PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 469 



a direct tax should be levied and collected under the Federal 

 Government, the determination of what is a direct tax has not 

 been an easy matter ; and the question came up for solution before 

 the United States Supreme Court shortly after the adoption of 

 the Constitution, or in 1794, in a case that has become historic in 

 the annals of American jurisprudence. 



Congress having imposed a tax on pleasure carriages or char- 

 iots, as they were then termed its collection was resisted by one 

 Hylton, of Virginia, on the ground that such a tax was a direct 

 tax, and had not been apportioned among the States, as required 

 by the Constitution. The court held that the tax in question was 

 to be considered as a tax on the expenses of living and not a direct 

 tax within the meaning of the Constitution, as the evils which 

 would attend its apportionment according to population would be 

 so great " that the Constitution could not have intended that an 

 apportionment should be made." "The Constitution," said the 

 Court, " evidently contemplated no taxes as direct taxes, but such 

 as Congress could lay in proportion to the census. A tax on car- 

 riages can not be laid by the rule of apportionment without very 

 great inequality and injustice. Suppose two States, equal in cen- 

 sus, to pay eighty thousand dollars each, by a tax on carriages of 

 eight dollars on every carriage, and in one State there are one 

 hundred carriages and in the other one thousand. A, in one State, 

 would pay for his carriage eight dollars ; but B, in the other 

 State, would pay for his carriage eighty dollars." (Opinion by 

 Justice Chase, 3 Dall., 171.) 



These, and other decisions of the United States Supreme Court, 

 have accordingly been regarded as affirming, that within the 

 meaning of the Constitution of the United States there are only 

 two forms of taxation that can be considered as direct namely, 

 a capitation or poll tax, simply, and without regard to property, 

 profession, or any other circumstance, and a tax on land; and 

 that no other taxes can be regarded as direct by the Federal 

 authorities. It is also worthy of note that since the decision in 

 the carriage case in 1796, Congress, in the few instances in which 

 it has imposed a tax which it recognized as direct, has never 

 made it applicable to any objects other than real estate and slaves. 



The following additional memoranda are pertinent to this dis- 

 cussion : While the carriage case was pending before the United 

 States Supreme Court in 1796, Mr. Madison, who participated in 

 the convention that framed the Constitution, wrote to the effect 

 that the action of Congress in imposing this tax was constitu- 

 tional, but that he doubted whether the court would so regard it. 

 Hamilton, who appeared as one of the counsel for the United 

 States in this case, also left behind him a legal brief in which he 

 says : " What is the distinction between direct and indirect taxes ? 



