Letters on Taxation
Letter 6
Edwin Burgess
[1859]
The Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Howell Cobb, in his report on the
Finances, dated December 6th, 1858, page 7, when speaking on taxes for
revenue says:
"Such duties should be laid as will produce the required
revenue, by imposing on the people at large the smallest and the most
equal burdens.
"It is obvious that this is most effectually done by taxing, in
preference to others, such articles as are not produced in this
country; and among articles produced here, those in which the home
product bears the least proportion to the quantity imported, are the
fittest for taxation. The reason is, that in taxing articles not made
in this country, the whole sum taken from the consumer goes into the
Treasury, while in the other class the consumer pays the enhanced
value, not only on the quantity imported, but on the quantity made at
home. This last tax is paid, not into the Treasury, but to the
manufacturer, thereby rendering such a duty not only more burdensome,
but grossly unequal - the home producer being benefited at the expense
of the consumer."
Now, while fully admitting that taxes should be raised to "produce
the required revenue, by imposing on the people at large the smallest
and most equal burdens," I distinctly deny that any tax on any
product of industry whatever, or any tax but the Land Tax, can
possibly do it.
Now, let us look at the amount of the duties collected, who pay the
duties, and what is the result.
The amount collected for the fiscal ( or revenue ) year of 1857,
ending June 30th, was over fifty million dollars; the cost of
collecting is reported as over three million dollars, or six percent
on the whole. Much of it will be spent for war vessels to prevent one
of the rights of man to Free Trade which our rulers call "
smuggling;" another item of cost growing out of the prevention of
Free Trade is litigation of numerous law suits for violating the
tariff; another enormous expense is the erection of custom houses,
which, in eighteen places completed, cost one hundred and thirty five
thousand dollars each.
The average amount of the tariff may be twenty percent, which the
importer must pay, and charge his profit on the twenty percent duty,
which will be at least twenty two percent to the retailer, who will
charge his profit on the whole amount, which, if he add one third to
the whole, including seven percent on the duty, will make the duty of
twenty percent, twenty nine or thirty percent to the consumer.
And who are the consumers of the imported goods? Are they not "
the people at large," on whom were to fall the smallest and most
equal burdens of taxation? Who buy the hats, bonnets, jewellery,
daguerreotype plates, china, porcelain, earthenware, stoneware, beer,
ale, and porter, all of which pay twenty four percent, while wines and
brandies pay thirty percent duty?
Who are the consumers? Is it not safe to say that two thirds are
consumed in the Free States, and a great portion by the hard working,
ill paid, landless labourers and producers of the nation's wealth? Do
not all such taxes go directly to promote the profit of land monopoly
and man monopoly ( or slavery)? Does it not take the taxes out of the
pockets of the toiling consumers, and by exempting the land from so
much taxes, enable the landlord to sell or rent his land for so much
more? Do people buy these imported goods in proportion to the land
they hold, or in proportion to the slaves they hold? If not, who pay
the taxes and make landholding and slaveholding profitable?
Land monopoly is really the parent of chattel slavery, for if no
persons owned the land of others, or more land than they needed to
cultivate by their own labour for their own support, they would not
covet their fellow men as slaves. But having obtained the land of
others by legal or illegal robbery, they crave their fellowmen as
slaves to work it for them. And Africa must be robbed, and slaves must
be bred, and men, and women, and children reduced to bondages, to
maintain in luxury and idleness a land robbing and man robbing
aristocracy, a nobility forsooth, based on the lasso, the manacles,
and the lash; the gag, the fetter, and the thumbscrew; the whipping
post, the chain and ball, the man stealer, and the bloodhound.
But remember that the land stealing and man stealing are done, not
only by the sanction of our laws, but by our method of taxing, which
has made both evils doubly profitable. The law might sanction slavery
to all eternity if it was unprofitable, and no law worshippers would
be patriotic enough to hold slaves any more than they would carry
white men to Africa for slaves at a loss. Let us then remove this
cause of temptation, which is the profit, by putting all the taxes on
the land, and the effect will assuredly cease. I shall endeavour to
show that the land tax would make slavery profitless also.
People finding land robbery and man robbery profitable, their priests
ransack the laws of Moses and teachings of Christ to sanction the
robbery and prove the piety of the institution; and patriotic
politicians quote their political ancestors to justify the wrong - as
though evil grew venerable by age, and wrong right by authority; and
as though we had no standard of right but the law of the priest and
politician. While slavery is profitable there will be no lack of
patriotism and piety to sustain it; the trinity of profit, patriotism,
and piety, will be in perfect unity; but take away the profit of
slavery, and patriotism and piety will be nowhere.
How many in the love of wrong will seek a law or creed,
A custom or authority to sanctify the deed;
But that which gives the highest joy to all of humankind,
Needs no command to justify, no human law to bind.
INTRODUCTION
Letter 1
* Letter 2
* Letter 3
Letter 4
* Letter 5
* Letter 6
Letter 7
* Letter 8
* Letter 9
Letter 10
* Letter 11
|