Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/160

146 and property, and for which the citizen in return pays an equivalent in money, merchandise, or personal service. There is, however, no historical example of any such contract.

Others have sought to refer the origin of this right on the part of the state to take the property of the citizen to an antecedent right of might, and have assumed that, as the ruling power, whether monarch or majority, is physically able to take and apply to its own use all that the individuals ruled over may call their own, it is therefore legitimate and morally correct for it to exercise this right and take such part of its subjects' property as it may see fit.

A third and more plausible theory is, that as all rights of property are conventional and not natural, and without the intervention of the state by its laws could not be enforced nor protected, and, indeed, could hardly be said to exist; therefore the state is the source of all title, and the individual holds only by grant or sufferance of the state. From these premises it follows that the state, in compelling contributions from its subjects, or, as is ordinarily expressed, in "taxing," is in the position of an absolute proprietor who takes simply what is his own. This was the theory accepted and practically carried out by all the monarchs of Europe in the seventeenth century, or about two hundred and fifty years ago, and defended by the best and most eminent men of the time, as Bossuet in France and most of the great jurists of England under Charles I, as was exemplified in the case of John Hampden, who was prosecuted for refusing to pay an arbitrary tax known as "ship money"; and the decision in which, by the High Court of Exchequer, placed the property of every Englishman at the disposal of the crown. It was also so clearly expressed by Louis XIV that his words are worthy of exact citation. Thus, in a manual which he wrote for the guidance of his heir and successor, the Dauphin, he says: "I hold the place of God. To me belong exclusively the lives and fortunes of my people. The nation resides entirely in the person of the monarch. Kings are absolute masters, and may naturally, fully and freely dispose of all the property possessed by either the clergy or laity, to use at all times like wise stewards and according to the needs of the state."

Herbert Spencer refers the growth of revenue, which involves the right to take it, from the outset, like the growth of political headship which it accompanies, directly or indirectly, to the results of war. "The property," he says, "of conquered enemies—at first goods, cattle, prisoners, and at a later stage land—coming in larger share to the leading warrior, increases his predominance. To secure his good will, which it is now important to do, propitiatory presents and help in labor are next given; and these,