Herald of the times. [volume] (Newport, R.I.) 1849-1856, 1849-02-08

As to tie second position OF The gentleman
from Newport, that this specific tax upon the
banks is unconstitutional under Il constitution
of this State. Nh. Ancs said, At II he a.
greed IN opinion with the gentleman, lie could
no, under Lis oslh vote for this sccliOn OF the
bill, bat in is also he dssencd from the
opinion of lha, gentleman.
The jnsiicc or injustice tie equality or inc
qualify of this measure in one thing, and the
power which the State has 10 imp sc such
tax, is another and very different one Tho
words % the constitution were that " the bur-
den of the State ought TO lie fairly distributed
az ong its citizens" 1t woull be seen that
the terms Of this claus were directory and ad-
visory, and no, imperative ard obligatory IN
the sense of rule which must be strictly CON-
piled with. The words made use of weIe
/" oug to be- and not shall be, Gentlemen
may honestly differ in opinion as TO the equal
ity of this mo le of taxation, but evidently the
whole meaning Of the clause is that tie iur.
dens of the State shall be as equally borne
BY the citizens of the State as i, is possible to
impose them. The expression in this clause
is " The Juyd'ens of the State ought tn be."-
Ths word = 'burdens' in his opinion was OF
very liberal impor, and included not only what
was usual y termed rates and taxes, but al-o
duties and excise. 1t gave the power to the
State to tax property IN specie, and also to I'M
pose rates and taxes upon persons according to
their property. Can any one doub, this, or
suppose the State has no power unde. this
claus. of the constitution to impose duties and
exciscs as well as rates and taXes-if Sc no
has but 10 look in.o the past legislation OF this
State before and after the ado, on of the con-
s,itution. The universal practice has been 10
raise the revenue of the State in this very
mode of taxing property in specie, and this of
ise'f was conclusive in his mind against tho
con -truction of the gentleman from Newport.
Such is the nature of the tax now imposed up
on pedlars, auction crs, liquor sc lers, and such
is the tax now imposed on The banks. Can it
be possible that the people of this State in
tended any such limited construction to havo
been given to this clause, when they were
voting for this constitution II so certainly
provision would have been made in that instru-
mcnt to restrict the power of the State IN lis
exercise on this subject. but as no such pro-
vision has been made, the presumption is that
none was intended. The gentleman from
Newport had cited decision fiom the Massa-
chusctts Reports to support his position. But
i, was TO be remembered that The terms of the
constitution of Massachusetts were different
from the terms Of our constitution. The Mas
sichusetls constitution defines particularly the
power OF the Legislature in this matter, and
makes provision, in one clause, for rates and
taxes, and IN another clause for duties and eX-
else, upon specific kinds of property. In tho
case referred TO, Judge Parker merely decided
in that cas-, that the power of the legislature
Of Massachusetts, TO impose the bank tax was
not derived from the first clause OF the constl-
tuition Of that State referred to, viz: that re-
la,ing to cxcises and duties, such being the
nature of the bank tax.
Mr.. A. said that in his opinion the word
/" BURDENS" use in our Constitution, was of
such general import as 10 include both species
of taxes, and all the Constitution requil ed in
the imposition Of excise lax was, that the tax
upon the cXciScd properly Of one man, or in
this case, the cap tai of one bank should not
he in greater proportion than the excise upon
the same property Of another man or bank
lie woulI even 90 farther and say, that
believed that if the irst clause of the Cons,i-
tuition Of Massachu etts, relating to la,es and
taxes, had stood a'on" and not been followed
b. that reati & to duties ard cxcises, the
learned Court Noul rot have decided !ha, the
legislature had not the power TO impose tho
excise duty in Gucsil0n-snce the word "tax-
es" was large emo" gh to embrace an excise
or duty'-and it could not be presumed that
the pc pc of Massachusetts intended TO de-
prjve their legislature of the ordinary power
TO impose such a,ax--so that it was equal in
the only sense in which such tax can be said
to be equal i. G. levied in the same proportion
upon all property of the same kind, in whose
soever hands it might Glance to be.
lie id he made this explanation, as was
his duty as chairman of the committee report
ing the bill. and because whatever might be
his views ofthc policy or propricty of adding
to the bank tax, he had no doubt whatever Of
the constitutional power Of the legislature to
do So notwithstanding the provision of our con-
s,itution referred to ty the gentleman from
Newport.
Mr. D'Wolf said tha, he hoped that the
ninth section would be stricken out, otherwise
he might cl obliged to vote against the bill
on ac cunt Of The principle involved 1t has
often been said here that we should tax the
privileges of the banks, and that is all that is
desired Mr.. d. said that the banks havo
paid for those privileges, in his opinion, by The
bonus which they originally Maid nv the taY