PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 443 



of Spain up to 1808 is attributable more to the iuflueuce of a tax 

 on sales than to any other one cause ; and that, on the other hand, 

 the great wealth and prosperity of Holland in the sixteenth, seven- 

 teenth, and eighteenth centuries, and the control of a commerce 

 that made its ships the chief carriers and their ports the chief 

 depots of the products of the world, were due mainly to a system 

 of taxation that imposed the minimum of restriction on ex- 

 changes, domestic or foreign, and entailed the least friction upon 

 its own people ; while in all other and competitive countries the 

 direct reverse of such a fiscal policy found favor and existed. 



The Place of Taxation in History. A clear and exhaust- 

 ive statement of the world's experience in respect to what is called 

 taxation would be almost equivalent to a universal history ; and 

 in default of this, a review of the most prominent features of such 

 experience is the only alternative, and is capable of being made 

 in the highest degree interesting and instructive. 



While the farthest reach of history touches no period when gov- 

 ernment or the state has not appropriated for its maintenance or 

 pleasure the property or services of its subjects or citizens, the 

 present ideas respecting taxation are so essentially modern that 

 little or no recognition of them can be found in either ancient or 

 mediaeval history. In fact, no taxes, in the present ordinary sense 

 of the term, were needed in ancient times to carry on govern- 

 ment or public institutions. The monarch, king, chief, lord, or 

 other sovereign of any particular district or country was gener- 

 ally the owner of all the landed property within his empire or 

 domain ; and the people who cultivated it were his villeins, serfs, 

 or tenants. "The theory of English (and also of Chinese) land 

 tenures to-day is, that the original title is in the king or emperor, 

 and that everybody who has an interest in land is a tenant. 

 There is no such thing known to this day in England as an 

 allodial title that is, one which is absolute as to the ownership 

 of the soil, and which is mainly the one recognized in the United 

 States. As a consequence, all land in England is held mediately or 

 immediately of the king, and there is no allodial tenure." * 



A sovereign who owned all the land of a country, and could 

 at his will take any portion of the labor products of the people 

 who cultivated or occupied it, obviously was exempt from the 

 necessity of resorting to any other form of levy upon persons or 

 property for the support of the state or for his pleasure ; and this 



* Miller, on the Constitution of the United States. " Out of this fact come many 

 of the difficulties American students find in regard to the doctrines pei'taining to es- 

 tates and tenancies. Our laws have been freed from a large part of these intricacies and 

 traditional requirements, which were the outgrowth of centuries of development among our 

 English ancestors regarding the holdmg of land, but their influence still embarrasses our 

 judicial system" (ibid., pp. 231, 232). 



