Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1873-11-27
AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITU,
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nm Az Chattannnra Times- Nov. 2G

From the Chattanooga Times, Nov. &c.
Here are few suggestions for those
WHO desire a thorough Overhauling Of
our State Constitution;
l. The abolition of the cumbrous and
corrupt County Court system.
2. One assessment Of all property of
the State.
g. A uniform levy Of taxes.
l. The simplifcation of our system
of collections, so as to relieve the people
Of the support Of three or four officers
who only do one man S work
Let us glance at these points in de-
tail That the County Courts are what
we have denominated them, cumbrous
and corrupt, is SO patent to the most
casual observer as to need no proof.
The very nature Of their organization
leads to looseness, then log-rolling for
special interests, tavofitism, and all the
petty eorfuptions that grow up in
bodies practically Irresponsible to the
people. and clothed with large powers,
semi Legislative, semi-judicial. 1t is
needless to particularize, even if our
space permitted it. Our intelligent
readers VIII be able to call to mind any
number Of instances going to prove our
position.
a uniform system of assessments
would be of incalculable benefit to the
State at large, and when considered in
reference to our larger municipalities,
its saving would be, in the aggregate,
immense, .. Coupled with a provision
that one officer should collect all the
taxes, for whatever purpose, levied in a
county, the benefits derived and the
saving secured would be very large
| item.
Hamilton county viii do to illustrate
our statement. We have had in the
past year two assessments of the. prop
erty of this city. The city paid its As
SCISSOR 81, 200. The county paid a man
to do the same identical work as much
more Here is a thousand dollars
wasted. Then we have a county Tax
collector to collect. the general State
and county tax, and a trustee to Keep
it afterit is collected. The County Clerk
collects license andspecial tax, and set
ties direct with the Comptroller. The
City Collector collects the city tax
Here are three collectors and two as
SCISSORS, five officers whose duties should
and could be discharged by two, and
much better than now. The machinery
is clumsy, incongrioiis, expensive, and
tends to breed carelessness first and
corruption afterwards. 1t mixes and
confuses accounts, multiphes labor and
Offices at the capital, while it has none
of the checks and balances Of a well or
dered system.
Each one Of the collection officers
may and does distrain and sell proper
ty for non payment of taxes, and two
of them, the city and county tax collec-
tors must each year advertise a sepa-
rate delinquent list. The additional
and entirely useless expense, to poor
tax payers, of such asystem aggregates
hundred of thousands of dollars for the
whole State Add to this the annoy
ance a man is put to who is subject to
all the different taxes, in having to get
three or four receipts, and then being
left in a state Of bewildered uncertain
ty as to whether he is done with the
pubhcans of high and low degree, and
has got clear title to his property,
and the absud picture is about COM
plete.
THERE'S butone excuse for the abuses
their age.