PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 359 



the masters. The taitte, furthermore, as a badge of servitude, was 

 supposed to dishonor whoever was subject to it, and degrade him, 

 not only below the rank of a gentleman, but that of a burgher, or 

 inhabitant of a borough or town; and " no gentleman, or even any 

 burgher," says Adam Smith, " who has stock, will submit to this 

 degradation." Now, the idea embodied in the word servitude is an 

 obligation to render service, irrespective of or without compensa- 

 tion; and the idea upon which the taxation of personal property 

 in this country has been based is, that the property owes a 

 servitude to the State where the owner resides, irrespective of its 

 actual location, in virtue of the obligation which its owner, as a 

 citizen, may owe to the State by reason of the protection which the 

 State gives him in respect to his person. 



Again, in old times, the division of property into real and per- 

 sonal was wholly unknown; and under the common law all prop- 

 erty was classed as lands, tenements, hereditaments, and goods and 

 chattels. " In the course of time, however, leases of land for a term 

 of years were classed as chattels, and were distinguished as chattels 

 real; while other chattels, which did not savor of lands, were called 

 chattels personal, ' because,' says Lord Coke, ' for the most part 

 they belong to the person of a man, or else for that, they are to be 

 recovered by personal actions.' And Blackstone tells us that 

 ' chattels personal are property, and, strictly speaking, things mov- 

 able, which may be annexed to, or attendant on, the person of the 

 owner, and carried about with him from one part of the world to 

 another'; and as instances he mentions money, jewelry, garments. 

 Personal property, in fact, consisted almost entirely of such things 

 as could be, and actually were, carried about with the person of the 

 owner, or could be easily secreted. And Blackstone also tells us 

 that the amount of the personal estate of our ancestors was so trifling 

 that they entertained a very low and contemptuous opinion of it; 

 and that our ' ancient law books do not, therefore, often condescend 

 to regulate this species of property.' Nothing of an incorporeal 

 nature, as credits, bonds, and mortgages, certificates of stock, was 

 anciently comprehended within the class of personal chattels, and 

 in fact there were few or no such instrumentalities for representing 

 or facilitating the exchanges of property. It was otherwise as to 

 lands or real property, as to which ' incorporeal hereditaments ' 

 occupied a conspicuous place from the earliest times. Such was 

 personal property in the early history of our laws. It was of com- 

 paratively small importance, and its laws were few and simple ; while 

 real property, being of a fixed and permanent nature, was regarded 

 as immeasurably more valuable, and was governed by laws of its 

 own, of the most intricate and abstruse character. And because of 



