GENESIS OF AGRARIANISM IN THE U. S. 107 



of quit-rents. These were a perpetual obligation 

 imposed on land when first granted and to be paid 

 by whomever owned the land. They do not mean 

 that the grantee did not have fee-simple title, as has 

 sometimes been assumed, but were in the nature of 

 a permanent land tax. To pay them was irksome 

 to the settlers, who found many ways of evasion. 

 One difficulty was that they were payable in tobacco 

 or other produce, and that the expense of collecting 

 from small farmers ate up the value of the pro- 

 ceeds. To obviate this the governor ordered that 

 quit-rents be paid at certain specified places. The 

 inhabitants protested, and a law passed the assembly 

 to authorize payment at the home of the landowner, 

 where most other rents were paid. The governor 

 vetoed the bill, and a deadlock resulted. For many years 

 the revenue from quit-rents was very slender." 7 



The quit-rent controversy had two far-reaching 

 consequences in American history. In the first place, 

 it brought the farm population into sympathy with 

 the doctrine of "no taxation without representa- 

 tion," which supplied one of the immediate causes of 

 the Revolution. In the second place, it directed at- 

 tention to the inequalities in the system of land 

 rentals, which had an important influence in later 

 agrarian practices. 



The planters in the southern colonies gained in 

 power and influence with the increasing number of 

 slaves and the rapid development of agricultural 



M Short History of the United States (1914), Chap. VI, p. 107. 



