Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/68

60 as old at least as constitutional government, and is so important that it is incorporated in the fundamental law of every State in the Federal Union. Article V of the Constitution of the United States also provides that private property shall not be taken for public use without due compensation. It is clear, therefore, that there must be a line between the taking of private property for public use by the law of eminent domain and by taxation. But how can that line be drawn except by the rule that rightful taxation means uniformity of burden on competing vocations and competing property? The following decision by the Supreme Court of New Jersey is clearly in conformity with this conclusion: "A tax," it said, "upon the persons or property of A, B, and C individually, whether designated by name or in any other way, which is in excess of an equal apportionment among the persons or property of the class of persons or kind of property subject to taxation, is, to the extent of such excess, the taking of private property for a public use without compensation. The process is one of confiscation and not taxation." (Township Committee of Reading, 35 N. J., p. 66, 1872.)

Fifth.Taxation should not he employed as an agency or for the purpose of enforcing morality, or as an instrumentality for correction or punishment.

The punitive or moral idea has probably always entered to some extent as an element in all those taxes which have been levied on luxuries, and more especially on all those forms of luxury which are regarded as frivolous or as mere insignia of wealth and title, such as hair powder, wigs, coats of arms, carriages, etc. But when a government assumes to inquire what are the articles the consumption of which is prejudicial to the interests and well-being of its people, and then embodies the results of such inquiries into its measures of revenue; so that while providing means for the support of the state it also prescribes how the citizen ought to live, dress, eat, or drink, the result is always ineffectual for purposes of revenue, and far more so for the promotion of morality. Examples illustrative and confirmatory of these conclusions are so numerous as to make a selection of them not a little difficult. The following have been cited by the late Sir Morton Peto: "A tax on dice in Great Britain, repealed in 1862, had the ludicrous result of producing for many years a revenue of five shillings per annum from a license of thirty to forty pounds a year on the business of manufacturing them. Another provision of law was that every person having dice unstamped by the revenue officials in his possession was liable to the penalty of five pounds for each pair! But stamped dice could not be obtained. Every one who wanted dice, even cabinet ministers and