Year: 1870




1 No class of complaints about the policy
of Government are at once 30 widespread
and so we'll founded as those which To-
spect its policy of taxation. The fund ~
OF the public debt, at greater or lesser
rate of interest, may be little thought of
the curtallment or expansion of the circu-
latlng medium may awaken trifiing inter
est the making a gift enterprise of the
public lands, to build railways and endow
schools, may be thought Of little conse-
quence to the individual citizen; the army
and navy, the pension system, the salary
question and all other details of Govern
ment expenditure may be managed after
whatever Congress pleases but ali leais-
latlon respecting taxes and interest come
home to the pocket of every citizen
Whether we shall pay five TSr cent. tax on
our income, being the old war rate, OF. only
half that amount; whether we shall be
taxed ten per cent. or upward on our ex-
penditures, through high protective tar
III on all the necessaries of life, or only
two or three per cent through a revenue
tariff are questions that affect directly the
means Of living of all Whether the i'm
mense revenues required for the expenses
of Government and the interest Of the
public debt shall be raised mainly from
taxes on luxures and superfluities, or
from the necessary consumption ofSevery
family, becomes vital point in the econ
omy of each household


1t is entirely true that no system of tax
alton has ever been devised which oper-
ates with absolute equality, or which dis
eliminates precisely between the share of
the common burden that should fairly be
borne by capital and by labor We all OF
US have had our grievances with the tax
gatherer, or rather with the law which
stands behind the tax-gatherer Those
who are satisfied with the law are ex-
tremsly few, as compared with the dissat-
isfed. There can never come a time, in
all probability, when our tax system will
be so adjusted as to suit even the majority
of those who have to pay.


"Whoe'er expects faultless tax to see,


Expects what neither is nor was, nor 'er shall be-"


But we have a right to expect that our
Lawmakers shall learn wisdom by expert
ence, not only of ourselves, but of other
nations. 1t is one thing to establish a
vicious or unjust system of taxation, and
quite another thing to maintain it after its
viciousness and injustice has been dem
onstrated. That the existing tariff laws
Of the United States, enacted under the
highest pressure of the war necessity,
should be still, with the very slightest ox-
ceptions. enforced for five years and up
ward after the war has terminated, reflects
in the severest manner upon the sagacity
and sense of justice of Congress. 1t is
cardinal principle of every Just system of
taxation that articles of mere luxury should
be taxed more in proportion than the nee
essaries of life, and especially than the
raw materials used in the mechanic arts
But our bungllng tariff, enacted under the
and I,lladdeus Stevens, taXeSa multitude of
merely ornamental products, used for pur-
poses Of taste and decoration, less ihan
half the rate imposed upon the necrssa-
rieS of life by the same tariff. Lool; al Il
few examples of the rates (still unchanged
by the prospective tariff OF January next
levied upon these articles: