126 lines
7.5 KiB
Markdown
126 lines
7.5 KiB
Markdown
\appendix
|
||
# TAXATION
|
||
|
||
It was a principle of the Common Law, as it is of the law of nature, and
|
||
of common sense, that no man can be taxed without his personal consent.
|
||
The Common Law knew nothing of that system, which now prevails in
|
||
England, of _assuming_ a man’s own consent to be taxed, because some
|
||
pretended representative, whom he never authorized to act for him, has
|
||
taken it upon himself to consent that he may be taxed. That is one of
|
||
the many frauds on the Common Law, and the English constitution, which
|
||
have been introduced since Magna Carta. Having finally established
|
||
itself in England, it has been stupidly and servilely copied and
|
||
submitted to in the United States.
|
||
|
||
If the trial by jury were reëstablished, the Common Law principle of
|
||
taxation would be reëstablished with it; for it is not to be supposed
|
||
that juries would enforce a tax upon an individual which he had never
|
||
agreed to pay. Taxation without consent is as plainly robbery, when
|
||
enforced against one man, as when enforced against millions; and it is
|
||
not to be imagined that juries could be blind to so self-evident a
|
||
principle. Taking a man’s money without his consent, is also as much
|
||
robbery, when it is done by millions of men, acting in concert, and
|
||
calling themselves a government, as when it is done by a single
|
||
individual, acting on his own responsibility, and calling himself a
|
||
highwayman. Neither the numbers engaged in the act, nor the different
|
||
characters they assume as a cover for the act, alter the nature of the
|
||
act itself.
|
||
|
||
If the government can take a man’s money without his consent, there is
|
||
no limit to the additional tyranny it may practise upon him; for, with
|
||
his money, it can hire soldiers to stand over him, keep him in
|
||
subjection, plunder him at discretion, and kill him if he resists. And
|
||
governments always will do this, as they everywhere and always have done
|
||
it, except where the Common Law principle has been established. It is
|
||
therefore a first principle, a very _sine qua non_ of political freedom,
|
||
that a man can be taxed only by his personal consent. And the
|
||
establishment of this principle, with _trial by jury_, insures freedom
|
||
of course; because: 1. No man would pay his money unless he had first
|
||
contracted for such a government as he was willing to support; and, 2.
|
||
Unless the government then kept itself within the terms of its contract,
|
||
juries would not enforce the payment of the tax. Besides, the agreement
|
||
to be taxed would probably be entered into but for a year at a time. If,
|
||
in that year, the government proved itself either inefficient or
|
||
tyrannical, to any serious degree, the contract would not be renewed.
|
||
The dissatisfied parties, if sufficiently numerous for a new
|
||
organization, would form themselves into a separate association for
|
||
mutual protection. If not sufficiently numerous for that purpose, those
|
||
who were conscientious would forego all governmental protection, rather
|
||
than contribute to the support of a government which they deemed unjust.
|
||
|
||
All legitimate government is a mutual insurance company, voluntarily
|
||
agreed upon by the parties to it, for the protection of their rights
|
||
against wrong-doers. In its voluntary character it is precisely similar
|
||
to an association for mutual protection against fire or shipwreck.
|
||
Before a man will join an association for these latter purposes, and pay
|
||
the premium for being insured, he will, if he be a man of sense, look at
|
||
the articles of the association; see what the company promises to do;
|
||
what it is likely to do; and what are the rates of insurance. If he be
|
||
satisfied on all these points, he will become a member, pay his premium
|
||
for a year, and then hold the company to its contract. If the conduct of
|
||
the company prove unsatisfactory, he will let his policy expire at the
|
||
end of the year for which he has paid; will decline to pay any further
|
||
premiums, and either seek insurance elsewhere, or take his own risk
|
||
without any insurance. And as men act in the insurance of their ships
|
||
and dwellings, they would act in the insurance of their properties,
|
||
liberties and lives, in the political association, or government.
|
||
|
||
The political insurance company, or government, have no more right, in
|
||
nature or reason, to _assume_ a man’s consent to be protected by them,
|
||
and to be taxed for that protection, when he has given no actual
|
||
consent, than a fire or marine insurance company have to assume a man’s
|
||
consent to be protected by them, and to pay the premium, when his actual
|
||
consent has never been given. To take a man’s property without his
|
||
consent is robbery; and to assume his consent, where no actual consent
|
||
is given, makes the taking none the less robbery. If it did, the
|
||
highwayman has the same right to assume a man’s consent to part with his
|
||
purse, that any other man, or body of men, can have. And his assumption
|
||
would afford as much moral justification for his robbery as does a like
|
||
assumption, on the part of the government, for taking a man’s property
|
||
without his consent. The government’s pretence of protecting him, as an
|
||
equivalent for the taxation, affords no justification. It is for himself
|
||
to decide whether he desires such protection as the government offers
|
||
him. If he do not desire it, or do not bargain for it, the government
|
||
has no more right than any other insurance company to impose it upon
|
||
him, or make him pay for it.
|
||
|
||
Trial by the country, and no taxation without consent, were the two
|
||
pillars of English liberty, (when England had any liberty,) and the
|
||
first principles of the Common Law. They mutually sustain each other;
|
||
and neither can stand without the other. Without both, no people have
|
||
any guaranty for their freedom; with both, no people can be otherwise
|
||
than free.[^118]
|
||
|
||
By what force, fraud, and conspiracy, on the part of kings, nobles, and
|
||
“a few wealthy freeholders,” these pillars have been prostrated in
|
||
England, it is designed to show more fully in the next volume, if it
|
||
should be necessary.
|
||
|
||
[Footnote 118: Trial by the country, and no taxation without consent,
|
||
mutually sustain each other, and can be sustained only by each other,
|
||
for these reasons: 1. Juries would refuse to enforce a tax against a man
|
||
who had never agreed to pay it. They would also protect men in forcibly
|
||
resisting the collection of taxes to which they had never consented.
|
||
Otherwise the jurors would authorize the government to tax themselves
|
||
without their consent,—a thing which no jury would be likely to do. In
|
||
these two ways, then, trial by the country would sustain the principle
|
||
of no taxation without consent. 2. On the other hand, the principle of
|
||
no taxation without consent would sustain the trial by the country,
|
||
because men in general would not consent to be taxed for the support of
|
||
a government under which trial by the country was not secured. Thus
|
||
these two principles mutually sustain each other.
|
||
|
||
But, if either of these principles were broken down, the other would
|
||
fall with it, and for these reasons: 1. If trial by the country were
|
||
broken down, the principle of no taxation without consent would fall
|
||
with it, because the government would then be _able_ to tax the people
|
||
without their consent, inasmuch as the legal tribunals would be mere
|
||
tools of the government, and would enforce such taxation, and punish men
|
||
for resisting such taxation, as the government ordered. 2. On the other
|
||
hand, if the principle of no taxation without consent were broken down,
|
||
trial by the country would fall with it, because the government, if it
|
||
could tax people without their consent, would, of course, take enough of
|
||
their money to enable it to employ all the force necessary for
|
||
sustaining its own tribunals, (in the place of juries,) and carrying
|
||
their decrees into execution.]
|