Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/670

650 property in the possession of another man to escape because of varying circumstances beyond the control of the assessors, is not taxation in any sense, but simply arbitrary taking. The court itself, in referring to the tax under consideration, said with great point and truth: "It is only one of many cases where, under the name of taxation, an oppressive exaction is made, without constitutional warrant, amounting to little else than an arbitrary seizure of private property. It is, in fact, a forced contribution levied upon property held in other States, where it is subjected, or may be subjected to taxation upon an estimate of its full value."

—Any review of the history of local taxation in the United States would be imperfect which failed to notice a notable and interesting decision given in May, 1873, by the Supreme Court of California in regard to the taxation by its State authorities of real-estate mortgages. The question was one that for a considerable time had greatly interested the people of California, and the drift of popular sentiment of San Francisco seems to have been most unmistakably in favor of their taxation. But how to do it, and at the same time not increase the burden on the borrower, who had mortgaged his land as security for a loan of capital to improve or stock it, was a problem that not a little troubled the lawmakers in Legislature assembled. One proposition brought forward contemplated a deduction from the amount of land tax of the assessment on the mortgage; but as the lands of California were found, as a rule, to be taxed far below their value, and the mortgages for a value far in excess of the assessor's appraisement of the land they covered, it became soon apparent that this scheme was to a greater or less extent equivalent to exempting the land and taxing the mortgage. Another proposition, embodied in a bill introduced into the Assembly, was to make void all contracts by which borrowers agreed to reimburse lenders in the amount of the mortgage tax; while others again were exceedingly strenuous in favor of trying the pleasing little experiment—which no community having once tried ever desires to repeat—of providing that the person giving the mortgage should pay the taxes upon it, but be at the same time authorized to deduct the tax from the principal, or interest, in settling with his creditor. Pending these discussions, however, the Supreme Court, which had the question before it on a suit to which one of the savings banks of San Francisco was a party, rendered a decision, that in virtue of a clause in the Constitution of the State requiring all taxation to be equal and uniform, the taxation of mortgages was unconstitutional and illegal; inasmuch as to tax a given property and then tax a mortgage on it, which mortgage is