584 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tion and construction of any just and intelligent system of tax- 

 ation, and also for any snch collocation of general truths relative 

 to taxation as will raise the subject to the dignity of a science. 

 But, be this as it may, it seems certain that such recognition and 

 acceptance would at once sweep away many obstacles that would 

 otherwise stand in the way of such a consummation, and bring a 

 high degree of order into what is now a comparative chaos. 



And, as one illustration of this, consider how entirely, and yet 

 how naturally, the proposed definitions and limitations change 

 the generally accepted idea of the relation of a tax to the indi- 

 vidual taxpayer. 



As has been already pointed out, the popular idea of a tax is 

 that it is always an evil. Most writers also on political economy, 

 in discussing the subject, start with the idea that the act or exer- 

 cise of taxation necessarily implies perpetual antagonism between 

 the state, the sovereign, or the executive, and the private citizen. 

 The parties concerned are the citizen on the one side and the state 

 on the other, and the former being comparatively weak and the 

 latter exceedingly strong, the state is always assumed to get the 

 upper hand. M. Proudhon, in his work Theorie de Vlmpot 

 maintains that "all taxes are iniquitous," and that "if a sole tax 

 was established it would be the sum of fiscal iniquities." " There 

 are no taxes," says Ricardo, "which have not a tendency to lessen 

 the power to accumulate." J. B. Say, the eminent French econo- 

 mist, declared that, by whatever name known, taxes are always a 

 burden upon the private citizen. M. Gamier, another French 

 economist, defines taxes "as the reduction made on the private 

 fortunes of the citizens by the Government to meet public ex- 

 penditures." According to John Stuart Mill, "it is impossible in 

 a poor country to impose any tax which will not impede the in- 

 crease in the national wealth." . 



"None of us feel, when the tax-gatherer comes, that to be 

 taxed is a favor ; or that, as to the money exacted, we as indi- 

 viduals are the better off for its having been taken from us. We 

 know the tax is a burden ; as such it is recognized by every per- 

 son upon whom it is imposed." Hon. Thomas M. Cooley. 



All such conceptions of the position of the state in respect to 

 the taxpayer are, however, monarchical, implying the relation of 

 master and subject, lord and serf ; * and from such a point of view 



* When the Jewish people, weary of the tax despotism of a sacerdotal class i. e., the 

 tribe of Levi, to whom the land was held to have been given by Jehovah manifested an 

 intention of setting up a king, the prophet Samuel foretold that under royalty taxation 

 would be still more oppressive, and " this," he said, " will be the manner of the king that 

 shall reign over you. He will take your sons and appoint them for himself, and set them 

 to ear his ground and reap his harvest ; and he will take your daughters to be cooks," etc. ; 

 " and your fields, and your vineyards, and your olive-yards, even the best of them ; and the 



