This condition,
therefore, should in all cases accompany universal suffrage; and it
would, after a few years, exclude none but those who cared so little
for the privilege, that their vote, if given, would not in general
be an indication of any real political opinion.
It is also important, that the assembly which votes the taxes,
either general or local, should be elected exclusively by those who
pay something towards the taxes imposed. Those who pay no taxes,
disposing by their votes of other people's money, have every motive to
be lavish and none to economise. As far as money matters are
concerned, any power of voting possessed by them is a violation of the
fundamental principle of free government; a severance of the power
of control from the interest in its beneficial exercise. 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 some of
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 co-extensive with
taxation, not stopping short of it, but also not going beyond it, is
in accordance with the theory of British institutions. But to
reconcile this, as a condition annexed to the representation, with
universality, it is essential, as it is on many other accounts
desirable, that taxation, in a visible shape, should descend to the
poorest class.
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