PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 605 



taxation and the National Council were, however, invariably and 

 intentionally omitted ; and the latter king so reasserted the taxing 

 power of the crown as to alarm the nation and occasion a revolu- 

 tion (Barons' War, 1297), which for many subsequent years pre- 

 vented any like assumption on the part of Edward's successors. 

 Under the reign of Charles I the authority to levy and collect 

 taxes in England was, however, again claimed as it was in all 

 the other European states to be vested exclusively in the king; 

 and on the trial of John Hampden, in 1636, for his refusal to pay 

 a tax known as " ship money," arbitrarily levied by the king for 

 the maintenance of a naval force, this was the position taken by 

 the crown lawyers representing the prosecution and accepted as 

 valid by the judges in their verdict, the attprney general using 

 in his plea language almost identical with that employed by 

 Louis XIV, before cited, in defining his prerogative. (See Popu- 

 lar Science Monthly, No. 2, page 146, December, 1896.) 



But when absolutism in government was overthrown in Eng- 

 land in 1653, and a constitutional government established, no one 

 principle was recognized as more fundamental than that the ex- 

 ecutive could levy no taxes except such as had been granted by 

 the people taxed, through their representatives ; and one of the 

 very first statutes enacted by Parliament in 1689, under the reign 

 of William and Mary, and accepted by the crown, was that 

 all levying of money for the crown by pretense of prerogative 

 should be hereafter and forever illegal ; and next, in the latter 

 third of the next century (1770), the unqualified affirmation and 

 defense of the principle that those who pay the taxes should con- 

 trol the levying of them became the primary cause of the Amer- 

 ican Revolution, and eventuated in calling the United States into 

 existence. And hence, by reason of such experiences, it has be- 

 come a part of the common law of all English-speaking people 

 that the taxing power inherent in the state is vested exclusively 

 in the legislative department of its government. 



Second. All taxes or enforced contributions levied by a state in 

 virtue of its sovereignty should be solely {singly) and exclusively 

 for public purposes. 



Another and perhaps a more popular way of expressing this 

 principle would be, to jDut it in the form of an affirmation, namely : 

 All taxes that the people pay, the government should receive. 



All recognized authorities, judicial and economic, are agreed 

 in regarding the above proposition as in the light of a political 

 axiom from which there can be no rational dissent. From a great 

 number of confirmatory and illustrative legal opinions and deci- 

 sions the following are especially worthy of attention : 



" No State government, nor that of the United States, nor any 

 other authority professing a regard for the rights of the people. 



