PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 161 



been possible in the United States argues the gravest defect in its 

 political system. That a check is needed of the most absolute 

 kind is recognized by all thoughtful men. Such check can only 

 be had from the Legislatures of the States, who can not be too 

 prompt in correcting the evils resulting from this extraordinary 

 surrender of their supreme jurisdiction on the vital subject of 

 taxation. The Legislature holds the public purse, and is false to 

 its trust as its custodian when it authorizes corporations to put 

 their hands, unwatched, into this purse and take from it, un- 

 counted, all that their extravagance and cupidity desire. It is 

 no apology that city governments are chosen by popular vote. It 

 is the essence of our government that personal rights are, by our 

 Constitution, wholly independent of the voting power, and cer- 

 tainly property should be equally so protected." 



The question here naturally arises. How happened it that the 

 framers of the Constitution and founders of our Government, 

 while carefully defining and limiting the powers of the Federal 

 Government in respect to the taking of property through taxa- 

 tion, omitted to make any like provisions applicable to the States? 

 An answer is, that it was probably an oversight, favored by the 

 circumstance that there was no English precedent for suchp ro- 

 visions. At the time of the Revolution it was, and ever since 

 has been, the occupation and duty of the British House of Com- 

 mons to limit and, if considered expedient, resist the pecuniary 

 demands of the crown, and latterly of its ministers ; and this oc- 

 cupation and duty were never delegated without restriction to any 

 subordinate legislative assemblage. It might have been, and 

 probably was, assumed by the framers of the Federal Constitu- 

 tion, that the several States in making their Constitutions would 

 have followed the precedents respecting the rights and duties of 

 taxation that they (the framers) had established ; and, if the sev- 

 eral Legislatures of the States had been confined to these rights 

 and duties, and had never delegated them without restriction to 

 the complicated, ill-organized, and irresponsible municipal cor- 

 porations, which in latter days have grown to such portentous 

 size, little of danger would have followed.* It should, however, 

 be here noted that remedial action in this matter has recently 

 been taken by some of the States, by forbidding their counties, 

 cities, towns, or villages from incurring an indebtedness in excess 

 of a percentage, varying with their population, of the valuation of 

 the real estate subject to taxation. Constitutional restrictions on 



* In his treatment of this important topic, the author is mainly indebted <o Mr. Manley 

 Howe, of Boston, who, in a newspaper article published some years ago, seems to have been 

 the first person to intelligently present the facts in the case and their consequences to the 

 general public. 



VOL. L. 14 



