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That part of the king's revenue which arose from such poll-taxes in any particular town, used commonly to be let in farm, during a term of years, for a rent certain, sometimes to the sheriff of the county, and sometimes to other persons. At first, the farm of the town was probably let to the burghers, in the same manner as it had been to other farmers, for a term of years only.
When assessed upon the person, it is called a poll-tax, or capitation tax, being a certain sum on every poll, or head. But as persons ought generally to contribute to the public expenses according to their ability, taxes are more just and equal when laid upon the property of the citizens. Few poll-taxes are levied in this country.
It is probably upon this account that poll-taxes of all kinds have often been represented as badges of slavery. Every tax, however, is, to the person who pays it, a badge, not of slavery, but of liberty. It denotes that he is subject to government, indeed; but that, as he has some property, he cannot himself be the property of a master.
Taking up this side of the problem we shall discover two entirely distinct difficulties: First, we shall find many Negroes, and indeed hundreds of thousands of white men as well, who might vote, but who, through ignorance, or inability or unwillingness to pay the poll-taxes, or from mere lack of interest, disfranchise themselves. The second difficulty is peculiar to the Negro.
"Many specters," said Hamilton, "have been raised out of this power of internal taxation to excite the apprehensions of the people: double sets of revenue officers, a duplication of their burdens by double taxations, and the frightful forms of odious and oppressive poll-taxes, have been played off with all the ingenious dexterity of political legerdemain....
At first, both those poll-taxes and those exemptions seem to have been altogether personal, and to have affected only particular individuals, during either their lives, or the pleasure of their protectors.
Heavy poll-taxes alone keep him from controlling trade and the labour market in Indo-China; in the Malay States he is ousting the native and running the British merchant and banker hard; in Burma he is getting more and more control of trade, and has even succeeded in convincing the Burmese woman that he makes a better sort of husband than her charming but indolent countryman.
In the different poll-taxes which took place in England during the reign of William III. the contributors were, the greater part of them, assessed according to the degree of their rank; as dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts, barons, esquires, gentlemen, the eldest and youngest sons of peers, etc.
It is interesting to observe that Hamilton's argument in defense of the power to levy poll-taxes would have been much more effective if it had been urged in support of the power to levy a direct tax laid in proportion to wealth. But this kind of a tax would, in the opinion of the framers, have placed too heavy a burden upon the well-to-do.
What are called poll-taxes in the southern provinces of North America, and the West India islands, annual taxes of so much a-head upon every negro, are properly taxes upon the profits of a certain species of stock employed in agriculture.
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