Fayetteville observer. [volume] (Fayetteville, Tenn.) 1850-1966, 1874-04-16

trates and organizes into great
monopolies to control the prices
of the products of labor. We
need more manufactures, small
er and generally distributed.
Patented manopolies are dan
gerous to the liberties of any
country. y fair and equitable
rate Of taxation can never be
obtained by your State Board,
neither can it be under the pres
entconstitution. 1t is too dis
eliminating; it eXempts u thou
sand dollars Of personal prop
erty from taxation, which is UNI
Just and wrong; it is oppres-
sive to the poorer class and a
protection or an exemption to
the wealthy; there are none but
the Weather portion that have a
thousand dollars personality
Men that own small farms or
tracts of lands have to pay on
all their realty; the small farms
arc assessed higher than large
bodies of land II these small
farmers never have Il thousand
dollars worth of personal prop
erty; they pay nothing on per-
sonalty, but the high assessment
Of their lands make them pay
more tax in proportion TO their
wealth than the large farmer.
The large farmers or large
property holders of any kind
pay less taxes in proportion to
what they are worth than the
man Of less wealth. under our
constitution, from the simple
fact, men are not taxed in pro-
portion to what they are worth.
| know it is urged that. the OBJ
. iect was to protect the weaker
class of society, but it is false in
theory AMI practice. If the
large farmer rents his land, he
adds the taxes to the rents; if
he hires labor to cultivate, he
,deducts the taxes from the la
borer's wages; if he is money
lender, he adds the taxes to he
rate Of interest.
The merchant upon the cost
of his goods, which is heavy on
both the merchant and the con-
sumner, the merchant pays al
al val0rem tax and a privilege.
which would be considerable
margin to the consumer. All
goods that are sold in this State
have been taxed four times be-
fore they reach the consumer
taxed twice in the hands of the
!. wholesale merchant, twice i'll the
hands of the retail, and this tax
comes out of the pockets of the
consumers, and they are gener-
ally the laburers of the country
for the wealthy bay but little al
retail. By that means they pay
less tax as consumers.
Every man ought to pay On
what he is worth, let it consist
in what it may. The man that
has five hundred dollars worth
of any kind of personality, ought
to pay as much tax as the MAI
that has five hundred dollars
worth of land, and the man that
has five hundred dollars worth
of merchandise should pay or
five hundred dollars worth, and
no more.
You will say the interest OF
the public debt must be paid
funding or not. That is right
for funding is question of the
past; in future we must look to
the payment Of interest, and the
liquidation of the public debt
with the current expenses of the
State.
The next Legislature to meet
the demands Of the funding bill
and some other little eccentrici-
ties of the last, will have to class
Iify the lands of the State or raise
the rate Of taxation. For the
assessed values will not be SC
large as last year. Land own
ers are almost universal in the
depression that their lands were
assessed too high in 1873, and
many will be reduced to about
the value of 1872; and they will
continue that way until a change
in the present law. The assess
ment laws will be changed by
every Legislature we have UNI
der the present constitution,
and as soon as the people of
the State are fully appraised of
where n great portion Of the
trouble comes from in our leg
islation, they will favor a con-
vention to change the constitu-
ltion. We will then be sufi-
GENTLY acquainted with the new
order of things that are the re-
suit of the late war, to get up a