730 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



men of his parish were chosen to determine and declare under 

 oath the extent of his personal liability. In the next reign, that 

 of Richard I, this new principle of jury assessment was applied 

 in a general way to the assessment of lands as well as chattels ; 

 and from thence the representative principle in taxation begins to 

 ascend through successive stages, until it becomes established and 

 recognized as the highest function of the British and all other 

 essentially free governments.* 



The abandonment, furthermore, of the right on the part of the 

 sovereign to make arbitrary exactions in respect to personal prop- 

 erty, and the assumption by a class of privileged subordinates 

 i. e., legislators of the right to vote or deny supplies to the king 

 or state, and for the attainment of which results the English 

 clergy of the thirteenth century led the way, marks also the dawn 

 of constitutional or free government. All authorities are agreed, 

 that on the clause in the Magna Charta of 1215 respecting the 

 taxing power, is based all that has since been achieved in re- 

 spect to English liberty. By it the king (John) was allowed to 

 reserve for himself but three feudal aids, or rights, for extraordi- 

 nary money allowances from the state, which very curiously have 

 never been alienated from the English crown by any subsequent 

 legislative enactment. Namely, to ransom the king in the case 

 of his capture by an enemy; to defray the expenses of the knight- 

 hood of his eldest son ; and third, on account of expenses incident 

 to the marriage of his eldest daughter. In all other respects the 

 charter provides that "no scutage" by which is understood a 

 land tax in commutation for personal military service "or aid 

 shall be imposed in our realm, save by the Common Council of 

 our realm " ; and this provision of the Great Charter was more 



* It is, however, worthy of note that the only time when this subject appears to have 

 prominently attracted the attention of the British Parliament and occasioned debate, was in 

 connection with the imposition of taxes, without representation, on the British colonies in 

 North America, and which assumption of right on the part of the crown to thus act, subse- 

 quently led to the American Revolution. The question at issue before Parliament was, had 

 the state the right of taxing the colonies under existing circumstances, in default of repre- 

 sentation of the taxpayers ? The colonists did not deny the right of Great Britain to tax 

 them ; but they did hold that for the people of Great Britain to appropriate any part of the 

 property without their consent was neither reasonable nor consistent with the British Consti- 

 tution. And in the great debate in Parliament on this subject, in 1764, Mr. Pitt sustained 

 the position of the colonists ; and Lord Camden, who followed, said that " taxation and rep- 

 resentation wei-e inseparable," and that a blade of grass growing in the most obscure part 

 of the kingdom could not rightfully be taxed without the consent of its proprietor. 



Recent historical investigations have, however, shown (as before pointed out, chapter ii) 

 that the grievance alleged and complained of by the American colonists was not peculiar 

 to them, but was shared by the people of the mother country to such an extent that at the 

 time of the colonial revolt not one tenth of them were allowed to participate by vote in the 

 election of members of Parliament. 



