The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1868-09-27
Who Pays the Taxes7
satiOn.


One of the most singular spectacles of the
day is the liberality with which the negroes
in the Legislature are constantly laying
heavy taxes upon themselves for the benefit
of the white harpics who absorb the reve-
nues of this State. These negroes are de-
luded into the belief that it is the wealthy
who lose this taxation, and that poor people
have nothing to do with it. They think it
all very well to quarter hungry ally upon
the landed proprietors, but would be horri-
fed to find that, after all, he is fattening
upon filchings from their>own scanty stores.
Capital is never taxed. It merely ad-
vances the taxes assessed against it, and
then reclaims them from labor with usury.
Capital is worth in every community a GER
tain amount of interest. However difficult
frequently to fix in figures, it has an intrin-
sic value. If, through superabundance
for the market, it does not command that
rate, enough is withdrawn to restore tho
natural balance, and enough flows in to eff
feet the same result if the rate rises above
the proper standard. Suppose that capital
is worth six per cent. interest, and you tax
it four per cent; it must then demand ten
per cent interest in order to pay the four
per cent. tax, and still clear six per cent. for
itself. If the commerce of the place will
not pay ten per cent, capital is withdrawn
until its scarcity secures the true apprecia-
ton, and if the remaining limited commerce
can never possibly pay the rate profitably,
then capital is totally withdrawn, and the
commerce of the locality perishes through
the weight of taxation. 1t is the same case
not only with commerce, but with manufac-
lures, agriculture, and every other species
of labor, mental or physical.
Every cent of taxation, then, though
nominally imposed on capital, comes, ulti-
mately, out of the earnings of labor. Each
additional item lessons the laborer's profit
and adds to his burden, until it may finally
exceed the rate which he is able to pay,
and still provide for his wants. In that
case, he is driven away. Thus, every de-
crease of taxation adds to the comfort or
luxury of labor, since capital diminislles it's
rates as taxation is removed while every
increase of tax reduces labor lower and
lower in the scale of poverty and privation.
The true prosperity of a population,
therefore, can generally be measured by
the lightness of taxation and, on the other
hand, wherever that burden is heavy, it is
certain that the poor must be poorer in the
same proportion, aud must suffer, however
great the general sources of prosperity.
A negro laborer, renting a small shanty,
feeding his children on corn-bread and
pork, and wearing the coarsest clothing,
may rejoice in the thought that he is free
from taxation, while the rich white man
has to pay heavily. But his landlord must
add theme taxes to his demands for the
shanty; the grocer must make up his own
increased rent and his enormous city, State,
and Internal Revenue licenses by an addi-
tional profit on the corn-meal and pork;
the shoe shop, the clothing stand, the dry
goods store must do the same.