A. L. Bishop — The State Worlds of Pennsylvania. 219 



impose on the people of the commonwealth the least inconvenience 

 and detriment. . . . 



Until with the last year we have been able, not only to borrow 

 money without difficulty on state stock in Europe, but to pay the 

 interest arising on former loans by new ones. We felt little of the 

 inconvenience of this bloated system of credits, and seldom reflected 

 that a day of reckoning would come, when we could thus pay our 

 debts no longer. The delusion is at last over. . . The time for 

 sober reflection has arrived. . . The question is presented to the 

 consideration of the legislature, how is the money to be procured 

 to pay the interest on the state debt, to meet the loans falling due, 

 and to defray the other necessary expenditures of the common- 

 wealth? The sum of $2,000,000 must be obtained for the ensuing 

 year, . . . My own deliberate opinion is that, resort to taxa- 

 tion, provided that it shall be so regulated as to bear with as little 

 hardship as possible on the people, is the only possible remedy to 

 extricate the commonwealth from the embarrassments by which we 

 find her surrounded. The state has actually been compounding,, for 

 years past, from a million to a million and a half of interest annu- 

 ally ; and the question is now submitted whether we are thus to 

 continue adding half-yearly this enormous amount of interest to 

 the principal of our state debt, and continue in this course of 

 policy, from year to year, of shuffling off the evil day, and entailing 

 this frightful legacy on posterity. . . Taxation would pay the 

 interest, it would eventually constitute a sinking fund to pay off 

 the principal of the state debt and should be continued until the 

 income of the public improvements would render longer taxation 

 unnecessary." 



The committee on ways and means, to whom was referred the 

 above sections of the message, recommended an immediate resort 

 to taxation. Accordingly, on the 11th of June, 1840, a law* was 

 passed, to continue in force for five years, imposing a tax of one 

 mill on the stock of banks or other institutions making or declar- 

 ing dividends; half a mill on certain personal property; a small 

 tax on household furniture, pleasure carriages and watches; and 

 a tax on the salaries of state employees. 



It was computed that the revenues to be collected according to 

 the provisions of this act would amount to $600,000 annually.f It 

 was found very difficult, however, to put the taxing machinery at 

 once into operation, so that the law of 1840 failed to become really 

 effective until the state had defaulted its interest. Thus, for the 

 fiscal year ending November 30th, 1841, although the amount of 



* Laws of Pennsylvania, 1840, p. 612. 

 t See J. H. Rep., 1841, II, p. 7. 



