PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 355 



example, if a resident of Massachusetts owns a cow which is bodily 

 in another State, that cow is properly taxed in the State where the 

 animal is; but Massachusetts, in virtue of the residence of the owner 

 within her territory, imposes upon him a second tax for the same 

 cow. Again, owners of shares in corporations chartered and located 

 in Massachusetts are taxed through the corporation, and their shares 

 are free from any further taxation. But if the same persons are 

 shareholders in corporations created and established by other States, 

 and the real and personal property of which are fully taxed where 

 situated, they are subject to a second tax in Massachusetts on the 

 assumed local value of the interest of their citizens in such extra- 

 territorial corporations. 



Under this system, moreover, the same property may be, and often 

 actually is, subjected to not merely double but triple taxation, which 

 sometimes practically amounts to confiscation. Thus personal prop- 

 erty belonging to a citizen of Massachusetts, but located in Chicago, 

 would be properly taxable there, because within the territory and 

 under the protection of the taxing power. It would, however, be 

 taxable to the owner in Massachusetts because of his personal resi- 

 dence in that State; and the owner would also be liable to taxation 

 in Massachusetts by reason of his income from the same property. 

 The following case of actual and comparatively recent experience 

 constitutes both proof and illustration of the accuracy of this state- 

 ment: A lady of a Western State, for the sake of availing herself 

 of certain educational advantages, removed to a town in Massachu- 

 setts near Boston, and benefited the town by building a fine residence 

 therein. Her property, which was held by a trustee in Indiana, was 

 taxed to him by reason of his legal holding in that State. The 

 property itself, mainly in another State, was taxed there, and prop- 

 erly, by reason of its location ; but at the end of her first year's resi- 

 dence the lady was horrified to learn that a third tax on her income 

 was demanded of her by the tax laws of Massachusetts. " And 

 this," the person communicating these facts adds, " will, if enforced, 

 be a decree of my personal banishment from the State as effectual 

 as that which the State formerly launched against Roger Williams 

 and the Quakers." Can any one doubt that human nature, as ordi- 

 narily constituted, will protest against, and successfully evade such 

 laws? Would it not be well in discussing this subject to mention 

 also that it was a question of taxation that gave liberty to the Ameri- 

 can colonies, and that the principle that the people of Boston and 

 their ministers once mainly relied upon to justify their destruction of 

 imported tea, which they regarded as unjustly taxed by even a small 

 amount, was " that resistance to tyranny was obedience to God "? 



The claim or argument, however, which the advocates of such 



