THE 



POPULAR SCIEITCE 

 MONTHLY. 



DECEMBER, 1895. 



PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 



By DAVID A. WELLS, LL.D., D. C. L., 



COKEESPONDANT DE l'iNSTITUT DE FRANCE, ETC. 



L THE COMPARATIVELY RECENT TAX EXPERIENCES OF THE 

 FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



BEFORE passing to the detailed consideration under proper 

 and consecutive subdivisions of the above subject, the writer 

 thinks it expedient to outline briefly the exceptional circumstances 

 under which his studies and investigations have been prosecuted ; 

 inasmuch, as apart from any expectation of consequent intelligent 

 criticism on his conclusions, a somewhat personal narration may 

 help to a better popular understanding of a great chapter in the 

 nation's fiscal experience, which, although without a parallel in all 

 history, has thus far received scant notice and little appreciation 

 on the part of economic writers and historians. 



His first connection with economic and fiscal questions of pub- 

 lic import was through the publication, at the darkest financial 

 period of the war 1864 of the results of an inquiry into the re- 

 sources and prospective debt-paying ability of the United States, 

 and bearing the title of Our Burden and Our Strength. This 

 essay, although first printed privately, was reprinted and circu- 

 lated by the Loyal Publication Society of New York, and, re- 

 ceiving the approbation of the Government, became one of the 

 current publications of the war period. Reprinted in different 

 sections of the country by loyal citizens, and also in repeated 

 instances in England, translated into French and German, it at- 

 tained a very large circulation ; in excess of two hundred thousand 

 copies. Coming also at a period when the nation was beginning 

 to be alarmed at the magnitude and prospective increase of its 



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