PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 3 



recognition and practice of which, by any government is something 

 inconsistent with, and antagonistic to, the maintenance of a free 

 people. 



It is not generally known, furthermore, that Alexander Ham- 

 ilton, as a member of the conventions which framed the Constitution 

 of the United States and the first Constitution of New York, gave all 

 his influence in favor of the restriction of all internal or local taxa- 

 tion to visible, tangible objects, and to the assessment of these spe- 

 cifically, and by some uniform and simple rule. The language used 

 by him in one of his papers (The Constitutionalist) on this subject 

 is as follows : " The genius of liberty reprobates everything arbitrary 

 or discretionary in taxation. It exacts that every man, by a definite 

 and general rule, should know what proportion of his property the 

 State demands. Whatever liberty we may boast in theory, it can 

 not exist in fact while (arbitrary) assessments continue." 



Again, had nothing come down to us in English history from 

 the time of Edward III, other than one of the assessment rolls of 

 that period (when there was little or no property capable of taxation 

 but what was visible and tangible), the evidence would be complete 

 that the mass of the English people were but little better than slaves ; 

 for the mere inspection of such rolls shows that their preparation 

 involved such an inquisitorial scrutiny into domestic life, such a 

 seeing, handling, enumeration, and minute valuation of everything 

 in the household, from the utensils of the kitchen to the furniture 

 of the bedchamber, as to make personal freedom, or a sense of self- 

 respect, on the part of the taxpayer who submitted to such a scru- 

 tiny, almost an impossibility.* 



And in this connection it is instructive to again refer to the 

 famous insurrection of English yeomen and peasants under " Wat " 

 the Tyler, in the reign of Richard II, the successor of Edward 

 III, which originated directly in the attempt of a tax-gatherer or 

 assessor to ascertain, by brutal personal examination, whether a 

 daughter of " Wat's " had attained the age of puberty, and in con- 

 sequence had so become liable to enrollment for capitation assess- 

 ment. 



But to whatever extent simplicity in the elements of property 

 simplified the original methods and ideas in respect to local taxation, 

 the problem involved rapidly changed, and became more and more 

 intricate as increasing population, and increasing commerce, and in- 



* A copy of an assessment roll of the time of Edward III (1329-'67) given by Lingard y 

 in his History of England, contains a list of articles, down to a towel and a bench ; and the 

 historian notes that in the returns are carefully mentioned the very rooms in which the 

 articles were found, and that there were no exemptions except one suit of clothes for each 

 person, which were supposed to be included in the tax levied on the poll or person. 



