PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 169 



the ages, of the fact that in Greece and Rome the poll tax was 

 exacted only of the people of subjugated provinces, and was there- 

 fore regarded as a mark of inferiority or slavery, this tax in 

 modern times has not been in accord with public sentiment, and 

 in most countries has now been abandoned. The last poll tax in 

 England was enacted in 1689. Like all its predecessors, it was 

 always unpopular and was regarded as unsuited to the people of 

 England. It was repealed in 1698, and " henceforth this form of 

 tax passed into the list of taxes tried and never again to be im- 

 posed in England. What minister," said Henry Fox in 1748, 

 " would presume again to suggest the hated hearth money of the 

 Stuarts, or the poll taxes of the reign of William III ?" (Dowell, 

 Taxation in England, vol. ii, p. 49.) 



In the United States the poll tax formed, in 1895, a part of the 

 tax system of twenty-six of the States and Territories, and was 

 not recognized in twenty others, and in some of the latter its levy 

 is prohibited by constitutional provisions. In New York a gen- 

 eral law for the incorporation of villages confers upon its trustees 

 the power to raise money by levying a poll tax. 



From a theoretical or purely economic point of view the pres- 

 ent popular opposition and adverse sentiment to the poll tax 

 in the United States do not seem to be warranted by any very 

 good reasons. The arguments made use of by those opposed to 

 its continuance are not derived from old-time precedents, or war- 

 ranted by the experience of foreign countries, inasmuch as its 

 assessment in the States of the Federal Union has always been 

 inconsiderable in amount, and has rarely involved in its col- 

 lection any inquisitorial or arbitrary measures. The one most 

 deserving of attention has been, that it practically imposed a 

 property qualification upon the right of suffrage by making its 

 payment a prerequisite to the act of voting, a money payment of 

 even so small a sum as two dollars per annum in Massachusetts 

 and one dollar in Connecticut being regarded in that light. But 

 in answer to this it may be said that paupers are disfranchised 

 not because they are vicious or illiterate, but, because of their 

 inability to support themselves or aid in supporting the State, it 

 is held that they ought not to be allowed a voice in the govern- 

 ment of the State. To be consistent, therefore, the advocates of 

 the abolition of the poll tax as administered in New England 

 ought also to connect with it i. e., its abolition an extension of 

 suffrage to the inmates of poorhouses who, otherwise qualified for 

 its exercise, are now debarred from it exclusively by a lack of 

 property qualification. On the other hand, a leading argument in 

 favor of its continuance is that the majority of citizens who pay 

 no direct State taxes upon property of any kind, but who are self- 

 supporting and not paupers, ought not to be exempt from directly 



VOL. LI. 13 



