all taxed to supply the wants of the State of Tennessee alone. Nashville is similarly situated, to some extent, and perhaps Knoxville and Chattanooga, just to the extent that they may have prosperous trade beyond the State. Hence it will be seen that the farmers or country people should not be prejudiced against the cities located within their State, for they receive more aid from them than they give in return, and are consequently the gainers. So the practical operation of large cities seems to be to receive trade, and become rich out of it, from other States more than their own, and allow their own State alone to receive the full benefit, as far as her demands go. This, it strikes me, should not be objectionable to the farmer or countryman, or to the State or any part of the State. Consequently, by no means should they desire any law, of any kind, to exist in the land, whereby the cities are oppressed and kept from growing, when, by its repeal or modification, they would not be harmed a particle, but, on the contrary, be benefited.
"To undertake to enforce a very oppressive tax on money is ridiculous nonsense. It is impossible. The Maker of all things has forbidden it, in giving to all things their peculiar nature. He has forbidden an oppressive tax on money, by giving it such an easy mobility that it can go, in a fortnight, from Tennessee almost to the uttermost parts of the world. And just so, to some extent, with other kinds of movable property. It would be about as wise for the Legislature to pass a law enacting that, from and after this date, the great bulk of the water of the Mississippi River shall flow toward Cairo instead of toward New Orleans, as to enact that the great bulk of the money of Memphis shall pay four and a half per cent tax per annum. It is wise in man to deal with things as they are, and will be in spite of him, and not as he may think they should be. Don't kick against the pricks!
"Suppose that some city or town found it necessary, in order to pay current expenses, interest on debts, etc., to levy a tax of ten or fifteen per cent on all kinds of property, real, personal, and mixed, and that it was rigidly enforced. Does any one suppose that there would be any movable property there in twelve months to collect the tax from? No, sir; you would hardly be able to find a pocket handkerchief or a pound of coffee in either of these cities. But all the real estate, houses, etc., would be there still, but without tenants, and consequently, on account of the high tax and want of occupants, worth nothing. Suppose, again, it was possible to adopt a process to make the real estate worth something, could it be done by running the occupants off and receiving no rent whatever from it? No; it could only be done by adopting a process which would fill all of your houses with tenants, and secure to you a rental from them; and that
