PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 441 



lars or ten million dollars, and perhaps even less, and the estate of 

 every real estate or immovable property holder in the same ratio; 

 but I can not sa}^ that I will greatly injure the movable property 

 man, for he may go to Boston, Philadelphia, or Baltimore, and do 

 quite as well as he did in New York city with his money, goods, etc. 

 The truth is, it Avould entirely bankrupt the great city, for the 

 demand for immovable property would not be sufficient to pay a 

 rental sufficient to pay the interest on her city, county, and State 

 debt. I do not think these assertions on the extreme, or the picture 

 overdrawn. And if the picture is not overdrawn, and even say it is 

 overdrawn by fifty per cent, who would be the injured party in N^ew 

 York by the enforcement of such a law? Would it be the great 

 merchants w^ho, for aught I know, rent their houses from Mr. Astor? 

 Or would it be Mr. Astor, the great real estate owner of I^ew York? 

 In other words, would it be the movable property man, with his 

 goods, money, etc., who can take it and go to Boston, Philadelphia, 

 or elsewhere, and perhaps do quite as good a business as he did 

 in New York, or would it be the immovable property or real estate 

 man, who has to stay where he is and pay his city and county 

 debt, without tenants or rental from his property? Hence, I say 

 that, of all the men who should object to oppressive and, to follow the 

 principle, I will say any taxation at all on money, merchandise, or 

 trade, manufactories, etc., it is the man who owns the real estate or 

 immovable property. His position should be this: He should say 

 to the thousands of men in the civilized world, with their money in 

 their pockets, looking out a favorable locality to go to banking, mer- 

 chandising, manufacturing, or farming, etc.: 'Come, locate on me; 

 I will not oppress you; come to me, for I can't go to you, and we 

 must come together, or I am worth nothing; and knowing this, I 

 will not tax you and oppress you. Other localities make you pay a 

 tax; I will not, consequently I offer that advantage over other 

 localities.' Heretofore it has been the merchant who has done 

 the complaining about the tax levied on him; he is not the one to 

 do it; it is the real estate man, and the writer being one of those 

 men owning real estate almost entirely, and not owning a dollar's 

 worth of merchandise of any kind for sale, and not being a lender 

 of money, but, on the contrary, a borrower, and not being a manu- 

 facturer of any kind, and not being the owner of machinery, except 

 a steam sawmill and a steam cotton-gin establishment, but being 

 what is known as a plain farmer or planter by profession or occupa- 

 tion, thinking he sees his interest in the system he is advocating; 

 consequently therein is to be found the moving cause of this letter. 



" I contend that this system will lighten the burdens of taxation 

 on real estate, and, after a very short time, the rate of taxation will 



VOL LIII. — 31 



