2 o8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



estate by its use? Why, then, so much overrighteous talk of per- 

 sonal property owners dodging taxation? 



Logical and ingenious as have been the arguments in opposition 

 to the legal exemption of personal property from taxation; the cita- 

 tion and consideration of the undisputed experience of all countries, 

 people, and ages are all that is necessary to refute and disprove 

 them. There was a time when nearly all men believed and taught 

 that the world was flat, and when the few who lisped to the con- 

 trary exposed themselves to a charge of religious heresy and punish- 

 ment. But a comparatively short navigation experience effectually 

 put an end to all controversy on this subject; and it is doubtless 

 only a question of time when personal property will be exempt from 

 governmental taxation, because no system has ever been devised, or 

 is likely to be, which will enable a state to tax it with any approach 

 to uniformity and equity. 



Origin and History of the General Property Tax. — The 

 idea that in order to tax equitably it is necessary to assess every- 

 thing capable of resulting in the obtaining of revenue is not original 

 with the American people. Its inception dates back to the dawn 

 of civilization, and its development may be regarded as in the nature 

 of an economic evolution. In the incipient stages of society, as 

 already pointed out, property consisted exclusively of things tangi- 

 ble and visible — lands, buildings, cattle, slaves, agricultural products, 

 household effects, and implements — and what was exacted by rulers 

 or chiefs of their subjects was arbitrary proportions of such kinds of 

 property or of personal service, and was not in any proper sense 

 taxation, but tribute. For thousands of years there were no credits 

 or material evidences of indebtedness, as there are none at the present 

 time among barbarians or half -civilized people; for a knowledge 

 of letters, of the art of writing, and a somewhat durable and portable 

 material to write upon were essential prerequisites for their exist- 

 ence, the earliest evidence of the recognition of anything like a 

 mortgage being the inscriptions on certain clay tablets excavated 

 from the ruins of the ancient cities of Babylon and Assyria, which 

 were evidently the highest results of long and slowly developing 

 civilization. In fact, in the early stages of society there was no 

 important form of capital other than landed property and the instru- 

 mentalities, including slaves, for its cultivation, and so far as the 

 system for obtaining revenue for the rulers or state merited the name 

 of taxation, it was practically a " land " tax. 



As civilization advanced, slavery gradually broke down; trade 

 or traffic between individuals or adjacent communities extended and 

 became commerce; free labor appeared; capital developed and mul- 

 tiplied the forms of visible, tangible property. Then the system 



