Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1868-04-27

Client that no tax can Be imposed on III
citizens but by their representatives Il
the Legislature, The citizens are emit
tied to require that the Legislature ilsel
shall cause all public taxation to be isi
and equal IN proportion 10 the vqiae Q
property. so that no one class Of i''df'
riduals, and no one species Of properf'
may be unequally or undGly assessed
This is simple justice, and the fail
thit-peither more nor less ltiswha'
every fair man should desire, as Will b
found on examination to be the case
with all the great and settled principles
of our constitutional and Of international
and the common law 1t is not the right
to tax which we deny, but the power to
do so unequally and to exempt any par
ticular property or class OF individuals
from common share of what ought to be
a common burden on all who share a
common benefit That is the principle
Will il be doubted that all the citizens OF
Memphis are benefited alike by the great
| public Improvement which has so long
been coveted as desideratum " all,
and which all are alike epjoyingH Will
any have the presumption to say
that the owner of store on Main
street or Front street is more ben
Gifted by a pavement before his
door aud extending through all the
city, than the tenant of the store who
wears out the pavement and saves cart
age and drayage every day in passing his
thousands and tens and hundreds OF
thousands of goods to and fro through
the city. on streets which increase
his custom by the greater facility they
furnish, and by the Improvement oil
which his wealth is augmented? As to
this matter we happen to have very CO.
gent proof in point When last fall it
was apprehended that the pavement of
Main street would not 60 on, we are in
formed that hundred merchants stood
ready to foot the bill, asking only that
their payment for the pavement might
be entered to their credit on the books OF
the city, as a payment of their taxes in
advance and for their benefit in future
years, and without claim of interest for
making the advance How is the fact to be
accounted for? Is it because the mer-
chants of Memphis are proverbially more
liberal and publc-spirited than the land
lords, who did not come forward with
such proposition? Is not the expla-
nation rather to be found in this-that
the merchants were not only common
beneiciaries, but the chief benefciariesY
Does not every housekeeper find also a
benefit in the greater facility for obtaining
his supplies, every pleasure-seeker in his
pleasant evening drives, every pedestrian
in the clearly streets, and every man,
woman and child that ,breathes, in the
purer atmosphere, and the prevention of
stagnation and disease2
And now where there is a common |
benefit to everything that lives, is it not |
fair and right that all should aid to pay |
for it according to the means of each,
and that the banker and broker, mer-
chant, manufacturer, mechanic, doctor,
lawyer, preacher and man, should pay
his equal share OF this public indebted
ness2 1t is the common right. 1t is
natural justice. 1t is written in the law
books, made part Of every free consti-
ution, proclaimed by every mans con-
and a departure from it is an
Illegal oppression of the citizen which
IAN never be legitimated, and we predict
will never be legally enforced.
And not only was the action of the
I'D Board, which placed this common
burden on the owners of the soil exclu-
lively, an act of Partially and tyranny
IN the class selected, having no warrant
n ethics, law, reason or religion, and in
xcusable because negotiable as between
he citizens of Memphis at large, but it
) also an anomalous enormity even as
etween the owners of the soil them
elves As if to show the utter imprac-
liability of departing from the great
principles Of equity and impartiality
,hich underlie and are indispensable to
be harmonious and bene6cent working
{ the fabric of society, the iniquitous
perationuf the plan Of taxation adopted
! here quite as glaringly apparent as it
in the fact of the selection of class
{ citizens from all others to be taxed as
Ugh as ten-and in some instances even
Tenty-per centum of the value Of their
lnded property, while all others and
iany Weather than themselves wholly
scape. 1t so happens that the tax is
lid at so much per foot Of the front OF
be streets, without reference TO the
epth. So that an owner Of piece Of
round on Main street, for instance,
-hich has one hundred and forty-eight
nd a half feet front on the street, and
ans back only twenty feet, will pay, at
ixteen dollars the front fool, twenty-three
undred and seventy-six dollars tax;while
is neighbor who has but twenty feet front
nd running back one hundred and forty
light and a half feet, or precisely the
anne quantity Of ground, will pay only
bree hundred and twenty dollars, or less