58 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ent articles may be subjected to different rates, provided tliey are 

 uuiform as between different places and different States ; as it 

 obviously " could not have been the intent of the framers of the 

 Constitution that the Government in raising its revenues should 

 not be allowed to discriminate in respect to articles which it de- 

 sired to tax." * 



In the case of the several States of the Federal Union, to which 

 the Federal constitutional requirement in respect to uniformity 

 of taxation does not apply, the same question i. e., as to what 

 constitutes uniformity has been also a troublesome one, but dif- 

 ferent in its manifestation. The provisions relating to taxation 

 in the Constitutions of these several States generally start with 

 the idea, expressed or implied, that taxes must be uniform ; and a 

 strict construction of this language in a tax statute, operative 

 in only one State, and where the Federal limitation of uniformity 

 as respects place does not apply, might be construed as restrain- 

 ing the authorities of a State from imposing any different rate of 

 taxation on the manufacture or sale of liquors and the manufac- 

 ture and sale of other merchandise, or on the laud and the busi- 

 ness of the agriculturist. These difficulties in the way of con- 

 struction have, however, been largely obviated by recognizing 

 that when in the statute of a State the words " taxes must be uni- 

 form " are used, the word " uniform " does not mean, as in the 

 Federal Constitution, uniformity as to "place," but uniformity 

 " with regard to the subject of the tax"; an interpretation in full 

 conformity with the principle before enunciated, that uniformity 

 of taxation consists in the making of the burden of taxation equal 

 upon all subjects which are in the same field or sphere of compe- 

 tition ; or, as has been also expressed by Justice (S. F.) Miller, "dif- 

 ferent articles may be taxed at different amounts, provided the 

 rate is uniform on the same class everywhere, with all people and 

 at all times. Take, for instance, the case of a license : if every- 

 body in any particular class is required to pay a certain license 

 if all lawyers are taxed twenty-five dollars a year, all merchants 

 one hundred dollars, and all saloonkeepers two hundred dollars 

 then the license taxation is uniform, because it imposes the same 

 burdens upon every man of the same class, who comes within a 

 circle of well-defined limits. . . . This interpretation," he adds, 

 " may be a little strained, but probably it has arisen from the ne- 

 cessity of enabling the Legislatures to levy taxes according to 

 common sense, if not altogether with regard to strict uniformity." f 



The opinions expressed by the State courts of the United 

 States when this question of uniformity of taxation has been 



* Lectures on the Constitution of the United States, Justice Miller, pp. 240, 241. 

 f Miller (Justice S. F.), ibid. 



