298 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The lesson of all history is to the effect that, save in the case 

 of war or invasion, nations have rarely or never lost a freedom 

 once possessed, except through the tolerance (born of indifference) 

 of a succession of gradual and insidious perversions and weaken- 

 ing of those fundamental principles which must be maintained 

 unimpaired to make popular liberty possible. And it is alike 

 startling and discouraging to note how rapidly, in recent years, 

 the United States, as a political entity, has been traveling in this 

 direction. 



Theory of the Power of Taxation originally enter- 

 tained BY the American People. The idea of using the power 

 of taxation for other purposes than that of obtaining revenue for 

 defraying the necessary expenditure of the Government, was one 

 hostile at the outset to all the beliefs and habits of thought of the 

 American people; was totally incongruous with the social and 

 political system which they instituted and expected, and was re- 

 luctantly admitted under the idea that the industries of a new 

 country might need some temporary stimulus and assistance at 

 the outset.* The party (old Whig) that in subsequent years 

 specially advocated the policy protection to domestic industries, 

 always also admitted that the Federal Government had no origi- 

 nal right to exercise the power of taxation except for revenue, 

 but it claimed that taxes on imports might and should be so 

 adjusted as to afford protection for our infant industries. And 

 in this they were joined by some members of the other great 

 national party the Democratic who argued in favor of what 

 was called "incidental" protection, or the protection which inevi- 

 tably results in a greater or less degree from the imposition of 

 duties without any such premeditated purpose. 



Theory and Practice of Later Days. But it was not un- 

 til after the termination of the war in 1865 that anybody in the 

 United States ventured to openly maintain or defend the proposi- 

 tion that protection was other than the incidental, and not the 

 main object of the exercise of the taxing power, although this 

 perversion of principle was tacitly recognized by the imposition 

 and continuance of taxes which had for their intent, or resulted 

 in a prevention of the raising of revenue. 



Illustrative Examples of the Practical Perversion of 

 the Theory and Principles op Taxation. One of the most 

 instructive examples of this kind was afforded by the imposition 

 of a tax in 1809 of five cents a pound on the importation of crude 

 or unmanufactured copper ; which proved so prohibitive that in 



* The doctrine of Hamilton was that while the pajTneut of bounties for the encourage- 

 ment of new industrial undertakings was justiBable, their " continuance on manufactures 

 long established was most questionable." Report on Manufacturer, 1791. 



