Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1863-02-24

3
"evety slave who has attained the age of
81 years shall be assessed with a tax equal
to and not exceeding that assessed on land
ofthe value of $500" Before the rebellion,
slaves sold in the Richmond market as high
as $4,000, yet they were only taxed as much
as $500 worth of land. No wonder slave
breeding was so profitable. Until the hui
man cattle were IL years old they we're not
taxed a cent, and after they had passed
that age were taxed at about one fourth or
fifth of their market value. But the West
ern grazier, who dealt in four legged brutes
! was not so favored. Neither was there any
exemption afterwards. He must pay s'ac-
cording to value" aud so must everybody
else except the pOssessor of slaves, which
were property when legislation was want
ed, aud everything else when it came to
taxation.
In Auditor Bennet's report for 1853 the
average value of all the slaves in the
State was put down at $6l2,6s. The cen
sus of 1860 gives their number at 49O, 1856;
worth according to this estimate, $780,
71s,624,95. This is the sum that ought
to have been subject to taxation and would
have been under the al pGlorem principle.
But, then, all under l2 years of age were
exempt. Accordingly we find in the same
report that the number actually taxed in
1859 was 272,17O, but little more than
half, worth ut the same estimate, $780,
739,5O7 10 This sum then certainly
should have been taxed, according to their
own showing. But not so. These slaves,
which sell down South for $1,000 TO $2,-
600, are for purposes of taxation worth
$500; so that the whole slave property of
the State was actually taxed at only $751;
55T,O instead of Sl66, 799, 5o7, as shown
by the moderate calculation of their own
Auditor, (for if Bennett had been born and
reared in the centre of Richmond, he could
not have been more entirely subservient to
Eastern influence, or $3OO,7I8, 624, as 9TH
erproperty was taxed, Now, even supposing
that negroes under IL years of age were
worth nothing, and that those over that
nge were worth ouly $6I2, there was a
clear robbery each year from non-sIave-
holders OF tue tax on property rated as
$50, l4S,5O7 lOwOrth of land, just in this
single particular. Taxed as land that sum
would have yielded an annual revenue of
sa5O,594.
Uuder the new Constitution such
wrongs cannot exist. The Grst section of
article eight declares in explicit terms that
''all property both real and personal shall
be taxed in proportion to it's value" And
asif to make it still more emphatic, reiter-
ates the idea in the next sentence in this
language: mo one species of property
from which 3 tar may be collected, shall be
taxed higher than any other species of
property of equal value" There is no ex-
emptton here tor privileged Glasses. If a
man holds property which the law is r..
CURED to protect, he pays for its protection
according 10 its value, just as every other
man does for the protection of any other
kind of property. The principle is very
simple, so simple that a child NAV under.
stand it, and expressed in few words; vet
what world of wong aud ruin, it would
have saved tho people of Virginia if the
Convention of ls29-so, or even the Con.
vention of 80, had put it in their Cousti.
tuition. Under this provision of the new
Constitution there is no oppression of
slave property. 1t is simply put on the
same footing as other property. Yet we
: apprehend the insertion of such provision
in the Constitution by the Convention of
go, would even by this time have removed
the bulk of the institution from the State.
because when taxed here according to its
deserts it would have been found SO much
more profitable in other quarters that it
would have naturally removed where it
could have been under the operation of
the more cougeuisl system. 1t would be
no idle assertion to add that the ipcorno.
ration of such principle even twelve years
ago, would have fortified Virginia against
secession and the train of disastrous con-
sequences that have attended it.; for II
would have SO much weakened the power
OF slavery in Virginia that the slavehold.
ers' rebellion could not have dragged her
after it. s'N neF
The effect of this provision in the new
Constitution as atfeetiug. slavery must be to
hasten its removalifrOm the new State, on
the principle already stated. But it seems
as if Providence and circumstances have
rendered such aid unnecessary. Yet the
principle is so eminently just and iudicious
that its preservation NAV prevent orsot
evils that might grow ont of fature dis.
examinations in favor of OF against other
classes of property, that we may NO. now
be able to foresee. At any rate it begins