noble principles which will ever receive their cordial greeting.
Whatever, therefore, may be the wants of the State, created by proper legislation, having due regard to economy, every right-minded man will cheerfully contribute his quota. Place your tax act upon the plain principles of equality of burdens and equality of benefits, and the people will sustain you. Viewing as an evil of no ordinary magnitude the present system of specific taxation, with odious discriminations in reference to properly and persons, I feel it to be an imperative duty, most respectfully but earnestly, to urge upon you its repeal, and the adoption of an ad valorem tax.
In offering some of the reasons that should induce the change, I would not be understood as regarding slightly others that will readily suggest themselves to you as worthy of consideration—much less will the limit I have prescribed for myself, permit me to say all I could desire on this important question; much is, therefore, confided to the calm deliberation and patient investigation of the representatives chosen by the People, in guarding and protecting their interests in respect to this as well as other subjects. Two considerations, in the adoption of a system of finance, should be kept prominently in view: first, the certainty of obtaining the requisite amount to meet all the exigencies of Government and no more—and, secondly, so to equalize and discriminate, if you please, between the different objects of taxation as to make the available or productive property of the State bear its equal and just proportion of the burdens of Government.
Upon the first branch of the subject, it may be safely assumed that the income from taxes, under the present system, cannot be estimated with certainty, or an approach to it.
The truth of this position is fully shewn by reference to the amount of income received under the present tax act for the last several years. Although the amount received has increased annually, it is apparent that causes, not remote or improbable in their occurrence, may intervene varying the income to an amount not anticipated, and bringing in its train disasters highly prejudicial, if not absolutely ruinous to State credit. If your expenditures are based upon any given amount of income, under the present mode of levying and collecting taxes, you must take the hazard of a redundant Treasury, which is grossly unjust to the People, or, if possible, the still more perilous hazard of failing to provide a sum adequate to meet the just demands upon the Treasury. It may be no difficult matter to ascertain the amount required to meet the current expenses of the State, but none would have the hardihood to assert what is to be the income from specific taxation under the present act, or any other based upon the same principle. From the very nature of
