by some as bugbears; but, sir, if we reason from the practice of all governments, we must acknowledge at least the probability of the thing. In England, for instance, the people are not only oppressed with a variety of other heavy taxes, but, if my information is right, absolutely pay taxes for births, marriages, and deaths, for the light of heaven, and even for paying their debts. What reason have we to suppose that our rulers will be more sympathetic, and heap lighter burdens upon their constituents than the rulers of other countries? If crossing the Atlantic can make men virtuous and just, I acknowledge that they will be forever good and excellent rulers; but otherwise, I must consider them as I do the magistrates of all other countries. Sir, a capitation is an oppressive species of tax. This may be laid by the general government. Where an equality in property exists, it is a just and good tax; it is a tax easy to assess, and on this account eligible; but, where a great disparity of fortune exists, as in this state, I insist upon it, that it is a most unjust, unequal, and ruinous tax. It is heaping all the support of the government upon the poor; it is making them beasts of burden to the rich; and it is probable it will be laid, if not stifled in the womb; because I think it almost morally certain that this new government will be administered by the wealthy. Will they not be interested in the establishment of a tax that will cause them to pay no more, for the defraying the public expenditures, than the poorest man in America?
The great Montesquieu says, that a poll tax upon the person is indicative of despotism, and that a tax upon property is congenial with the spirit of a free government. These, sir, are a few of the many reasons that render the clause defective, in my mind. I might here mention the dangers to freedom from an excise; but I forbear. I ought not to engross the attention of the committee, when it can be more usefully improved by gentlemen of more abilities than myself—gentlemen who, I trust, will paint in the clearest colors the impropriety and danger of this, as well as they have done of the other paragraphs. Sir, as I remarked before, if this power is given to the general government, without some such amendment as I proposed, it will annihilate all the powers of the state governments. There cannot be a greater solecism in politics than to talk of power in government without the
