52 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



it is nevertheless true that the "co- relative" or "reciprocal" of 

 taxation is protection ; or, in other words, according to the polit- 

 ical theory of our governments, national and State, and in fact of 

 every government claiming the title to be free, taxes may be 

 legitimately assumed to be the compensation which persons and 

 property pay the State for protection. This assumption, it is be- 

 lieved, has been indorsed and accepted by every writer of repute 

 on economic subjects who has discussed taxation from the time 

 of Montesquieu down to a very recent period;* and in the re- 

 peated instances in which this matter has come before the courts 

 for adjudication, the highest judicial authorities have uniformly 

 given judgment or expressed opinions to the same effect. In con- 

 firmation of these statements the following citations are sub- 

 mitted : 



"Where there is no protection," said Judge Story (in the case 

 of the United States vs. Rice, 4 Wheaton, 276), " there can be no 

 claim to allegiance or obedience." Again the same eminent au- 

 thority (in the case of Miles vs. Duryea, Cranch, 481) thus strongly 

 expresses himself : " It is an eternal principle of justice that juris- 

 diction can not be justly exercised by a State over property that 

 is not within reach of its process that is, property which it can 

 not protect." 



" Taxes are a portion ivhich each individual gives of his prop- 

 in the pretense that the right in question is the simple right of might ; that the ruling 

 power, whether monarch or majority, is physically able to take and apply as it chooses all 

 that the individuals ruled over called their own ; and that because it can, it morally may, 

 take whatever part it thinks fit. With simple ethics the leviers of taxes, whenever they 

 are a distinct class, are wont to content themselves. But whatever countenance they have 

 received from such moral philosophers as venerate successful force, the principle will hardly 

 serve those who study the matter as taxpayers." Theodore Bacon. 



* " The philosophy of our plan of voluntary political association is, that all individuals, 

 and all the values within a community, shall aggregate into one mass all the power which 

 they separately contain, which sum total shall constitute a sovereignty of the whole. This 

 sovereignty the soul of the State, which can not be impaired and the State survive re- 

 flects back upon its constituents, in detail, all that it has received from them. What it re- 

 ceives, and what it returns, is of two kinds, as to both source and object, viz., individual 

 service to the Government, and protection to the individual from it. Thus, in his indi- 

 vidual capacity, a man is bound to perform military service, and the State, by the military 

 arm, is bound to protect him from invasion. He is bound to do jury duty, and the authori- 

 ties are bound, upon his demand, to provide him a jury. He is bound to aid the sheriff, and 

 the sheriff is bound to execute process in his favor by posse comttatus, if necessary. These 

 personal services correspond to those which in feudal times the mesne lord, holding a frank 

 tenement, owed the lord paramount. They can not be compounded for, for their value 

 consists in their being rendered in kind. Their performance is the only price which the 

 citizen pays for his citizenship. The terms are not only consistent and harmonious with our 

 general scheme of government, but are highly politic. To all political privileges we admit 

 each one by virtue of his being a man, free born, and of lawful age ; we ask him nothing 

 concerning his property, unless his property asks something from us." Lowrey, Argument, 

 New York Assembly, 1862. 



