The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-07-15

land, or Pennsylvania, or Ohio, only to get
still more decided rebuff. She enacted forty
years ago, for the city Of Charleston, in very
similar language, precisely what the New
York platform demands; an equal tax on all
kinds of personal property "includiug stocks
OF the United States" The Supreme Court
declared the act an attack on the sovereignty
of the United States, and, therefore, uuconsti-
tutional and void. 5.I l ... -...
Finally, the State of New York, under the
government of Horatio Seymour, made per-
sistent and ingenious effort to evate this priu-
ciple. For two years she continued the strug-
gle of cunning against the Constitution, en-
deavoring first by a tax on the capital of the
banks, and afterwards by tax on "a valua-
tion equal to the amount of their stock ana of
their surplus earnings to do that indirectly
which could not be done directly. But the
Supreme Court, in successive decisions,
brushed away all the cobwebs spun around
the constitutional principle, aud declared that
the United States could net submit to the ex-
ercise of any power by State which might be
used to destroy their sovereignty.
Every other species OF property but that
connected with the paramount powers OF the
General Government is everywhere bject to
taxation, and, in this State, is heavily taxed.
But there is no single legal proposition which
is more clearly established than this, that
''equal taxation of every species OF property
ment bonds and other public securities, is
unconstitutional and impossible.
Yet the Democratic party solemnly demand
this They attack the Constitution, they deny
the settled law of the land, they transfer the
Rebellion, beaten in war, to the field of politi'
cal finances they revive the extinct doctrines
of Calhoun, which it has just cost half gene
ration OF our growth to put down.
An effort is made to escape the issue by as
suming that the platform demands taxation
by the general Government, and by that alone.
But to do this seriously, one must further as
sumo that he is addressing fools. ..
For the platform does not say anything
about the authority which shall levy the
| taxes it demands. Will it be- said that the
| Convention meant equal taxation by the
| United States Y''
| No; for the Convention has taken pains to
show that it meant no such thing. 1t says
expressly 'equal taxation of every species of
property" This phrase is nonsense, if ap-
piled to the United States. They tax no pro-
perty at all; but, so far as they are concerned,
all property is alike exempt.
The only tax levied by the general Govern
ment which has any semblance at all of pro
perty tax is that upon incomes. 1t is now, aud
has been for several years, levied "equally on
every species of property, including Govern
ment bonds, " according to the annual income
they yield. Thus the phrase in question is
| doubly seen TO be nonsense II applied TO the
national system of taxation.
But applied as it is meant to the present
exemption of the bonds from the taxation to
which farms, houses, mortgages, and railroad
stocks are subject in this state and in every
| State, it has clear and consistent sense.
1t means the overthrow of the Supreme
| Court. 1t means the destruction of the ma
toms sovereignty. 1t means the supremacy
of each State over the General Government
| 1t means all that Lee fought for in Virginia
and Seymour in New York during the war. 1t
means all that we thought Grant had ended
forever at Vicksburg and at Richmond.
But it means yet more than this. The laws
under which these bonds were issued con-
tanned the assurance that they shall be Eek
empt from taxation by or under municipal
authority" This is a part of the bargain
agreed upon between the United States and its
creditors. The Democratic party demand the
deliberate breaking of this bargain. Their
platform on paying the bonds in greenbacks
is at least bold dishonesty; but this on taxa
tion is mean kind Of theft. The Pendleton
doctrine may fairly rank with highway rob-
berry, but the Seymour addition savors of the
| pickpocket.