470 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



It is a matter of regret that terms so uncertain and vague on so 

 important a point are to be found in the Constitution. We shall 

 seek in vain for any antecedent settled legal meaning to the re- 

 spective terms. There is none. We shall be as much at a loss to 

 find any disposition of either which can satisfactorily determine 

 the point." In his argument on behalf of the Government in the 

 carriage case, Hamilton, however, mentioned such taxes which 

 should be considered as direct; namely, direct capitation taxes, 

 taxes on land and buildings, and general assessment. (See his 

 brief in the case referred to.) And in rendering the decision in 

 the income-tax case of Springer -us. United States, Justice Swayne 

 also added to our historical information on this subject by re- 

 marking, that " the question of what is a direct tax is one ex- 

 clusively of American jurisprudence," which is the same thing 

 as saying that the system of American taxation is so peculiar, 

 that the question involved has never been made a subject of legal 

 controversy and discussion under any other, or foreign system of 

 taxation. 



This statement of Judge Swayne is one of a number of illus- 

 trations that will confront the student of the existing American 

 system of taxation if, indeed, it is worthy of being called a sys- 

 tem showing how the makers and administrators of tax laws in 

 the United States have drifted, as it were, into uses and practices 

 which long usage has made to appear almost as of self-evident 

 validity, but which find no precedent in the experience or sys- 

 tems of other countries, and no solid foundation in any correct 

 economic philosophy.* 



There were also two reasons and two points of view in the 

 Hylton case on which the judgment of the court might have been 

 predicated. One was that Hylton possessed one hundred and 

 twenty-five carriages, which warranted the inference that they 

 were hackney carriages, kept and used for hire, and that the tax 

 levied on each carriage ultimately fell on the consumer and not 

 on the owner (Hylton) himself; or, in other words, the tax in 

 question was a tax on transportation, and, as such, capable of 

 transference to the person carried, and therefore, when imposed 



* Since the statement of Judge Swayne (above referred to) was made, a decision has 

 been rendered by the Privy Council of Great Britain, in which the recognition of direct 

 taxation and its method of incidence by British jurisprudence is taken for granted ; for 

 in concurrence with a decision rendered by the full bench of judges concerning an opinion of 

 one of their members, wherein he says, in speaking of a point tliat had been raised, that a 

 tax must be general in order to be a direct tax, they reject that view, inasmuch as it 

 ' would deny the character of a direct tax to the income tax of this country Great 

 Britain which is always spoken of as such, and is generally looked upon as a direct tax 

 of the most obvious kind; and it would run counter to the common understanding of 

 men on this subject, which is one main clew to the meaning of the Legislature." 



