden, do judge meet that a comittee be named & appoynted by this Court to consider of some expedient for help therein, by addition to customes, or other ways in such wise as may not dis. courage the trade & marchandize of the Country, and for yt end doe name," etc. This vote was lost by the non-concurrence of the deputies. See Felt's Massachusetts Archives, Vol. 100, p. 176.

tion adopted in August, 1643, by the colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven. The article relating to the raising of troops and funds for the commissioners of the United Colonies reads as follows:

"It is by these confederats agreed that the charge of all just warrs, whether offensiue or defensiue, upon what part or member of this confederacon soeuer they fall, shall both in men and provisions and all other disbursements, be borne by all the parts of this confederacon in different proporcons according to their different abilitie. And that according to the different members, which from tyme to tyme shalbe formed in eich jurisdiccon, upon a true and just account, the service of men and all charges of warr be borne by the polls: eich jurisdiccon or plantacon being left to their own just course and custome of rating themselues and people according to their differant estates, with due respect to their qualities and exemptions among themselves, though the confederacon take no notice of any such priviledg: and that according to their different charge of eich jurisdiccon and plantacon, the whole advantage of the warr (if it please God to bless their endeavours) whether it be in lands, goods or persons, shalbe proportionably divided among the said confederats."

§12. Efforts toward Improvement.

From all the foregoing it is sufficiently evident that the system of taxation in operation in Massachusetts Bay, never yet very effective, was every day becoming less adequate to the needs of a now rapidly growing colony. There was a feeling that it was the constables who were at fault; and on November 13th, 1645, the general court, in a spasm of administrative reform ordered them-" Every constable that now is or hereafter hath binn"- to clear up their accounts with the treasurer by the first of May yearly, on penalty of being fined £5 apiece; and they were given the power of impressing boats and carts to enable them to transport the commodities in which the taxes might be paid. Under date of October 7th, 1646, the

1 Hazard, II., 2, 3; quoted by Felt, Statistics, 230.

2 Massachusetts Records, IV., Pt. I., 247.

general court, considering that it had incurred the necessary expense of sending an agent to England, and that the treasurer reported no money in the treasury, recorded its conviction that the constables, marshals, auditor or treasurer were to blame, and chose a committee of three to investigate the matter and prosecute the delinquents. We have seen no account of the report of this committee; but within less than a month, on November, 4th 1646, an act was passed which is here subjoined in full, because, simple as it is, it yet placed the whole tax system on a more scientific footing, and so marks the beginning of a new period in the financial history of the colony.

"For ye avoiding of all complaints by reason of unequal rates either of towns or psons, occasioned through ye want of one genrall way and rule of rateing through out ye country, and yt levies hereafter may be more easy, equall, and certeine, it is hereby ordered, yt in all publike rates (till this Corte take further order therein) all sortes of cattle shalbe valued as hereafter exprest **** houses, lands of all sorts, marchantable goods, mills, shipps, lesser vessels and boates, cranes, wharfes, togeth wth all oth visible estate, reall or psonal, yt any pson is possessed of, or hath in his custody, eithr at sea or on shore, to be valued in ye severall townes according to their worth, in ye said places where they are, pportionable to ye aforesaid prizes of cattle; and it is ye meaning of this order yt because arable ground, medowe, and cattle are to be rated, yt therefore they, together wth all corne growing in ye country, in ye husbandmans hand, shall not be lyable to any rate; and for avoyding all partiality in rating lands and othr estate not pticularly prized in this ord", it is ordered yt yr shalbe by evry towne one of their inhabitants chosen by ye freemen of ye said towne, who, wth ye select townes men shall take the just numb" of their males, and also shall make a true valuation of all things rateable by this order, wch inhabitants aforsaid, for their severall townes respectively, shall meet in their shire townes upon ye 2th 4th day of ye first month next ensuing, to examine ye truth and equity of each towns pceeding herein, who shall correct and determine as to the maior pt of them seems right and iust to be done, according to ye true intent of this order; wch assesmts of ye severall townes

they shall undr their hands fortwith delivr to ye Treasurer, who shall also forthwth send forth his warrants for leviing ye same wth in one month, whereby he may have to answere ye engagemts of ye country; and assesmts for estates shall hereafter be made ye first 4th day of ye 6th mo, from time to time; but all levies for ye psons shalbe made and paid into ye treasury in ye first mo, from year to yeare, as is pvided in ye order aforesaid."

$ 13. Further Reforms.

So well does the reform thus inaugurated appear to have worked that an act of October 27th, 1647, instructed the colonial treasurer to send out notice every fifth month without further instruction, to the constable and selectmen of every town, requiring the constable to call together the inhabitants, who should elect one of their freemen to be commissioner, who together with the selectmen should make out a tax-list, submit it to the examination of the freemen and, after correction, transmit it to the treasurer as provided by the act of the previous year. The act further provided that if any commissioner or selectman were found guilty of neglect or falsifying, he should be fined forty shillings for each offence. Another section became the corollary of the act of May 16th, 1636, declaring that, inasmuch as so many owners of real estate living in the towns departed from them every year just in time. to escape being taxed, thereafter all real property should be taxed where it lay. Partly as a wise precaution against collusion between the assessors and the treasurer, and partly to give a newly-created officeṛ, the auditor-general, something to do, an act of May 10th, 1648, provided that the commissioners of the towns should transmit, within one month after their meetings in these towns, true transcripts of their tax-lists to the auditor-general, who should deliver them to the treasurer, to be collected as before. But now that an effort to render the tax system more effective was really beginning to be

1 Massachusetts Records, II., 174-'5.