PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 67 



by departments, industrial establishments, independent of the stamp 

 or transfer tax, but not affecting the bonds of the state (or rentes), 

 nor associations of partnerships in a collective name, nor private 

 obligations, mortgages, and the like." " Eeligious societies are taxed 

 five per cent on the income of their capital." In 1886 the revenue 

 derived from the above taxes was returned at 47,200,000 francs 

 ($9,400,000), representing in 1886 a capital of 1,500,000,000 francs, 

 of which 131,000,000 francs represented properties situated in 

 France. 



Again, it is not generally knowTi that Alexander Hamilton, as 

 a member of the conventions which framed the Constitution of the 

 United States and the first Constitution of New York, gave all his 

 influence in favor of the restriction of all internal or local taxation 

 to visible, tangible objects, and to the assessment of these specifically, 

 and by some uniform and simple rule. The language used by him in 

 one of his papers (The Constitutionalist) on this subject is as follows: 

 " The genius of liberty reprohates everything arbitrary or discretion- 

 ary in taxation. It exacts that every mafi, by a definite and general 

 rule, should know what proportion of his property the State demands. 

 Whatever liberty we may boast in theory, it can not exist in fact while 

 (arbitrary) assessments continue.^' 



The following sentiment or legal principle, laid down by the 

 United States Supreme Court in the case of Boyd vs. United States 

 (116 United States Reports, 631, 632), though often apparently 

 little regarded by the legal profession, would, however, seem in itself 

 to constitute a complete and insuperable barrier against any resort 

 in the United States to the prosecution of arbitrary or inquisitorial 

 inquiries, which must of necessity be instituted and prosecuted by tax 

 officials for the obtaining of any personal and warrantable data for 

 the correct assessment of an income tax, the language of the court 

 being as follows: 



" Any compulsory discovery, by extorting the party^s oath or 

 compelling the production of his private books and papers to convict 

 him of a crime or to forfeit his property, is contrary to the principles 

 of a free government. It is abhorrent to the instincts of an English- 

 man. It is abhorrent to the instincts of an American. It may suit 

 the purposes of despotic power, but it can not abide the pure atmos- 

 phere of political liberty and personal freedom.''^ 



So much, then, for what may be termed the philosophy of an in- 

 come tax. Consideration of some of its most instructive experiences 

 is next in order. 



The old Romans, who never gave much place to sentiment in 

 their laws or policy, had an income tax in the days of the empire, and 

 they overcame all difficulties connected with its administration in the 



