tribes were due to the refusal of the successor of Solomon to accede to the demands of their representatives that he should abate the (tax) exactions of the preceding reign; and to his threat in response that he would make his yoke even heavier in this particular than his father's. And the first significant act recorded of the revolt that followed was the stoning to death of the man Adoram, who "was over the tribute," or the chief of the tax collectors.
After the Persian war, the states of Greece, united under what was termed the confederation of Delos, agreed to make contributions—i. e., pay taxes—to Athens, to be used by her for the common defense; and these contributions, assessed in the first instance by Aristides, whose reputation for justice commanded the confidence of all, occasioned no complaint. But finally Athens, having assumed the direction of the confederacy, not only increased the contributions beyond the assessments of Aristides, but also assumed the right to use them arbitrarily, notably for fortifying and beautifying the city. The result was a revolt, followed by the Peloponnesian war, and from that date and occurrence the decline of Athens, and indeed of all the states of Greece, is traceable.
Oppressive taxation prompted the so-called massacre of the "Sicilian Vespers" in 1282, resulting in the slaughter or expulsion of all the French from the island of Sicily.
The assumption and exercise of authority on the part of Pope Leo X in 1517, to enforce contributions for the rebuilding of the cathedral of St. Peter's at Rome was, as is well known, the primary cause of the disruption of the Roman Catholic Church, the Protestant secession led by Luther, and the almost innumerable wars and social disturbances that followed in consequence.
The history of the struggle of the people of England against arbitrary taxation is the history of the English Constitution. Thus, the attempt to arbitrarily collect an unjust poll tax was the primary cause of the rebellion of Wat Tyler in England in 1378, in the reign of Richard II; as was the "misuse of taxes" the occasion of the rising of the commons of England in the next century (1450) against the government of Henry VI, and under the leadership of Jack Cade.[1]
Shakespeare, who apparently analyzed and comprehended the subtle philosophy of all human motives and tendencies, seems also in the play of Henry VIII to ascribe the fall of his great minister, Wolsey, to abuse of the power of taxation; and whether
- ↑ Recent historical investigations favor the idea that the leader of this rebellion was not an illiterate rascal and buffoon one of "the filth and scum of Kent," as portrayed by Shakespeare in Henry VI but rather a gentleman of gentle and possibly of noble birth.
