MUNICIPAL TAXATION — WHY AND HOW. 51 



To test its effect upon each one, let it be told you and believed, 

 that the village had been destroyed and would not be rebuilt. The 

 farm and its improvements would not be worth in the market fifty 

 per cent of its value to-day ; your pride, courage and ambition 

 would fall like the barometer before the coming storm. You would 

 feel desolate even in your own home. 



Will you be willing to cut loose from this centre of trade, traffic 

 and wealth, and assume its municipal duties without its aid? If so, 

 my belief is your offer might not be rejected. 



Perfect equalit}- in the assessment of taxes is unattainable. Ap- 

 proximation to it is all that can be had. Under anv system of tax- 

 ation, however wiselj' and carefully framed, a disproportionate share 

 of the public burdens will be thrown on certain kinds of property, 

 because the\' are visible and tangible, while others are of a nature 

 to elude vigilance. 



Perfectly equal taxation will remain an unattainable good as long 

 as laws and government and man are imperfect. Sound policy 

 requires that it should be so far as possible. But there is no provis- 

 ion in the Constitution that it should be equal. If there were, the 

 operations of Government must come to a stop from the absolute 

 impossibility of fulfilling it. 



I have read from our statute that all real and personal prop- 

 erty of the inhabitants of the State is subject to taxation. 

 To this statute there are several exceptions. The property 

 of the United States is not taxable — nor the means and agen- 

 cies provided or selected by the Federal Government as neces- 

 sary or convenient to the exercise of its functions. The State 

 cannot tax a bank chartered bv Consiress as the fiscal asfent of the 

 Government. Congress has provided that all shares of national 

 banking associatioiis located within the State may be taxed, subject 

 onlv to two restrictions — that the taxation shall not be at a greater 

 rate than is assessed upon other moneyed capital in the hands of indi- 

 vidual citizens of the State, and that the shares owned by non-resi- 

 dents shall be taxed in the cit}' or town where the bank is located, 

 and not elsewhere. 



The loans of the Government, contracted under the power con- 

 ferred upon it to borrow mone}', the revenue stamps — the salaries 

 or emoluments of federal offices — are not subject to taxation. 



If the State possessed the right to tax these, the Legislature might 

 pass an act discriminating so strongly against the bonds and other 



