6o4 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the purpose of enforcing morality, or as an instrumentality for 

 correction or punishment. 



Sixth. No tax should he levied the character and extent of 

 which offer, as human nature is generally constituted, a greater 

 inducement to the taxpayer to evade rather than pay. 



With a view of determining whether the above six proposi- 

 tions are so far fundamental and indisputable as to warrant their 

 characterization as " economic axioms/' attention is next asked to 

 the following summary of reasons, or evidence to that effect, 

 which may be separately adduced in respect to each one of them, 

 commencing with the first that no tax shoidd be imposed by a 

 state or government except by the consent of the people from whom 

 it is to be collected, given either directly or by their authorized rep- 

 resentatives in Congress, Legislature, or Parliament assembled. 

 "The right is then wedded to the power, and representation and 

 taxation become correlative." {Miller, Justice S. F., on the Con- 

 stitution.) 



It requires no great amount of thought to see that the princi- 

 ple involved in this proposition is not only an essential feature of 

 every just system of taxation, but also the primary and essential 

 condition of the existence of every system of free or popular 

 government. If this is not at once apparent," the following brief 

 historical retrospect ought to make it so : 



The first great effort recorded in English history for its recog- 

 nition and establishment as a fundamental principle of govern- 

 ment was made by the English barons in 1215, in their notable 

 struggle with King John, and resulted in the incorporation in the 

 Great Charter (Magna Charta) of England of a provision which 

 substantially forbade the king from imposing any taxes, except by 

 permission of the General Council of the nation, duly summoned 

 under writs regularly issued.* And it is interesting to note, as 

 showing the broad spirit of generous patriotism that animated 

 these rough old barons in their contest with King John, that they 

 stipulated in the Magna Charta that they extorted from him that 

 every limitation imposed in it for their protection upon the feudal 

 rights of the king should be also imposed upon their rights as 

 mesne lords (i. e., lords superior in the second degree) in favor of 

 the undertenants who held of them. 



In the many confirmations of the Great Charter in the ensu- 

 ing reigns of Henry III and Edward I, its vital clauses as to 



* The exact language of the charter was: "No scutage or aid shall be imposed in our 

 kingdom unless by the general course of the nation, except for ransoming our person [i. e., 

 the king], making our eldest son a knight, and once for marrying our eldest daughter ; 

 and for these there shall be taken a reasonable aid" ; the barons in turn agreeing that " we 

 will not for the future grant to any one that he may take aid of his own free tenants," 

 . other than the aids above stated. 



