CHAPTER XV

TAXATION----ITS  PURPOSES----CHARACTER  OF  TAXES—PROVISIONS  OF

STATE   CONSTITUTIONS   REFERRING   TO   TAXATION----LOTTERIES

FORBIDDEN    BY    FIRST     CONSTITUTION----EARLY     METHODS     OF

TAXATION----THE GENERAL PROPERTY TAX----ESCAPE OF PERSON¬
ALTY FROM ASSESSMENT----TENDENCIES IN  MODERN TAXATION

----INEFFICACY   OF    THE   PERSONAL TAX----INDIRECT TAXATION

SUPERSEDING DIRECT TAXATION FOR STATE PURPOSES—^DIFFER¬
ENTIATION BETWEEN  SOURCES OF STATE AND LOCAL REVENUE

----STATE TAXES ON  CORPORATIONS----TRANSFER TAXES----LIQUOR

TAX----STOCK   TRANSFER   TAX----^TAXATION   OF   SPECIAL   FRAN¬
CHISES----STING     OF     TAXATION      IS     WASTEFULNESS----EARLY

STATE TAXES—STATE DEBTS----FEDERAL DIRECT TAX OF  1861----

RECENT   CONSTITUTIONAL   AMENDMENTS   REGARDING   DEBTS----

HIGHWAY IMPROVEMENTS.

Ruskin speaks of the preacher as having in his Sunday ser¬
mon "thirty minutes to raise the dead in." Almost as ambitious
and as equally hopeless may be the effort to convey in a brief
chapter any intelligible idea about taxation. "The right to tax,"
it has been well said, "is not granted by the constitution, but of
necessity underlies it, because government could not exist or per¬
form its functions without it".^ Taxes are levied for the revenue
necessary for the maintenance of government. They cannot prop¬
erly be imposed to benefit one part of the community at the ex¬
pense of another, or to promote private enterprises. What con¬
stitutes the public purposes which justify a tax is often, however,
 

People ex rel Hatch v. Reardon, 184 N. Y., 431.
288