PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 7 



permitted to offset debts against the value of his goods; or if the 

 law was peremptory that his oath alone should be given, and that 

 there should be no legal examination, inspection, or proof of the 

 value or character of the importations? 



In whatever aspect, therefore, we regard the present popular 

 system of local taxation in the United States, it is arbitrary and in 

 violation of the principles of constitutional government. If the 

 assessor acts, he acts solely by his despotic will, and without any 

 reference to legal proof or evidence, such as is enforced in recovering 

 private debts; and if the taxpayer, by his oath, becomes the arbiter, 

 his will is supreme and not subject to investigation or control. It 

 is a system, in short, that violates all the laws of evidence, the growth 

 of centuries in civilized countries; that makes secret that which 

 should have publicity, and proceeds upon a basis that could not be 

 recognized for one moment in the collection of debts, or in the trial 

 of persons accused of the most heinous of offenses. 



Such, then, are the difficulties which all experience has shown to 

 be attendant upon every attempt to tax personal property of an 

 intangible and invisible character, and which all who have investi- 

 gated the subject acknowledge to be insuperable. As not a few, 

 however, who are ready to make this acknowledgment nevertheless 

 insist, that all personal property that is visible and tangible and can 

 not be concealed, but can be reached effectively and equally, ought 

 to be taxed; and as the drift of popular sentiment in the United 

 States at the present time favors this assumption, it is important to 

 next consider the nature and extent of the results attainable by 

 intelligent and faithful assessors acting in conformity with it. 



As the experience, however, of the States that have enacted the 

 most precise and stringent methods of taxation proves beyond ques- 

 tion, that the returns of the owners of visible, tangible personal prop- 

 erty, even when supported by oaths, will not, as a rule, afford a 

 basis for the correct valuation and assessment of such property, the 

 further assumption is warranted, that the attainment of such a result 

 in even an approximate degree must depend on the personal visita- 

 tion and inspection of the most intelligent and honest assessors. 

 And here at the very outset of the prospective investigation its 

 inherent insuperable difficulties begin to manifest themselves. 



Thus a large proportion of the so-called personal property of 

 every highly civilized country which is not intangible and invisible, 

 and which requires only ordinary perception for recognition and 

 valuation, is in the nature of instruments or subjects of commerce 

 between states and nations; such as railroad machinery, ships, steam- 

 boats, immense stocks of raw and manufactured products accumu- 

 lated in store for the sole purpose of movement, or actually in 



