The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1864-06-01
TAXES AND THEIR EFFECTs.

| XAAES AND THEIR EFFECTS.
Say what we may of theories or forms. the
practical value of government is determine.
BILE more by the proportion it establishes be-
tween the taxes it imposes and the ability OF
the people to pay them, than by any other ell
ement. A government which taxes the peo-
pie moro than they can pay without suffering,
is a bad government, however sublime the
theories upon which it may have been pro-
fsssedly founded; and it is safe to say that
many times more popular disaffectiou has, in
the history of the world, been ez cited against
governments by extreme taxation, than by all
the other causes of discontent put together.
The reason why popular govern ments are
desirable, is because the people who enjoy
them are supposed to have the power to ad-
! Just the burden according to their ability to
bear it. The presumption is that, unwilling
to be taxed beyond their strength, they will
interpose their political power to prevent such
catastrophe. If they fail to do this, they
part with the security which popular forms
are designed to establish. Other things being
equal, there is no reason to prefer republic
to an oligarchy or a monarchy. If Kings or
noblities can govern the people as well as the
| people can govern themselves, and are as safe
to be trusted with the power, better have
Kings or nobilities for popular governments
impose duties upon the citizens which if they
are useless or unnecessary it would be better
| to avoid.
.Tyranny-the capricious passions of the
despot-under ordinary circumstances, affects
comparatively few of its subjects. The mass
es at large, whatever the form. seldom feel
pressure of the power above them, except
when it comes in the person of the collector
of taxes. General justice is thing as neces-
sary to absolute monarchs as to any; and if
individuals are made to suffer from their vices
or their enmities, it is usually those who are
near their persons,-their nobility or imme-
diate dependents. 1t is only through taxation
that tyi amy becomes searching and universal;
aud ifsthis sort of tyranny can be established
under popular form of government, the fact
goes far to obliterate all the difference which
the friends of such form claim in its favor
We are accustomed to find the cause of all
the poverty, ignorance and degradation which
exists among the subject masses of several
European States, in the false principles upon
which the governments of such States are
constructed, and the cause Of our superiority,
in comfort, progress and intelligence to the
true principles which 'uuderEe our own
Without disputing the importance of princi-
pies or of institutions, we may be permitted
to express 4 doubt whether the popular no.
tions upon this subject are sustained by the
circumstances. So far as the agency of the
do IN fixing the condition of the people, it has
been not through the principles which lie at
its foundation, but through the fact of ia xation
In the one case taxes have been heavy IN pro
portion to the ability Of the people to pay, in
the other case light.
During the century which preceded the
revolution of $780, FRANCE had been depleted
of one quarter of ber population, through
famines created by the exaetions of the gov
ernment. There was no complaint of the
principles of the government. The leading
revolutionists themselves were monarcbists
and the king and h:s nobility as much as any
admitted the necessity of reorganization of
the financial system in order to relieve the
people of the burdens which were crushing
them out Of existence. The revolution was
against the fact of intolerable taxes and their
effects-a destitution of bread, which reduced
millions of the people to beggary and starva-
ton. =
English writers do not attempt to conceal
the fact, that while Great Britain has the
most splendid, it has also the most rotten svs-
tenn of civilization upon the globe. Upon the
surface the show is excelent-a hereditary
sovereign, titled and refined nobility, and a
middle class wealthy almost beyond compari-
son beneath this, vast body of laborers,
poor, abb ect, overworked, underfed, underclad,
and degraded. For this, it is not tho form
of government that is to blame, but the fact
of a war debt, which lies like a milestone upon
the state, and crpshes the life out of millions
of the people. H
Debt and taxation will produce the same eff.
feets everywhere. They will do upon this,
precisely what they have done and are doing
upon the other side of the ocean. There is
no principle, no doctrine, no tradition that
can be set up to ward eff or stay the oppres-
sion of taxes beyond the ability of the people
to gay, or to heal the consequent suffering,
degradation and immortality. Taxation is sla-
very. The laboring millions of England, the
producers of the wealth of the realm, are
slaves-slaves to capital and to political neccs-
sitv; slavery more abject and hopeless of
amelioraton than the servitude of one indi-
vidual human being to another. What is the
boasted freedom of an English operative worth,
when the sentence stands recorded against
him at his birth "Once laborerer always
laborer 2" -.rs- -.-
Let this war terminate when it may, one
thing is certain in proportion to their ability
to pay, the people of the United States will
have hanging over them at its close the heav-
lest war debt now existing or known to hi.to-
ry. They will therefore be subject to the
heaviest taxes, in proportion to their means, |
ever imposed. Upon them, taxation will pro-
duce exactly the effects it has produced upen
others. 1t will impoverish, degrade, disaffct, |
Enquirer. {
Soldiers Fay.
mLo nan,oorotc in ConrresS propcsed IN IN |