Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/159



HE next step of importance in this discussion is to recognize clearly the relation which the exercise or function of taxation, as it has been defined, sustains to the state.

—The question at once suggests itself, "By what right does that entity which we call the state, whatever may be its concrete form, and whether its powers are exercised by a single man (Cæsar), by a particular class, or by a majority of citizens, take from the individual that which hitherto was absolutely his, annul his ownership, and convert the thing of value to its own use?" How happens it that the exercise of this right is so absolute that the state requires the citizen to set apart from the earnings of his labor a certain sum for its use before he applies any of those earnings to the support of his family?

On this point there has been considerable speculation and philosophizing. It has been assumed that there must be an actual or implied contract between the state and the citizen, in virtue of which the state supplied a certain amount of protection to life