PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 295 



This was the idea of Alexander Hamilton, who in the early- 

 days of the republic favored state interference with the pursuits 

 of the people to a large extent, as the best method by which do- 

 mestic manufacturing should be stimulated by the state. This 

 idea, however, found no more favor with the parties specially 

 interested at that time than it would at present ; inasmuch as a 

 brief practical experience would so soon demonstrate the small- 

 ness of the revenue necessary to be raised by honest taxation for 

 the direct maintenance of an industry by the state, in comparison 

 with the amount raised, for the most part by inequitable and un- 

 just taxation for the support of that form of interference by the 

 state with production which goes under the name of " protection," 

 as to make any long toleration of the latter policy by a free peo- 

 ple exceedingly unlikely. 



Generic Difference between the "Taxing" and "Po- 

 lice" Powers op the State. Attention is next asked to the 

 generic difference between the "taxing" and "police" powers of 

 the state (to which a brief reference has been made already), and 

 to the incongruities and governmental abuses that inevitably 

 result from a lack of full recognition of this fact. The object of 

 the taxing power is to raise money to defray the expenditures of 

 the state, and proof and argument seem conclusive that it can not 

 be legitimately used for anything else. By the power of police is 

 understood the internal' regulation of the affairs of the state in 

 the interest of good order. The idea, therefore, of resorting to 

 taxation for the purpose of protecting individuals against their 

 own foolishness, enforcing morality, preventing social evils, or as 

 an instrumentality for the punishment of crime, is to pervert an 

 agency from the one sole purpose for which it can rightfully exist 

 to another less fit and not warranted by necessity, and presupposes 

 an entire misconception of the principles of a free government ; 

 and all perversions of this power are certain to entail evils greater 

 than the abuses which it is devised to remedy. If the prosecution 

 of any trade or occupation, or the manufacture and use of any 

 product constitutes an evil of sufficient magnitude to call for ad- 

 verse legislation, let the state proceed against it directly, coura- 

 geously, and with determination. To impose taxes upon an evil 

 in any degree short of its prohibition is in effect to recognize and 

 license this evil. To demand a portion of the gains of a person 

 practicing fraud, may be an effectual method for putting an end 

 to his knavery by making his practices unprofitable ; but it would 

 be, all the same, a very poor way for a state to adopt as a means 



political objections to the protective system can not be made so clear as by inquiring how 

 the plan of distributing the money directly by the public Treasury would work." E. L. 

 GoDKiN, Problems of Modern Democracy. 



