Taxation without representation

“ Now if there is one principle of government that does not find a place in the boasted declarations of the Free and Equal, it is that of taxation without representation. How will a scheme so un-American be received at the seat of Government? ”

“ Shall we deny the faith of the old Revolutionary heroes, and purchase for ourselves a false power and ignoble ease, by declaring in action that taxation without representation is just? Ah, no! like the English Dissenters and high-souled Quakers of our own land, let us suffer our property to be seized and sold, but let us never pay another tax until our existence as citizens, our civil and political rights be fully recognized.... ”

“ To believe that any form of power that tramples on these rights is unjust.
To believe that taxation without representation is tyranny, that government must rest upon the consent of the governed, and that the people should choose their own rulers. ”

“ Which is very true: for, where there is a shadow of political liberty, a revenue can only be raised by taxes to which the people have consented: it being allowed that where there is taxation without representation tyranny begins. ”

“ Taxation is a boastful performance for a legislature and ministry who sit without consulting the mass of the people; it is a baneful subject for a people powerless in the State. To tax a man without his concurrence, without listening to his objections, without his having any voice in the nomination of the tax leviers, is clearly robbery, and if you will not be honest, the people must refuse to be robbed. If you will not reform the representation, then the unenfranchised taxpayers will revolt. If they must not have the right to vote, they will not regard it as a duty to pay. ”

“ Is the system so organized as to make taxation dangerous? I shall not go to the various checks of the government, but examine whether the immediate representation of the people be well constructed. I conceive its organization to be sufficiently satisfactory to the warmest friend of freedom. No tax can be laid without the consent of the House of Representatives. If there be no impropriety in the mode of electing the representatives, can any danger be apprehended? They are elected by those who can elect representatives in the state legislature. How can the votes of the electors be influenced? ”

“ If, however, by this saying, “No taxation without representation,” the suffragists mean that every taxpayer has a right to vote, that proposition has already been answered herein by the true doctrine that suffrage is not a right at all, but a function of government, to be performed by those classes whom the state may select as duly qualified. Nor does taxation ever confer a right to vote; taxation is justified not by the franchise, but by the protection given by government to the taxed property; property owners pay the tax as a return for that protection ”

“ On a somewhat similar principle, I have always objected to every attempt to augment the revenues of a state by taxing corpses—not upon the acknowledged principle, that taxation without representation is inadmissible—but because the whole system is a most miserable mingling of sacra profanis. ”

“ While the liberty of deliberation would then be free, and Congress would have full power to decide according to its judgment, there could be no objection urged that the States most interested had not been permitted to be heard. The principle is firmly fixed in the minds of the American people that there should be no taxation without representation.
"Great burdens have now to be borne by all the country, and we may best demand that they shall be borne without murmur when they are voted by a majority of the Representatives of all the people. ”

“ I pay taxes for property of my own earning and saving, and I do not believe in taxation without representation. As for representation by proxy, that savors too much of the plantation system, however kind the master may be. I am a human being, and every human being has a right to a voice in the laws which claim authority to tax him, to imprison him, or to hang him. ”

“ What has come over the fortunes and happiness of the people of this country that the great principle of the Constitution should now be violated, that principle for which our fathers spilt their blood to sustain, the great axiom of American liberty, that taxation never should be imposed upon a people unless that people have a corresponding representation? If this amendment to the Constitution should be carried into effect, it will prevent any State, North or South, from allowing qualified suffrage to its colored population, except upon forfeiture of representation ”

“ Clearly, if you do not recognize his title to representation, you must at least by careful legislation relieve him from this intolerable taxation. Some of the millions you thrust out already contribute largely to the public revenue. How, then, can you deny them representation? Their money is not rejected. Why reject their votes? But if you reject their votes, you cannot take their money. As you detect no color in their money, you ought to detect no color in their votes. ”

“ Through the arts and plans of politicians, they have managed to deprive Territories of that which is given to the States. This is contrary to the genius of the Constitution which gives the people the right to choose their own rulers: taxation should only be exacted where representation is allowed. ”

“ It is to enable the tier of States bordering on the Atlantic and the Pacific, and on the Gulf, surrounding us on all sides, to withdraw from our Union — form alliances among themselves and then levy taxes on us without our consent and collect revenue without giving us any just proportion or any portion of the amount collected. Can we submit to taxation without representation? ”

“ If the doctrine that taxation should go hand in hand with representation can be appealed to in behalf of recent traitors and rebels, may it not properly be asserted in behalf of a people who have ever been loyal and faithful to the government? ”

“ The Americans opposed to this absolute doctrine the maxim that taxation ought to be coincident with representation,—that only those who shared in the powers should have the burdens of government. If the latter opinion is strictly construed it would follow that all taxes on articles of universal consumption are unjust except in a country where all who have the natural have also the legal capacity of voting. ”

“ The once time-honoured principle of representation of the tax-payers has been so grotesquely inverted that they who contribute the bulk of the taxation have but a nominal voice in its expenditure.
It is even demanded that the formula—one man, one vote—shall supersede all claims for representation of intelligence and industry. ”

“ It does not, therefore, as the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Rogers] insists, violate the rule that representation should go with taxation. If a race in any State is kept unfit to vote, and fit only to drudge, the wealth created by its work ought to be taxed. Those who profit by such a system, or such a condition of things, ought to be taxed for it. Let them build churches and school-houses, and found newspapers, as New York and other States have done, and educate their people till they are fit to vote. ”

“ It will be found that every State values the right of representation at a price infinitely beyond the amount of direct taxes to which that right may subject it; and, of course, the Southern States have little reason to be thankful that two-fifths of their slaves are exempted from taxation, since they lose, in consequence of it, the right of representation to the same extent. ”

“ Taxation and representation are inseparably united. God hath joined them; no British parliament can separate them; to endeavour to do it is to stab our vitals.
"My position is this—I repeat it—I will maintain it to my last hour—Taxation and representation are inseparable. This position is founded on the laws of nature; it is more, it is itself an eternal law of nature; for whatever is a man's own, is absolutely his own; and no man hath a right to take it from him without his consent, either expressed by himself or representative; whoever attempts to do it, attempts an injury ”

“ If the courts of the States, or their legislatures, could finally determine against the constitutionality of a tax laid by congress, there would be no certainty or uniformity of taxation upon the citizens of the United States, or of the apportionment of representation and direct taxation according to the constitution. ”

“ It amounts to allowing them to put their hands into other people's pockets for any purpose which they think fit to call a public one, which, in the great towns of the United States, is known to have produced a scale of local taxation onerous beyond example, and wholly borne by the wealthier classes. That representation should be coextensive with taxation, not stopping short of it, but also not going beyond it, is in accordance with the theory of British institutions. ”

“ It may be said that where political power is diffused, it is highly desirable that taxation should fall not on one class, such as land owners, but on all; in order that all who exercise political power may feel a proper interest in economical government. Taxation and representation, it will be said, cannot safely be divorced. ”

“ They contended that, according to the law of the land, taxation and representation were inseparable. The rule of taxation being agreed upon by the convention, it is possible that the maxim with which we successfully opposed the claim of England may have had an influence in procuring the adoption of the same rule for the apportionment of representatives; the true meaning, however, of this principle of the English constitution is, that a colony or district is not to be taxed which is not represented; not that its number of representatives shall be ascertained by its quota of taxes. ”

“ If a necessary connection between taxation and representation applies to the individuals in a State, and that is the application which the Honorable Senator made of it,—an application never made by our ancestors, but applied by them to communities and not to individuals,—I should like him to tell me why, according to his own argument, every female that is taxed should not be allowed to have the right of suffrage. ”

“ The considerations just presented are greatly enforced by the reflection that any attempt to apportion taxes amongst States, some of which are wholly or partially in the occupation of hostile forces, would subvert the whole intention of the framers of the Constitution, and be productive of the most revolting injustice instead of that just correlation between taxation and representation which it was their purpose to secure. ”

“ Are we no longer to be taxed by the clear mandate of our proper representatives, but by a substitute of clearly distinguished and conflicting words, inserted by the executive branch of our Government? That must be impossible, if we are to remain free, and, as keeping us so is the great privilege of the Supreme Court we should have no further cause for anxiety concerning the destruction of constitutional guarantees through such abuses of the power of taxation. ”

“ I agree that, were they independent of the people, the argument would be good. But they must serve one common master. They must act in concert, or the defaulting party must bring on itself the resentment of the people. If the general government be so constructed that it will not dare to impose such burdens as will distress the people, where is the evil of its having a power of taxation concurrent with the states? The people would not support it, were it to impose oppressive burdens. Let me make one more comparison of the state governments to this plan. ”

“ But what does this Constitution say? The clause under consideration gives an unlimited and unbounded power of taxation. Suppose every delegate from Virginia opposes a law laying a tax; what will it avail? They are opposed by a majority; eleven members can destroy their efforts; those feeble ten cannot prevent the passing the most oppressive tax law; so that, in direct opposition to the spirit and express language of your declaration of rights, you are taxed, not by your own consent, but by people who have no connection with you. ”

“ In a republic even a majority of the people do not possess the inherent right to tax the minority for private purposes. Such taxation can be imposed by no other government than a despotic one, where the will of the despot is the supreme law, and where might rather than right is the controlling power. So conscious are the advocates of this species of taxation of the fact that taxes can be levied for public purposes alone, that they deem it all-important to connect and blend in one—the right of eminent domain and taxation. ”

“ And if the means and instrumentalities employed by that government to carry into operation the powers granted to it are, necessarily, and, for the sake of self-preservation, exempt from taxation by the States, why are not those of the States depending upon their reserved powers, for like reasons, equally exempt from Federal taxation? Their unimpaired existence in the one case is as essential as in the other. ”

“ Do you wonder that they will not yield an inch; that they will resist the election of a Third Estate with the voting power to sweep all these privileges away, to compel the Privileged to submit themselves to a just equality in the eyes of the law with the meanest of the canaille they trample underfoot, to provide that the moneys necessary to save this state from the bankruptcy into which they have all but plunged it shall be raised by taxation to be borne by themselves in the same proportion as by others? ”