CHAPTER III. 



INDIRECT TAXATION. 



If farmers have been slow to appreciate the injustice 

 of the system of direct taxation under which they have 

 labored, and the dangers now threatening them in the 

 agitations going on in the great influential centres to in- 

 crease these evils, it is hardly a wonder that the more 

 intricate question of indirect taxation has failed to receive 

 the disapproval which it merits from them. Yet, on the 

 other hand, it seems almost incredible that a scheme for 

 collecting public revenue could be devised to work so 

 much and so continuous harm as our customs and excise 

 taxes have, without causing louder protests from the 

 masses ere this ; that farmers, who are the most deeply 

 victimized, should nurse the delusion that possibly it 

 was benefiting them. 



It is plainly evident that indirect taxation has been the 

 chief working instrument in a system of government 

 prevailing in America, through which the slavery of class 

 to class is being secured. Through it, the policy of pro- 

 tection, of which we have said so much in condemnation 

 in the preceding chapters, has been of easy application. 

 It has shown how it is possible, by artificial means, to 

 entirely change the course of national industry. Without 

 it, or similar means, it must have followed the course in 

 America which the protectionists of as far back as 1789 



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