of no account; but the second, given in the case of Austin v. Low, in 1872, admitted of no misinterpretation. Yet, so reluctant were the Boston assessors to have the unlimited power necessary to enforce unlimited taxation abridged in any degree that they proposed to petition Congress to nullify the Court decisions, by enacting that the States might tax imported goods like general merchandise if they would; unmindful of the fact that the tenth section of the first article of the Federal Constitution expressly forbids Congress from making any such enactment.*

Third. We have the fiction of law, "that personal property follows the owner" for purposes of taxation, broken in upon in respect to all personal property represented by ships, by the decisions of the U. S. Supreme Court (St. Louis v. Ferry Co., 11 Wallace; and Hayes v. Pacific Mail Co., 17 Howard), that the situs of a vessel for State taxation is only at the home port where she is owned and registered, and not where the vessel or owners may happen to be.

Fourth. The decision of the U. S. Supreme Court (State Tax on Foreign-held Bonds, 18 Wallace), that public securities have a situs where found, and cannot be elsewhere regarded as property subject to taxation, pretty effectually exempts from State taxation all negotiable instruments, State, municipal, railroad, and other corporate bonds; - inasmuch as to remove such property from the territory of a State, at the same time removes it for all purposes from the State's jurisdiction; as "the tax laws of the State," according to the Court," can have no extra-territorial operation.”

Fifth. In the case of Tappan v. Merchants' National Bank (19 Wallace) the U. S. Supreme Court (1873) decided in the case of shares in National Banks (and inferentially in respect to shares in all other similar corporate bodies), that when a citizen of one State purchases such evidences of property in another State "his money invested in the shares is withdrawn from taxation under the authority of the State in which he resides,

"No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any imposts, or duties, on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws; and the net produce of all duties and imposts laid by any State on imports or exports shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States."- Constitution of the United States, Section 10, Article 1.

and submitted to the taxing power of the State where, in contemplation of the law, his investment is located." And in conformity with, and following this decision, the Supreme Court of New York has since held (1875) that certificates owned by a resident of New York, of stock in corporations created by and under the laws of other States "are not in themselves property" in New York, but "simply representatives of capital or property employed in business in other States, and therefore not taxable in New York."

In addition to these decisions of our highest tribunal, which irrevocably break in upon and demolish so much of the old practice of local taxation in the States, other points involving equally radical innovations are certain to come up for adjudication at no distant day; such, for example, as the limitation on the taxing powers of the States created by that clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, " Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law"; or that other clause, "Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State," the future application of which to the limitation of taxation by the States was foreshadowed in the celebrated case of Green v. Van Buskirk (5 Wallace, 307); or the practical application of the decision in the same direction by the United States Supreme Court in the case of the State Freight Tax (15 Wallace), "That the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of a State tax is to be determined, not by the form or agency through which it is to be collected, but by the subject upon which the burden is laid"; and also the question of extra-territorial taxation involved in the assessment of inter-state contracts as property, and other similar questions. It is, of course, impossible to predict what will be at first affirmed to be Constitutional law in these future cases; but it can be certainly affirmed that the spirit of the age, and the necessity of freeing all inter-state exchange and commerce from all impediments will sooner or later demand that freedom in the highest sense shall be the rule governing the

* The stocks directly involved in this decision were the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific; Milwaukee and St. Paul; St. Louis, Alton, and Terre Haute, and the Wilkesbarre Coal; but the principle applies of course to stocks of all foreign corporations held by citizens of New York.

movement of all property equally with the movement of all persons.

Such then is an imperfect exhibit of the antiquated, accidental, unjust, demoralizing, and absurd method,—not worthy of being called a system, -adopted by all the States of the Federal Union with a single exception, for raising annually from the people between two hundred and fifty and three hundred millions of dollars, a burden which twenty years ago would have seemed impossible for the nation to sustain in addition to meeting the requirements for Federal expenditure.*

*To show that this characterization has in it nothing of exaggeration, attention is here asked to the following novel method by which Hon. George H. Andrews, one of the Commissioners of Taxes for the City of New York, strikingly contrasted and illustrated in 1874 to a Committee of the Legislature, the inequalities and incongruities of the existing tax laws of New York. A has $100,000 of imported goods,

miscellaneous goods,

and is exempt.

66

taxed.

с

a corporation,

"And if the alphabet had been longer my statement had been stronger."

taxed.

That the system is a success in the sense that it is effective for raising the required revenue must be admitted; but the old Asiatic system, which limited its exactions to a few individuals, and sent the public executioner to keep company with the collector, was equally a success, and far more simple and economical. That the existing system has also many defenders and advocates must also be further admitted; but this phenomenon admits of explanation, partially on the principle, that in all cases of fraud upon the public, it is only necessary to get up a quantum sufficit of any wrong, to make it certain that the abomination will powerfully defend itself; and partially for a reason similar to that which induces the Esquimaux and the Guinea negro, who have never known anything different from their natural surroundings, to respectively imagine their own country and climate to be superior to any other.

On the other hand it is undoubtedly a fact, and one most encouraging, that by almost all thoughtful men, who have felt sufficient interest in the subject of local taxation to examine it in the light of the recent reports, investigations, and court decisions, the conclusion has been arrived at that the American system as it exists at present in the majority of the States is too imperfect and too adverse to the general public interests to be either defended or allowed to continue for any great length of time without radical changes; and yet at the same time this other fact is equally certain, that out of the very considerable number thus convinced,-which within the knowledge of the writer includes many leading members of the judiciary, of the bar, and of the corps of local fiscal administrators in all parts of the country, very few have made progress enough in their investigations and reasoning to come to any definite opinion, either as to what new plan should be at once substituted for the existing system, or in what gradual manner it is practicable or expedient to begin the work of reform. "If we were to commence de novo," writes an eminent member of the bar of one of the New England States, "I would oppose most earnestly the adoption of any system of local taxation analogous to that which we have at present; but in view of existing precedents, prejudices, and the stereotyped way of doing things, I hesitate about attempting radical innovations."

An ex-chief justice of one of the leading States of the West, under date of December, 1875, also thus expresses himself, “Our tax system, I was going to say, is as bad as possible; but really we have no system. Our tax laws are mainly bad. Federal taxation, to a large extent, is laid for private purposes, and public offices and public sentiment is debauched by it. What can the courts do to better this condition of things? They may punish a rascal now and then, but bad taxation is apt to corrupt the officers of justice, including in some instances even the judges. On the other hand, if reformers are to address themselves to State Legislatures, what do they encounter? 1st. A greedy hoard of leeches who would have the tax laws shaped to benefit themselves and not the country. 2d. A majority of the legislature with so little knowledge of the principles of taxation, that they willingly present the breasts of themselves and their constituents for the leeches to fasten upon, under the pleasing delusion that life blood is to be imparted by them instead of being drawn away. And these are not all the difficulties, for much of the legislation that is inspired only by correct motives is vicious because the subject is not understood by those who would deal with it."

Under such a condition of things one inquiry which naturally suggests itself is: Are there any precedents or examples in the past, of the removal or reform of national systems of taxation which had become oppressive, from the consideration of which any profit can be gained? And in answer it may be said, that there are at least two examples, in which the historical details of experience, although not as yet specially gathered up and recorded, can be traced with undoubted accuracy; namely, the experiences of England and of France. In the latter country, feudalism, previous to the revolution of 1789, had come to find its expression almost exclusively in the claims on the part of the various and multiplied representatives of authority-nobility and clergy-to regulate taxation-in respect to both imposition and exemption. Taxation was, therefore, everywhere, in the highest degree arbitrary; the infinitesimal, inquisitorial, dooming, penalty system, was carried out in perfection; feudal personal services were compounded for frequent direct and indirect periodical taxes,