The Convention assembled and was opened with prayer by Rev. Mr. Musgrave, of Wetzel County.
Mr. Brown of Preston called up a resolution offered by him yesterday as follows:
"RESOLVED, That hereafter no member shall be permitted either to speak or vote while outside the bar of the hall."
MR. BROWN of Preston. I offer this resolution in all kindness and for the purpose of avoiding a difficulty that occurred in the Convention yesterday. There is no rule of the Convention designating what part of the hall a member shall occupy when speaking or voting. I am myself opposed to the resolution that I offer, but I do it simply for the purpose of avoiding difficulty that is likely to occur. It will be remembered that the President decided that a member of the Convention has not the right to speak beyond the limit of the bar; and my friend from Brooks County, was ordered within the bar yesterday to address the Convention. At that time we had our bristles up a little, a manifestation of unkind feeling in the Convention. When the feeling subsided and the sea was smooth again, my friend from Marshall, last evening, addressed the Convention from outside the bar; so that there is a different ruling, at least a different action on the part of this Convention on that subject according as the feeling in the Convention may be ruffled or smooth at the moment. I hope the resolution will be voted down and that members will be permitted to occupy any portion of this hall and both speak and vote where they sit.
The resolution was rejected.
MR. DERING. I hold in my hand a petition which I ask may be read and laid on the table.
It was a petition of citizens of Monongalia county praying that the Convention insert in the Constitution a provision prohibiting the legislature from appropriating money for the construction of internal improvements and limiting the per diem of members of the legislature after the first session to thirty days.
Mr. Taylor offered the following:
"RESOLVED, That hereafter this house take a recess from twelve o'clock A. M. to three o'clock P. M."
MR. STUART of Doddridge. I move to amend by saying:
"RESOLVED, That the house take a recess at six and meet again at seven."
That half hour is not much but it is very important at present with my arrangement in the senate. I do not suggest, sir, the meeting at seven because I am in favor of it but in order to accommodate members who desire to do so.
MR. BROWN of Kanawha. I believe the hour of recess is half past twelve. I do not see that the proposition gains anything except to discommode one of our members and it would look like that was the only object it had. We gain nothing by it. I shall vote against it.
The resolution was rejected.
MR. DERING. I hold in my hand a petition which I ask may be read and laid on the table.
The petition was of the same character as the one previously presented.
MR. CALDWELL. Is the unfinished business of yesterday now in order?
THE PRESIDENT. I suppose the order of the day would be the first business.
MR. CALDWELL. I ask the privilege of submitting what I propose to offer, a substitute for my amendment.
Permission was given, and Mr. Caldwell, accordingly, offered the following which was laid on table and ordered printed:
"The recorder, in addition to the duties incident to the recording of deeds and other writings, the recording of inventories and other papers relating to estates, the registering of births, deaths, and marriages, and the issuing of marriage license, shall have authority, under such regulations as may be prescribed by law, to receive proof of wills, and admit them to probate, appoint and qualify personal representatives, guardians, committees, and curators, with the right of appeal, to any party aggrieved, to the circuit court of the county."
The Convention proceeded to the consideration of the order of the day, it being the report of the Committee on Taxation and Finance.
Following is the report submitted by the committee January 10,1862:
"The Committee on Taxation and Finance respectfully submit the following provisions for incorporation into the Constitution of West Virginia:
"1. Taxation shall be equal and uniform throughout the State, and all property, both real and personal, shall be taxed in proportion to its value, to be ascertained as directed by law. No one species of property from which a tax may be collected shall be taxed higher than any other species of property of equal value; but property for educational, literary, scientific, religious or charitable purposes, and public property, may by law, be exempt from taxation.
"2. A capitation tax, not less than fifty cents nor more than one dollar shall be levied upon each white male inhabitant who has attained the age of twenty-one years.
"3. The legislature shall provide for an annual tax, sufficient to defray the estimated expenses of the State for each year; and whenever the ordinary expenses of any year shall exceed the income, the legislature shall provide for levying a tax for the ensuing year, sufficient, with other sources of income, to pay the deficiency, as well as the estimated expenses of such year.
"4. No money shall be drawn from the treasury but in pursuance of appropriations made by law, and an accurate and detailed statement of the receipts and expenditures of the public money shall be published annually.
"5. No debt shall be contracted by this State except to meet casual deficits in the revenue - to redeem a previous liability of the State - to suppress insurrection, repel invasion or de- fend the State in time of war.
"6. The credit of the State shall not be granted to, or in aid of, any county, city, town, township, corporation or person whatever; nor shall the State ever assume or become responsible for the debts or liabilities of any county, city, town, township, corporation or person, unless incurred in time of war or insurrection for the benefit of the State.
"7. No county, township, city, town or other municipal corporation, by vote of its citizens or otherwise, shall become a stockholder in any joint-stock company, corporation or association whatever; or raise money for, or loan its credit to, or aid of, any such company, corporation or association.
"8. The legislature may at any time direct a sale of the stocks owned by the State in banks and other corporations; but the proceeds of such sale shall be applied to the liquidation of the public debt; and hereafter the State shall not become a stockholder in any bank or other association or corporation.
"9. An equitable portion of the public debt of the commonwealth of Virginia prior to January 1st, 1861, shall be assumed by this State; and the legislature shall ascertain the same as soon as may be practicable, and provide for the liquidation thereof, by a sinking fund sufficient to pay the accruing interest and redeem the principal within thirty-four years."
J. W. PAXTON, Chairman.
Mr. President, I do not design to occupy the time of the Convention at any length on this report, but merely to say a very few words on the different sections as they come up for its action; merely to suggest some considerations which influenced the committee to the conclusions they arrived at and which are embodied in the report, and leave to members of the Convention to elaborate for themselves. I may premise by saying that the two great features of this report, the two fundamental principles in it, are, first, that taxation shall be collected equally and uniformly from all the people of the State in proportion to their means; and, next, that these taxes when so collected shall be likewise expended for the equal benefit of all the people of the State and not for the benefit or advantage of a few or of any particular section or locality.
The first section of this report, it will be observed, adopts the ad valorem principle of taxation - that is, taxing all property without discrimination in proportion to its value. For it must be remembered, sir, that it is the value of any particular thing or object that is taxed not the thing or object itself. Value is, in reality the subject of taxation. This, I believe, sir, is now generally conceded to be the correct principle of taxation; and it is that which prevails, either by constitutional provision or by legislative practice in a large majority - indeed, I may say in almost all, of the states of this Union at the present time. Probably, sir, there is no feature of our present Constitution that has been so objectionable, and is still so objectionable, and I may even say odious - to the people of West Virginia as that feature which discriminates in taxation relieving one species of property from taxation, necessarily to increase the burden on all others. It is of this, sir, that the people of West Virginia have ever complained; and whilst the ordinance of secession may have been the occasion of this new State movement on the part of our people, I apprehend there can be little doubt in the mind of any one that the fundamental cause for this division and desire for a new state may be found in the injustice and oppression which our people have suffered from unequal taxation, from oppressive taxation and unequal representation.
It appears to me, sir, in framing a new constitution now for the people of West Virginia we should be particularly careful to guard against the liability in future of the perpetration of any such injustice on any portion of our own people.
Whilst it is the undoubted right of government to levy taxes for its legitimate support on the aggregate property of a state, Justice requires that each citizen's portion or share of that aggregate should be dependent on his share or proportion of that aggregate property; and to require less or more from one individual than from another on equal value is manifestly unjust and oppressive, and we have so esteemed it, most assuredly here in western Virginia and have ever complained of such a system.
The whole object of the committee in presenting this section of the report was simply to declare what they believed to be a sound general principle of taxation and avoid all details, leaving those details properly to the legislature and leaving the principle to be carried out justly and equitably by the legislature. The exemptions which are provided for in this section are such as appear to be sanctioned by almost universal usage and are conceded, I believe, everywhere to be right and proper.
I will merely add, sir, that I hope the section will commend itself to the judgment of the Convention and be approved by its votes.
MR. BROWN of Kanawha. Mr. President, I move to amend this section by striking out after "personal" in the second line down to "but" in the 6th line, and insert after "personal" the words "according to its value," so that the section shall read: "taxation shall be equal and uniform throughout the State on all property according to its value."
It will be perceived by looking over that section the first proposition is that all taxation shall be equal and uniform. That is a fundamental principle I deem essential to incorporate in this Constitution, and that it should be according to the value of the property. The report in the latter clause of the section as it stands, to my mind, is simply repeating the same thing. To say that "taxation shall be equal and uniform throughout the State on all property according to its value" embraces the whole subject. Now, to say that "no one species of property from which a tax may be collected shall be taxed higher than any other species of property of equal value" is simply to reiterate the same thing. For one is asserting it positively; the other is asserting it negatively. I can see no advantage to be gained by it.
MR. PAXTON. Before that motion is put, sir, I simply desire to say that probably the first sentence covers the ground that is occupied by the second which the gentleman proposes to strike out; but at the same time, sir, it appears to me that this second sentence only renders the meaning of the whole section more full and clear. It makes it more specific; and it is put there in contradistinction to a section in our present constitution which expressly provides for discrimination and does exempt one species of property at the expense of all others. It certainly makes the section just that much more distinct. I hope it will not be stricken out. There is nothing new in the provision. It can be found in the constitutions of several of the states.
MR. VAN WINKLE. The amendment goes farther than the chairman of the committee has stated. The first line embraces the principle that taxes shall be equal and uniform. Then it begins to be mandatory; and that is the part proposed to be stricken out. If you do strike out what is now proposed to be stricken out, you leave it in the power of the legislature to apply the principle in the first line as they may think proper. I should like the gentleman who wants to strike out to show where is the great difference in mere language except in the arrangement of the words between his proposition and this. This goes on to say that all property, both real and personal, shall be taxed in proportion to its value. I think, sir, there is some point in that, and it is very different from the amendment proposed. He wants it to read that taxation shall be equal and uniform throughout the State on all property, both real and personal, I believe. But this other if I understand it, is mandatory and provides that all property shall be taxed; because if all property is not taxed - any species left out, why, then the other property has got to bear the whole burden.
MR. PAXTON. Was it proposed to strike out the word "all"?
MR. VAN WINKLE. Yes, sir; and insert "on". Now, sir, in reference to the taxation clause, here comes the rule; it is defining the principle and giving the legislature and all other persons to understand precisely what is meant here, and there can be no escape from it. The language of the whole section is concise, and it appears to me there-is no unnecessary repetition. Some that may not be very palateable, but nevertheless necessary. It says in so many words, that no one species of property from which a tax may be collected shall be taxed less than any other species of equal value. I trust the Convention will retain this clause precisely as it stands. First, that which makes it compulsory on the legislature to tax all property except those for which an exemption is provided; and, secondly, that which gives them the rule in applying this principle, that no one species of property shall be taxed higher than any other species. Now, sir, on this the whole matter of this report turns, in my opinion. If the Convention strike out what they are asked to strike out and insert in lieu of it what is proposed, then I think this principle of ad valorem taxation, so far as it means anything, is lost, killed and destroyed. Now, merely to say that when you tax a species of property you shall tax it so much on its value is saying very little. To say that it shall be equal and uniform is saying very little. We have got that in our present constitution, and taxes are as unequal as possible; and not only unequal in exempting certain species of property and estimating in the Constitution the value of another species of property, but in leaving the legislature perfectly at liberty to continue these things - things of that kind - to an unlimited extent. I do not think a worse system of taxation could have prevailed than that we have been subjected to the last eight or ten years; and if the public are tired of that, if they wish now to prevent inequalities of taxation; if they wish all property to be taxed alike, then they had better retain this section precisely as it stands. I think this is the turning point, the test question of all this matter, and it is now on this question proposed for this Convention to decide whether they do want taxes that are really alike or leave the whole matter at sea again and be treated as we have been under the present Constitution, by which an unjust proportion of taxes, as everybody knows, has been paid by this western section of the commonwealth - taxed, sir, to pay for slaves that are hung; taxed to pay rewards for runaway slaves; and then the slaves themselves not taxed in proportion to their value. That has been one feature. Licenses for every profession, every business, everything they could attach a license to, put on without any rule whatever, oppressively, arbitrarily; whether high or low, they were unjust. Now, this is what we want to put an end to. If the State is equal to raising the money for the management of its affairs, then lay it on all property equal and uniform, and everybody is served alike. It is no matter whether that property is in possession of a merchant for sale or anybody else, you reach the property and tax it and it eventually comes off of those who get the benefit of the property. That I understand to be involved in this proposition that it is property and nothing else that is to be taxed except where the capitation tax is provided for. And certainly that is the true rule. Our laws, our administration, one-half or nearly of the expense of government comes in giving protection to property. Now, property should pay for it. A portion of it no doubt goes in giving personal protection; but there an equivalent is given in mili- itery service, jury duty and many other things for which the citizen is constantly called on. But, in addition to this, it proposes a moderate capitation tax, which I am in favor of for many reasons. This whole report, sir, based on that first section, as far as relates to that meets my entire approbation, and I trust it will that of the Convention. I cannot imagine that any other system can be called "equal and uniform", and the Convention may depend that it is not a question of language here - not because these words may be simply superfluous - that they want them stricken out. It is because they want to get rid of the principle. And if it is a mere question of words, then I beg the Convention to let the words stand, and we shall know precisely what this section means. There can be no mistake about it if these words are left in.
MR. BROWN of Kanawha. The gentlemen seems to be wiser above his day and generation in the assumption of the object of this amendment - that it is not to the language but to the principle. The gentleman tells us that this sentence embraces the substance of the former proposition; but then we must beg leave to differ with the gentleman in his declaration. I think he wholly failed to show that his statement was correct. The fundamental principle of equality in taxation is the fundamental principle asserted in this proposition as amended. Now I do not perceive where the gentleman finds himself authorized in saying that the object is to get rid of the principle, not the words.
MR. VAN WINKLE. I found it in the debate on the educational report in the sentiments the gentleman then expressed.
MR. BROWN of Kanawha. I do not know what the gentleman found in that debate nor care. He has not seen anything of that in this. There is no eye so keen as to see what is not to be seen. I will endeavor to show to this Convention that the first proposition does embrace everything that is substantially contained in the second line; and that it does assert the fundamental proposition that taxation shall be equal and uniform upon all property according to its value; and that covers everything and you can get nothing more if you use all the language ever written since the days of Adam to the present time. And upon all property, personal and real, the taxation shall be equal and uniform and it shall be according to the value of all that property, personal and real. Now, what more can be in it so far as property is concerned? The gentleman from Wood tells us he is in favor of the poll tax or the tax on individuals, because it will catch some individual stragglers. That has nothing to do with this question we are now discussing, the question of property. The gentleman tells us under this principle - under the similar clause of the Constitution of the state as it now stands - departures have been made by the legislature from it. Well, now, sir, is not that begging the question? Instead of this clause being contained in the Constitution of the state as it now stands that Constitution has an additional clause which warrants the legislature in departing from this provision which is an express declaration that slave property shall be valued at the price of three hundred dollars of land; an express declaration on its face that taxation in respect to that very property shall not be equal and uniform. The gentleman tells us that now he is going to avoid a construction by the legislature because it is not in this provision. It seems to me marvelous indeed that the gentleman should tell us that the former action of the legislature under a constitution which violated the principle here prescribed is authority for the legislature hereafter to fight this section here when sworn to discharge and perform it. He tells us that licenses are a violation of this principle. I repudiate that. Let it be provided that under this Constitution there will be no license taxes. Can any gentleman say that whenever any government is asked for a privilege that it cannot prescribe the terms on which it will grant it? Every individual without any license about it has a right to obtain and hold and enjoy property of every description; but where is the man in this State that has a right to set up any peculiar privilege and indict all his neighbors for the same thing without first obtaining the permission of the law of the land?
MR. PAXTON. In reply to that question, I would just say that in almost every state of this Union the right does exist, without any special license, to deal in merchandise, to carry on business; that the parties so engaged in this kind of business are taxed alike on their goods, the merchants' goods like the farmers' stock; and in that particular taxation is equal and uniform, and that is the principle that is attempted to be formed into this Constitution. I say almost everywhere except in this state.
MR. BROWN of Kanawha. Very well, let us test that. I do not know how it is with the merchant. I do not complain of a merchant; but is there any state of this Union where a man can turn out and practice law and sell liquor where and to whom he pleases - drug the whole community, undermining the very foundation of society and say he has the right to do it as he pleases and that the state has no power to stop him or regulate his conduct? Every man has a right to set up a bank in a community and fix the currency of the nation; spread the whole country full of bank-notes like leaves, which are not worth the paper on which they are written? Exercise all these franchises which can only be derived from sovereign power that controls the action of all its citizens, without any authority derived from that power? If that is the constitution you are making, I am sure it will not go down with the people of Virginia, if that is the proposition - to disrobe your government of all the powers it ought to possess to attack and defend the rights and securities of the citizen, then it will be like your bank paper issued under it, not worth the paper on which it is written. The right to regulate every one of these things is a right inherent in the sovereignty, unless it is taken from it by this constitutional provision, and that always carries with it the right to prescribe the terms on which that franchise is to be granted and that whoever does not comply with those terms cannot enjoy the privilege. And that is right. Why, sir, gentlemen who walk into the courts and enjoy all the privileges of harassing and annoying their neighbors by summoning them from all over the country to attend their little petty lawsuits, are not to be even charged with the privilege.
MR. VAN WINKLE. I fancy the gentleman is setting up some men of straw. I did not understand the chairman of the committee to object to issuing licenses and charging a proper fee for professional or special privileges. It is the taxing of licenses to carry on the ordinary pursuits of business, which are a part of the immunities of citizenship, that I object to; compelling merchants to pay such taxes for doing what belongs to a citizen. It is a system not only wrong in itself, but calculated to drive people and business from the State.
MR. BROWN of Kanawha. It is prescribing oppressive and vexing terms on which it is to be obtained, and he who does not choose to discharge those terms cannot enjoy that privilege; and if the legislature choose to legislate for the good of the people, that is a matter between the legislature and the people. Announce plainly and clearly to the world that your object is to disfranchise the legislative power of the State on which privileges are to be derived and enjoyed and you have hanged your Constitution. This proposition, then I say, as stated in the first clause of this sentence, that taxes shall be equal and uniform throughout the State on all property, real and personal according to its value fully covers every conceivable case in the taxation of property and leaves to the legislature the right to prescribe the terms on which privileges may be had. It leaves to the legislature the power it has ever enjoyed, if it chooses, to charter a bank, to issue five dollars for one and obtain an interest of 18 per cent instead of six that is enjoyed by the citizen; to say you can pay a bonus for the privilege or you cannot have it, and nobody is hurt. It is so to the gentleman who chooses to set up a store and sell goods to his neighbors. It is not allowed to every other citizen. They can prescribe to the doctor that before he shall practice his profession and charge fees that other people are not allowed to do that he must comply with the terms prescribed by the State. So of the lawyer who goes into court. There is no violation of the principle of equality. It is one of the fundamental powers that belongs to every government, to regulate and control all who undertake to exercise privileges. Everything is to be for public and not for private good. Let us see if the second clause is not a mere repetition of the first. This first embraces all valuable property, personal and real according to value; and "no one species of property from which a tax shall be collected" is just repeating the same thing. It is like saying two and two make four, and then repeating two and three don't make four.
MR. LAMB. I shall not use up my ten minutes in the remarks I have to make in reply to what I must say in a very singular argument of the gentleman from Kanawha. In the first place, he tells the Convention that his amendment is substantially the same as the original proposition; that his amendment, in fact, embodies everything that is contained in the original proposition; and then he proceeds to an elaborate attack on the original proposition. Now, if the original proposition carries with it all the evils which the gentleman from Kanawha has portrayed, how is it he is here offering an amendment to it which he says is really the same thing? Either his first proposition is wrong or his argument is wrong. In the next place, the gentleman's argument is predicated to have this effect on the Convention, that if you adopt this first sentence you are not at liberty to regulate the selling of liquors, to regulate banking, and you are not at liberty to regulate practicing attorneys. Will the gentleman, as a lawyer of first-rate standing, as I know him to be, risk his professional reputation on the assertion of any such thing? After the adoption of this clause are you not at liberty to adopt such regulations as the public interest may require in reference to all these subjects, with one single exception, that the properties of the banks, the attorneys and of all persons, is to be equally taxed ? You may subject them to what regulations you please; but so far as they are the holders of property, their property is to be taxed like that of other people. I do hope it will be the pleasure of the Convention to adopt this principle, and to adopt it as it stands in the report of the Committee on Taxation. The words here are so clear, so precise that there is no misunderstanding the meaning, and a common man as well as a lawyer can say exactly what is their effect. They do embody a principle which I regard as second only to the principle of equality of persons in regard to representation; the great principle of equality of property in regard to taxation. I hope it will be the pleasure of the Convention to adopt and to carry out - to see that both these principles are carried out fairly - in the Constitution which they intend to propose to the people. And then let them leave the legislature at full liberty to adopt all proper regulations, as the legislature will be left at liberty to do, in regard to banks, liquor selling, attorneys and everything else in which the interests of the community are involved. This proposition will not interfere with that. This proposition is not liable to the objections in that respect to which the gentleman from Kanawha pointed out at the same time that he told us his own proposition was the same in substance.
MR. IRVINE. Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of making only two or three remarks and I will be just as brief as the nature of the case admits of. This first sentence, Mr. Speaker, is perfectly plain. Taxation shall be equal and uniform throughout the State on all property both real and personal; shall be taxed in proportion to its value to be ascertained as provided by law. Now, this sentence is perfectly plain; that taxation shall be uniform on all property both real and personal. That includes all property, both real and personal. You cannot tax one species of property higher than another without violating the rule here laid down in the first sentence. But the second sentence, Mr. Speaker, is a little ambiguous. If it is merely intended as a repetition of the first sentence, it is tautology, totally useless. Is it intended to repeat what is conveyed in the first sentence? If so, it is wholly useless. It is mere tautology. No one species of property from which a tax shall be collected shall be taxed higher than any other species of property of equal value. If that is all that it means, why it is a mere repetition of the first sentence; but after having been introduced here in connection with the first sentence the presumption is that it was not introduced for the purpose of repeating what is in the first sentence but for some other purpose. Now, I want to know for what additional purpose this sentence was introduced. Was this introduced for the purpose of affecting a privilege that is sometimes granted to a man in the use of his property? The privilege of selling goods - I mean licenses?
MR. LAMB. If the gentleman will read on through the section, he will see the meaning of it, that certain kinds of property are enumerated from which no taxes are to be collected; public property and property used for the purposes mentioned, educational, religious, charitable, etc. Take the whole section in its connection, and those words with it "on which a tax shall be collected." These kinds of property are to be exempt from taxation. "All property shall be taxed" - of course, everything must be taxed except the several kinds thus exempted.
MR. IRVINE. I do not think there is anything in the gentleman's explanation. He thinks it is necessary to introduce the first clause. Why resolve the section into two sentences; the second sentence into two clauses? Now, suppose you drop the first clause altogether; the second sentence beginning at "No," down to "value" - drop that clause. The second sentence would come in as well without the first sentence as without the first clause of the second sentence. It is not necessary at all to introduce the first part of the second sentence in order to explain. Suppose after the words "as directed by law" we go on and say: "but property used for education one and the other purposes, shall be exempt." It is not at all necessary to introduce the first part of that sentence for the purpose of introducing the second part. It is separate and distinct and might be introduced in connection with the first sentence as well as with the first part of the second sentence. It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that the first part of this second sentence was introduced for a particular purpose distinct from the purpose from which the second sentence was intended to answer. That answers every purpose. It declares that taxation shall be uniform on all property both real and personal. Now, no species of property from which a tax shall be collected - I do not understand for what purpose that was introduced. Unless it is made clear so that the Constitution will be understood by everybody I shall at least vote against that clause.
MR. DILLE. I have looked over this section carefully and I can see words that could be omitted, and convey the idea that I think should be conveyed to embrace the matter that we at least in this part of the state have contended for ever since I have had any knowledge of the state. It seems to me that the provisions of that section are clear as they are now. In the first place, if you will notice in the first part of it there is a square enunciation of a principle. That principle is one that we have all along contended for; that is, that taxation upon personal and real property throughout the State shall be equal and uniform. Now, the mere enunciation of a principle amounts to nothing unless you carry with it a provision requiring the legislature to carry out that principle. The last part of the first clause announces that the legislature shall tax all real and personal property in proportion to its value. Seems to me this first clause, then, announces the principle that we have all contended for during every period, I believe, of the history of the western part of this state, and then a requirement upon the part of the legislature to carry out that principle. Then the second sentence goes a little further, and I think it is proper, especially as we have so long contended for that principle - not contended for it in one view of it but in every view - and that more clearly expresses our sentiments. Having for the first time in the history of our portion of the state had an opportunity to do so, we clearly fix upon the legislature a prohibition that they shall not in the exercise of any discretion or any power that they may conceive that they may possess, upon any species of property, in any way, violate this fundamental principal. It seems to me we ought to have that provision, and we ought to so impress it, not only upon our people but upon our legislature that they may not under any circumstances, in reference to any species of property, violate that fundamental principle; and as announced here by the report of this committee and the amendment proposed by the gentleman from Kanawha. It certainly will address itself to this Convention as not only a more clear and perfect exhibition of that principle than his does. But it seems to me, Mr. President, that the gentleman does not go far enough with his amendment. He merely announces by a provision in the Constitution a principle but he does not follow that with a requirement that the legislature shall carry out that principle and that they shall carry it out with reference to every species of property. The only objection, really, that I can see to this sentence is in the latter clause of it, and that is that it leaves it to the discretion of the legislature to tax or not property used for educational, literary, scientific, religious or charitable purposes. If there be any objection to it, it is in leaving to the legislature a discretion; but being one of those persons in this Convention who believe the legislature has some wisdom, and will act in the exercise of a sound discretion on that subject. I have no fear the legislature in its future action in reference to these matters will not exercise that discretion as soundly as this Convention can do.
Hence, I am in favor of the section as it stands; and I think it is really a provision that we ought to have and that we ought to abide by in detail for fear that the legislature might at some future period in its history feel disposed to violate in reference to some species of property this grand and fundamental principle that taxation shall be uniform throughout the entire State on every kind of property according to its value.
MR. HERVEY. I want to say a word, not particularly in relation to the subject matter involved in striking out except that the question of license has been referred to in connection with the section. Now, Mr. President, the question of license is involved in this sentence. It is not prohibited to the legislature; and if this section is voted as it stands - as I hope it will be - the legislature of the State will have a perfect right, notwithstanding all the words the section may contain, a perfect right to require license. This provides for taxation upon property real and personal; but it does not say anything about privilege - to bank, sell liquor, deal on goods, practice law or medicine, or anything of that sort. The people will reserve them the right through the representative to levy a license on the lawyer, the retailer of goods and ardent spirits. I don't conceive, however, that the license question is at all implicated in this section or has any connection whatever with it. That is reserved to the people exclusively.
MR. STUART of Doddridge. This reminds me somewhat of the fable of the rat. This thing may be meal or it may be a cat; and it is rather invidious, and I have been cramped, and I really cannot understand the object of the gentleman in seeking to introduce this second clause into it. It may be to cover the cat with meal. It reads: "Taxation shall be equal and uniform throughout the State, and all property, both real and personal, shall be taxed in proportion to its value, to be ascertained as directed by law." Now, what do you want us to understand by that? Suppose you tax my horse the same as you would another man's mule in proportion to its value. If that is in the first clause, what is the necessity for the second? Unless it is to throw in some ambiguous section here by which a different construction may be placed upon it? Now, I admit frankly if this could not be construed by which the legislature might be interfered with in assessing or fixing the tax or license on any person for carrying on a particular business, I have no objection to it; but if it could be possibly construed in that way, I think we had better strike it out. "No one species of property from which a tax may be collected shall be taxed higher than any other species of property of equal value." Now, sir, it might possibly be that a man who was carrying on any business and had to have a license for it, that you would have no right to impose a license on him which would look to taxing his property higher than any other man; that you, should look to the value of his property and would have no right to impose a license under this section. But if it is not to preclude the right to tax a privilege I have no objection to it. But as it might lead to a construction of that kind, and as the first part of the section carries out clearly the object of the gentleman, I think we had better strike it out.
MR. PAXTON. I am not sure whether I understand the objections that have been made to this section. If I do and the opposition of gentlemen, it is not to the principle involved here. If I understand the gentleman from Kanawha, he does not object to the principle but to the manner of expressing it. Now, sir, this section simply declares, in the first place, that taxation shall be equal and uniform throughout the State. I presume there can be no objection to that. I apprehend no gentleman on this floor desires to object to that principle. It next declares and requires that all property shall be taxed. Is there anybody here who desires to have an exemption made, to say that any particular kind of property shall not be taxed as high as all other property as the case is now? Unless there is a disposition of that kind, sir, I cannot see the objection to the second part of this first sentence in connection with the first part. In regard to this second clause, "no one species of property from which a tax may be collected shall be taxed higher" than another, I can assure gentlemen that so far as I am concerned and the committee is concerned, there is no cat in the meal bag about it. It was simply intended to make just that much more specific, as I think it is, the first declaration that all property shall be taxed alike according to value. There cannot possibly be any misapprehension about that, it is so plain. But now in connection with what follows as to exemptions it makes it the more readily comprehensible. I will just remark by the way that the principle laid down here is the principle of taxation that may be found in the constitutions of pretty much all the states with but two or three exceptions, where the constitutions say nothing at all in regard to the subject and where there is no constitutional provision, as there is not in some of the states, follows the same principle.
MR. SMITH. The view I have of this subject, it strikes me it was not perhaps subject to any particular objection but that of repetition. And upon a more close examination of it, I am fearful it may lead to this construction. I do not know whether there is a cat in the meal tub or not; but there is such a thing as licenses for merchants, such a thing as tax on incomes, such a thing as tax on salaries particularly as to licenses -
MR. PAXTON. A single remark I forgot is simply this; that this section does not in any manner restrict the legislature in the imposition of taxes on privileges or anything else that is not property. The legislature is at perfect liberty to tax in any manner, shape or form, or by any name it pleases, what they please, provided they do it in conformity to this principle; to which I think no exception can be taken.
MR. SMITH. I had considered all that, but still there is a difficulty. "No one species of property from which a tax shall be collected shall be taxed higher than any other of equal value." Now, you tax merchandise. A merchant buys in town the first of June his goods for the year. The commissioner comes round in May and makes out his books. Well, now he gets the goods in June, is not taxed, it is not taken down in the commissioner's books; no tax levied on it.
MR. PAXTON. I have to correct the gentleman just there a moment, because if I understand the working of this system provision is made for that sort of thing; that where a merchant comes into possession of property after the time. the assessors come around to levy the taxes, he may by legislative provision be required to come forward and go to the assessor and give him a list of the property he has to contribute in proportion to the balance of the year. That is the way these things work in other states.
MR. VAN WINKLE. In some places they tax him his average stock. That is the most common way.
MR. SMITH. There is something of an exclusive privilege about giving a license. I think it would be the better way, to get rid of all difficulty at the close to put in these words: "but nothing herein contained shall be construed as to inhibit the legislature from levying a tax on licenses, salaries or incomes." Now, I know that the revenue of our state from licenses especially is very large; more, perhaps, than a million of dollars in the State of Virginia at this time; and when we want taxes, why they are able to pay and it is a very just subject of taxation; and if that is the meaning which the gentleman attaches to the section this sort of a clause can rid it of that doubt of construction. Now, the language is "All property, both real and personal, shall be taxed in proportion to its value, to be ascertained as directed by law. No one species of property from which a tax may be collected shall be taxed higher than any other of equal value." Now "all property" means anything that is capable of being owned. It is real, personal or mixed. It is "all property" a general comprehensive term.
That certainly embraces goods, embraces the property which a man sells to his customer as a tavern keeper; and it is a thing you cannot very well tax for it is coming in or going out the whole course of the year, difficult of taxation at all. This has made it necessary to grant licenses by which it shall be done and that should be regulated by law to ascertain the amount that is probably sold by the business transacted; and if as the gentleman says it is not intended to control the legislature in that particular then the terms which I introduce would avoid all difficulty. "But nothing herein contained shall be so construed as to inhibit the legislature from levying a tax on licenses, salaries or incomes." Salary is a choses in action, and it would be embraced under the term "property." If you tax the income and if you tax the salary, as may be done, it would be sufficient. But a tavern keeper's license, a license to sell goods and a lawyer's license, a doctor's license - I want them all fixed. I have been paying a tax myself some fifteen or twenty dollars a year on my profession as a lawyer. I don't want the State to lose that tax. It is a very important tax, and I therefore think it would be prudent to put in this clause to rid of that misconstruction.
MR. BROWN of Kanawha. I accept it as an amendment to mine.
MR. SMITH. I perfectly agree with the principles of the report.
MR. VAN WINKLE. Does the gentleman offer that as an amendment? It is not in order now. We have not had an opportunity to discuss it.
MR. SMITH. I do not think it is in order. I merely offered it as an argument, and so at the proper time I will offer it, at the close of the section to ask to introduce it, and with that amendment I would vote for the section, those two sentences as they are. I have no objections, only it is repeating the same idea and only involving it in more difficulty of interpretation; the repetition involves it in a greater difficulty of interpretation. I do not suppose that there is a cat in the tub here, but the cat may get in the tub unless we watch it.
THE PRESIDING OFFICER. (Mr. Pomeroy in the chair.) Does the Chair understand the gentleman as withdrawing his amendment?
MR. BROWN of Kanawha. I do not withdraw it, sir.
MR. DERING. It seems to me, sir, that this section is not liable to the objections that gentlemen raise against it, nor is the amendment, I think, calculated to make it any more clear and explicit than it already is.
We have long been complaining that in western Virginia against unequal taxation, and the committee here in its first section have made the declaration that taxation on all property, real and personal, shall be in proportion to its value. The second sentence only reiterates and emphasizes that declaration in a little more explicit form; and we desire to impress upon the Constitution, to make it stand out in bold relief that this Convention desires to incorporate in their Constitution a principle in the most emphatic form possible in order that our people may see that we have had that thing in view, and we are determined it shall stand out in bold and prominent characters. It is a mere repetition, sir, of the principle incorporated. Now, sir, is there a West Virginian anywhere that would object to that principle; a citizen within the bounds of the new State that would object to that principle? Why, sir, it is to West Virginians one of the most dear and cherished principles we could incorporate in our Constitution; and can there be any objection to a reiteration of that principle in this second sentence? It seems to me there cannot. The amendment indicated by the gentleman from Kanawha is ostensibly offered to correct objections for which I think there is no ground. There is no cat in the meal-tub, sir. I had the honor of being one of the committee and I did not see any cat put in the meal-tub at all. There is no covering up, no prohibition of the legislature in reference to licenses whatever. We do not say the legislature shall not provide by law for licensing merchants and lawyers, hotel-keepers, etc. No such thing is to be found in the section; no such inhibition whatever on the legislature; a clear right to go on and legislate with regard to licenses, and there is no prohibition whatever. I do not think the section is at all liable to the objection gentlemen have raised against it. It seems to me it is, as I said, a mere emphatic reiteration of the grand principle that taxation on all property shall be equal and uniform.
Again, sir, I cannot see any objection to that; I cannot see how the amendment will help it any; I cannot for the life of me, see or find any cat in the meal at all. I am in favor of the section as it stands.
MR. SINSEL. As this is an important section, I want to see whether I understand it fairly or not. "Taxation shall be equal and uniform throughout the State, and all property, both real and personal, shall be taxed in proportion to its value, to be ascertained as directed by law." I understand by that that the legislature shall not in one section of the State levy, for instance, four mills on the dollar and in another section five mills on the dollar; but it shall be the same every place. In the second place, I understand all property shall be taxed in proportion to its value. That is, if one horse is worth $5, tax it on $5, and if another is worth $125, tax it on $125. And so on with every other species of property. Well, the mode of ascertaining the valuation, as I understand the section, the legislature is to prescribe - how it shall be done and who shall do it and so on. Well, now, sir, in the first part of the second sentence, "no one species of property from which a tax may be collected shall be taxed higher than any other species of property of equal value." I presume this clause never would have entered into this Constitution had it not been that there is a clause in the present Constitution of Virginia which was in direct opposition to this principle; and I suppose the committee wished to remove all doubt from the mind of the most common reader that their property should be taxed in proportion to its value, no matter whether it was a horse, cow, sheep, hog, slave or whatever it might be. I don't see any particular need of that, neither do I see it will do any harm. As to licenses, I think lawyers understand them to be issued not upon the valuation of property at all but for a privilege. You issue a license to a man that wishes to engage in a certain kind of enterprise, and he pays for the privilege with a distinct understanding that no one else shall come in competition with him unless he pays a like tax for the same privilege. A tax then and a license is not a double tax on property but a privilege granted to the individual to carry on a certain business. This section cannot affect the license question at all. If I am wrong in my understanding of this, I wish some learned gentleman to correct me.
MR. RAYMOND. I am for the section just as it stands. It is, sir, the doctrine which western Virginia has been advocating for a long time; a doctrine which I hope will be adopted by this Convention. It is for this reason that we are trying to cut ourselves asunder from the eastern part of the state. We wish to secure to us this very doctrine. The gentleman from Logan appears to be uneasy fearing he will not get the chance to tax a man for what he is worth and then taxing him again for his industry. Now, I never thought a man ought to be taxed for his industry. I believe if he paid taxes for what he was worth, it is all he ought to be taxed. Now, let us suppose a case. Here are five of us who have been partners. We dissolve and when we settle we have $1000 apiece clear cash. Here comes the assessor and assesses us $1000 apiece. We have nothing more and now each one is going out on his own hook to engage in business. Is it right that one of these partners should pay now more tax than another? That is the question. I am going to be a farmer in Marion, another something else. Why should we be taxed one more than another? I never could see that a merchant should be taxed more than anybody else. I have been a farmer and merchant both at the same time. I have been a merchant for 17 years, sometimes carried on two plants; then had to pay $100 tax, when my other taxes were about $70.00. I paid $170 tax while my neighbors, worth more than I, did not pay as much by a hundred dollars, as I did. I never could see any justice in that. I do not want a man taxed for his industry. I want us to have a liberal constitution here, under which every man will have a right to do that which he wants to do; that every man will have a right to follow the pursuit he desires to follow, and let him pay taxes according to what he is worth; and that is all any honest government ought to require.
MR. HAGAR. I differ a little from my friend, though we agree in a great many things, especially so far as concerns the adoption of the section under consideration. He wants to know the reason why these men in different occupations are taxed. Well, we charge the merchant to sell goods. Lawyers charge very high fees, and we want to make them pay for it; doctors charge very high charges, and we want them to pay for that. A man who has a horse going round the country imposing on the people, I think it is right to tax his license. But I am for the section as it stands.
MR. IRVINE. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Marion contends, I think, for the construction that I think this section might possibly be susceptible of.
MR. RAYMOND. I did not allude to that at all. I said the gentleman from Logan was uneasy for fear there was some "cat in the meal-tub" (Laughter).
MR. SMITH. No, no; I was not; it was the gentleman from Doddridge.
MR. IRVINE. It was then inferred that the gentleman gave the construction that I have myself contended it might possibly receive. As to the chairman of this committee giving a particular construction to it and saying that is the construction it is to receive, no doubt this gentleman is perfectly honest in his declaration; but when we come to construe this section you could not even read into the construction of the section the speeches that were made in this Convention to show how the Convention construed it. That is a well-established principle. You could not read into the law that is passed in Congress that speeches that were made during the time upon the law. It is to be construed according to its language, according to the subject matter and the context, no matter how the framers of the law intended it; and unless the language and the context admits of that construction it will never receive that construction. The only question is, how would they construe this section according to the rules of construction that have been adopted by the sages of the law for construing all laws?
Now, Mr. Speaker, I have only five minutes; let me know when my time is up, and I will take my seat. In construing this law, it will be construed in connection with the context. Then the first question will be asked - here is the first section fixes the rule, all property shall be taxed equal and uniform throughout the State on property both real and personal. That is the great principle that we have contended for in the west as enunciated in this sentence. Gentlemen on the other side of the question seem to contend that we are combatting the great principle we have contended for in the west here, that taxation shall be uniform on all property according to value. I am in favor of taxation being uniform. I am in favor of the great principle that we have contended for, that every species of property ought to be taxed in proportion to its value, including negroes and everything else. This principle is clearly expressed in the first sentence. Then in interpreting this whole section the question will be asked, for what purpose the first clause of the second sentence was introduced ? Now, it is a rule of construction that you must give effect to every part of a sentence; if it is susceptible of any meaning, you must give some effect to every part of it. For what purpose was this introduced? If it merely repeats what is contained in the first sentence, it answers no purpose. Might it not be contended that when a man obtained a license to sell goods that you cannot charge him for the license? "No species of property from which a tax may be collected" is the peculiar language used here. He may contend that as a tax has been collected from his goods you cannot tax his license; that it is in effect collecting another tax from his goods - the goods he sells and that you cannot tax him any more than you would tax a man for any other species of property. That is, in other words, to express myself more clearly, that you cannot tax him for the privilege of selling the goods.
MR. PAXTON. A single explanation.
THE PRESIDING OFFICER. The gentleman from Ohio has spoken twice.
MR. PAXTON. I waive it, sir.
MR. CARSKADON. The tenacity with gentlemen stick to the first clause of the second sentence has convinced me that there is some purpose in it; for had it not been so they would not have been so tenacious in holding on to it. It simply reiterates what is said in the first sentence; carries nothing else with it. The first sentence to any man of common-sense is as plain as there is any necessity for; and there is no necessity for the first clause of the second sentence without some particular construction to be put upon it. I had from the first reading of it suspected that there was some design in it, and the intimation of the gentleman from Marion has confirmed me in that opinion. Therefore I am decidedly in favor of the amendment which the gentleman from Logan proposes to add at the conclusion of the sentence. And if they have not the purpose which has been indicated by that first clause of the second sentence, they can have no earthly reason for opposing the amendment of the gentleman from Logan. Therefore I hope the gentlemen from the rural districts will take into consideration that this is to exempt merchants - at least it is my opinion so - and I give it for what it is worth - from paying a license; and it will therefore have to be that extra amount of tax levied, to come off rural districts, in order to make up the revenues of the State.
MR. PAXTON. Explain what you mean by exemption merchants from paying license? Do you mean to say they will pay no tax?
MR. CARSKADON. No, sir, not paying tax; but pay no license for selling goods. I understand it has heretofore always been the law that they shall not pay any license.
MR. STEVENSON of Wood. I was going to make a suggestion. I don't know whether I have a right to make the motion or not, that this 15-minute rule should not apply to the chairmen of committees. It is impossible, it seems to me, that you can consider a report brought in by a committee where the chairman has not the privilege of explanation. The privilege has been extended in every other case in this Convention.
MR. BROWN of Kanawha. I rise to a question of order.
MR. STEVENSON of Wood. I merely wish to know if it is in order.
THE PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair thinks it is not in order.
MR. STEVENSON of Wood. The Chair will remember that I just asked if it was in order. The gentleman need not be quite so fast.
MR. HAYMOND. The gentleman from Hampshire entirely misunderstood me. I was merely alluding to the gentleman from Logan who appeared to be very uneasy for fear there was something he did not understand. The gentleman from Hampshire misunderstood me.
But I am sorry, Mr. President, to see men here wanting to put in this Constitution the very things which we have been opposing for twenty years. We have been contending for twenty years for the very things which this clause contains and I do not see how gentlemen can get up here and oppose it. I wish this clause adopted in the very form in which it now is; I wish to see West Virginia stick to that principle which she has been contending for for the past twenty years. That is what I am for, and nothing else.
Mr. Brown of Kanawha addressed the Chair.
MR. HALL of Marion. The gentleman has twice spoken.
MR. BROWN of Kanawha. No, sir; you are mistaken.
THE PRESIDING OFFICER. The gentleman from Kanawha made a motion to amend but he did not make a speech at that time.
MR. BROWN of Kanawha. This proposition, Mr. President, either says one and the same thing or it does not. It is a cat in the meal-tub, or it is not. Now, which is it? This Convention will bear me in mind that I have urged it was a different proposition and was a cat in the meal-tub. I moved to strike out the intermediate clause because, as I believe it repeated substantially the same proposition contained in the first; and if I be correct in that, then it certainly will meet the approval of this Convention to strike it out, for I do not think any gentleman can defend the proposition to repeat it twice in the Constitution; for if it is right to repeat it, it is right to repeat it everywhere in the Constitution, and then repeat the Constitution. Now, therefore I say if the proposition is one and the same substantially, it ought to be stricken out because it is a repetition and can only have the effect of discrediting the Convention that does it. If this clause does not mean the same thing as the first sentence it ought to be stricken out because it is an attack on a fundamental system, one essential to the defense of the State. The gentleman from Marion thinks every man ought to be taxed alike; but if the gentleman takes his $1000 and puts it in that form, and the lawyer - the other man with $1000 puts his at interest and then goes about his profession and makes five thousand dollars the next year off his profession, would you think the lawyer ought not to be taxed something for that capital that makes five thousand while the farmer is taxed on his farm at its full value?
MR. HAYMOND. If he makes $5000 could not he be taxed on that the next year?
MR. BROWN of Kanawha. No, sir; he would spend it all before the year was out, just as the merchant we went to levy on on the next 1st of February will not have a cent perhaps. He will buy his goods again, and when the time comes, it will all be gone in the meantime.
MR. LAMB. I merely want to ask the gentleman a question: whether the value of the merchant's stock would not, of course, be ascertained as directed by law? I suppose the legislature would see that the law was not evaded in the way the gentleman indicates.
MR. SIMMONS. I just rise to make a single remark in regard to mercantile business. I have been engaged in that for a number of years, and it has been intimated by the gentleman from Hampshire that if the merchants are not taxed up on a license the people generally at large have to pay it from some other source. I wish to remind gentlemen here that have never been engaged in this business that if the merchant pays a heavy tax, the people who buy his goods pay it themselves. If he is taxed heavily, he undoubtedly must sell his goods high enough to enable him to cover this tax; if his taxes are light, he sells at a lower rate. I have always found that to be the fact. I don't say the merchant is justified but he will protect himself in the matter of his expenses. In laying unfair burdens on him you are simply laying them on the people who are his customers.
MR. VAN WINKLE. The gentleman from Hampshire had something to say about the "rural districts." I have heard a good deal about the "rural districts" in my time. Nobody here has for one moment said a merchant shall not be taxed. It is as to the system that is to be applied, that there is any question about. The report, as I understand it - and it is not as explicit on that subject as it might be - confines the tax to the "property" in the hands of the merchant; and I should like to know if that is not the fairest way, more in accordance with equality than to allow the legislature to put on an arbitrary tax and increase it at its own pleasure? If gentlemen would make themselves familiar with how these things are managed elsewhere they would see there is no practical difficulty in any part of it. This section is the identical provision that is in operation in nine-tenths of the states of the Union,, where the practice is exemplified every day. There can be no practical difficulty about it. The only question involved is the rule by which you are going to get at it. In reference to the clause as it stands, I believe that it is necessary, to contradict the practice that has obtained very widely in this State, that this language shall be repeated in this slightly different form, to make the meaning more explicit, even if gentlemen will have it that it is a mere repetition. It is necessary that we should forbid. One is the affirmative; the other is the negative; but that this clause should be here forbidding discrimination in taxation in different kinds of "property"; forbidding that one species of property should be taxed higher than any other. Now, sir; in reference to the cat in the meal-tub, there might be a cat in the other meal-tub. I would 'like to know why if the gentleman from Hampshire thinks we are "tenacious" about retaining this language, if he can infer any argument from the "tenacity" with which it is sought to have this language stricken out? If it is only repetition, why so tenacious? Mere repetition is a trifling fault, not worth all this elaborate effort to throw suspicion on a mere surplusage. Has the gentleman from Hampshire ever heard of a peculiar species of property in Virginia which the legislature of that state under such a provision as he wants here felt authorized to tax way below what other property of equal value was taxed? His argument cuts both ways. The point I want to get at is that no citizen shall have just cause of complaint as to the taxes that are levied on him; and if you make it a strict rule that all shall pay according to the value of their property, none can have a right to complain. I wish, sir, to prevent the legislature under the spur of circumstances, under the spur of an outside pressure, to make laws which some particular individuals may desire, thinking their friends are numerous enough to affect the elections next year. And I hope every member of this Convention will see the necessity for it. You know how hard it is for them to screw up their courage to lay the proper tax on property, and how they try to find some way to raise the needed revenues by laying taxes in some other way, on other subjects or by other devices, less liable to antagonize large interests when it comes to the elections. If you are going to levy upon salaries and incomes, the rural districts had better look out; because if you are going to tax my income, I want the farmers' income taxed too; and how will he like it, to pay a tax on his land, on the crops in his possession and then pay a tax on the income of the year? Will the farmer like that and if he doesn't like that for himself does he want to put it on anybody else? There is a provision in the old constitution that attempts to guard against that; but it has been found nugatory in practice. Gentlemen ought to consider these things. Do you want to make a constitution that is to be satisfactory and that is to stand? If you want to make a constitution that is to confer the benefits we hope to derive from it, then make it equal in its privileges and purview and don't give to one what you deny to another; don't impose a burden on one that you don't impose on another in proportion. That is the only fair and just rule; and if there is any cat in the meal, I should like to know where it lies. The cat must be in trying to make one pay more than his fair proportion if it lies anywhere.
MR. PAXTON. I understand that I have not exceeded my privilege; that the first remarks I made when the section came up was not to be counted under the rule, I merely wish to read from one or two constitutions so that if there is any cat in the meal-tub that other people have been guilty of it as well as ourselves.
From the Constitution of Tennessee:
"All property shall be taxed according to its value, that value to be ascertained in such manner as the legislature shall direct, so •that the same shall be equal and uniform throughout the state. No one species of property from which a tax shall be collected shall be taxed higher than any other species of property of equal value."
From the Constitution of Louisiana:
"Taxation shall be equal and uniform throughout the state. All property on which taxes may be levied in this state shall be taxed in proportion to its value to be ascertained as directed by law. No one species of property shall be taxed higher than another of equal value on which taxes shall be levied."
I imagine the object of the framers of these constitutions was the same as the committee had in view, simply to make it so plain that there could be no misunderstanding.
MR. STUART of Doddridge. The cat has got out of the meal-tub and is loose now, that is if we are to take the expositions of the gentleman from Wood. He said he wanted to restrict the legislature so that when they come to imposing a tax they could not increase the tax on the merchants' licenses. And I suppose we are to understand that this is a restriction on the legislature in imposing these licenses. The question comes up whether you want to restrict the legislature in imposing these licenses or not.
The Secretary reported the amendment of Mr. Brown as proposed, to strike out the 3rd, 4th and 5th lines and some other words and insert other words, so that if adopted, the provision would read:
"Taxation shall be equal and uniform throughout the State on all property both real and personal according to its value; but property used for educational, literary, scientific, religious and charitable purposes may by law beexempted from taxation."
MR. HERVEY. No gentleman has alleged on this floor that it takes away the power of the legislature to impose licenses. It has been denied by every advocate of this section as it stands.
The vote was taken on Mr. Brown's amendment and it was rejected by the following vote:
YEAS - Messrs. Brown of Kanawha, Chapman, Carskadon, Cook, Hansley, Hall of Marion, Harrison, Irvine, Montague, Robinson, Stephenson of Clay, Stuart of Doddridge, Smith, Taylor, Walker, Warder, Wilson - 17.
NAYS - Messrs. Brown of Preston, Brooks, Brumfield, Battelle, Caldwell, Dering, Dille, Dolly, Haymond, Hubbs, Hervey, Hoback, Hagar, Lamb, Lauck, Mahon, McCutchen, O'Brien, Parsons, Parker, Paxton, Pomeroy, Sinsel, Simmons, Stevenson of Wood, Stewart of Wirt, Sheets, Soper, Trainer, Van Winkle - 30.
MR. SMITH. I will ask to amend the section by adding these words:
"Nothing, however, in this section shall be so construed as to prohibit the legislature from levying a tax on licenses, incomes and salaries unless in cases where the estate from which the income arises is taxed as property."
To come in at the end of the section.
MR. VAN WINKLE. I would call the gentleman's attention to a section in the present constitution: "The general assembly shall levy a tax on income, salaries, etc."
MR. SMITH. Mine embraces the same idea.
MR. VAN WINKLE. I was going to advise that you offer it as a separate section that we might take up the question by itself, as I intend to oppose it.
MR. SMITH. I would offer it as an independent section, and just copy from the existing constitution. My object is to secure a tax on licenses, incomes and salaries. I will just adopt the language of the Constitution of Virginia.
The first section was then adopted, and Mr. Smith offered the following as a separate section:
"The legislature may levy a tax on incomes, salaries, and licenses, but no tax shall be levied on property from which any income so taxed is derived, or on the capital invested in the trade or business, in respect to which the income so taxed is issued."
MR. SINSEL. Under that section, if you adopt it, I might engage in the mercantile business with a capital of $50,000. This capital then, as property, will be exempt from taxation and they will tax me on a license for the privilege of selling goods. Now, you see at once that that cuts out all competition from any other person engaging in the mercantile business. My neighbor would be liable to fine. He might come to Wheeling and buy a lot of goods for his own use; but if he undertook to sell them to his neighbors, if he did, he would be fined because he has no license. I have an exclusive privilege of selling and yet paying not a cent of tax on $50,000, paying only for the privilege of selling my goods. So you see it cuts out the competition right at once, and the State would derive no more tax from that source than if you say to tax the individual, so I am opposed to it.
MR. SMITH. The gentleman has wholly misconceived it. The license is intended to be a tax on the property and also a tax for the privilege. I leave it to the legislature what it shall be. Where there is $50,000 capital, there will be a particular tax, and on $100,000 a particular tax, and where there is $200,000 the tax will be in proportion to the amount of property invested in the business and it is always more than the ordinary tax upon the capital invested. You look at the legislative acts on this subject. We have been granting licenses. They pay very heavy licenses. It is the complaint of a great many merchants that their tax is too high; but I imagine that there is an esprit du corps among merchants too, and wherever you touch the matter of license you see the merchants hopping up. But the objection raised to this is that the practice is to tax the license too high, costing more than the property itself; that the subject of trade would be taxed and the legislature have the whole power. Here you have $50,000. Well, you will assume the tax on $50,000 - the ad valorem tax according to the ratio of taxation adopted where they will put the $50,000 down, they will put, maybe, $15 or $20 for the privilege of selling. They tax the property and they tax the privilege both; and that is left to the discretion of the legislature. That is the object of the amendment. It is to secure that subject from the difficulties that would arise where it is a changing, varying property from time to time and from year to year. It is to tax it by the amount of capital actually engaged in it, because if you go to tax property there may be no property in hand at the time the commissioner comes around. And hence the necessity of taxing a license according to the usual capital of the party engaged and some little bonus for the privilege.
MR. PAXTON. The committee whose report is now under consideration had this question before them - this very provision reported by the gentleman from Logan - and we could not see any propriety in a provision of that sort; or any use, because that provision would conflict with the principle which the committee had agreed to report as the basis of their system, now adopted by the Convention. We have adopted a principle of equal and uniform taxation. Is it a reality or a sham? If it is real, then I can see no propriety in adopting this, because the legislature already have the authority to levy taxes in any manner, shape, form or way, or under any name they please, in conformity with that principle. Therefore, if it does not conflict with that principle, there is no use of putting it in the Constitution, because the legislature already has the authority this would confer. You might as well go on and specify how the legislature should levy the tax, in what manner, through what officers - make a code while we are at it. As I said before, unless the object of this is to come in conflict with the principle already adopted, there is no use of it here, for the legislature already has that power and this detail should be left to them. If it is intended to come in conflict and we adopt it, -we would have declared a fundamental principle for our system of taxation and then in the next vote have taken a position that comes in direct conflict with that principle. Do we mean what we say when we declare a principle here? I do hope this Convention will not adopt the section proposed for the very reason that if it conflicts with the principle we have adopted it should not be adopted; if it does not, the legislature already have the power that is necessary to give them entire and absolute control over the whole subject.
MR. VAN WINKLE. With a view of bringing this matter to a direct issue, I will offer the following as a substitute for the section offered by the gentleman from Logan:
"No tax shall be levied on licenses, salaries, or incomes, but the property used in any business or calling shall be taxed as other property. Nothing herein contained shall be construed to prevent the county authorities from issuing licenses, and charging such reasonable fees for the same as may be allowed by general laws."
I wish, Mr. President, to bring the Convention to a direct vote on the question whether they are going to allow one class of citizens to be taxed higher than another; or allow one class to be taxed twice: first upon their property and secondly on their income, while others are not taxed on their income?
In the first place, sir, this whole idea of licenses is a strange one. Gentlemen have heard a good deal about our having a "free state." They have it in a certain sense; but I want to have a free state in another sense, where the white people are free. I want it, sir, that any man can go into any business when he chooses if he will comply with the laws regulating it; not but what any man may be prevented and regulated with respect to the things demanded by the public morals: but the idea that a man cannot open a store without permission of the commissioner of revenue is repugnant to a correct system based on popular liberty. I would ask if you want to subject the citizens of this new State to that idea that a man is not free to engage in trade without he goes and asks permission of the commissioner of the revenue. Why, sir, gentlemen talk as if these licenses were exclusive privileges. It is no such thing and never has been. Any man who chooses to go and pay the fees can get a license. It is only in cases of selling liquor, where good character and such things are required, that any of these remarks will apply. The idea of talking about a lawyer's "license." A lawyer's license is simply a certificate that he has undergone the examination which shows him to be competent. That used to be a lawyer's license. A lawyer pays taxes on his property but not for his privileges. If you tax a merchant, he pays for the privilege and pays a tax on the property he is obliged to use in his business. They may charge a lawyer what they charge now for issuing the paper to him. That may be all well enough. But it is with reference to where it becomes a burden thus put on to the merchant and others that are dealing in that kind of goods. If we want to drive business from the State we had better go on in the plan that has been pursued. And what difference does it make to the "rural districts" - to quote the gentleman from Hampshire - if this merchant pays upon the property he has in possession, or pays a round sum? What difference can it make to them unless the idea is that the merchant is to be taxed beyond the proportion his property would allow? If a merchant has an average stock of $10,000 and the tax is 4 cents, he will pay $40; if he has $20,000, he pays $80 and so on. Is not that fair? But will you put them into a class, and put a tax on at the pleasure of the legislature of whatever they may choose without any guaranty that one shall be proportioned to the other?
I ask, first, whether the people of this State are to be so tied up that they cannot choose what business they will go into which does not affect the morals of the public, on the one hand, or if this Convention is going to consent to the principle now sought to be established by this amendment. Remember it comes from the old Constitution of Virginia under which these things have been practiced. Why are we here making a constitution for a separate state if it is not to escape from the tyranny of just such things, suffered by our people under the old; if it is not, in this particular matter that taxation in the case of a particular class and of all other individuals shall be equal?
Now, what have we to do with salaries and incomes? In the history of Great Britain an income tax was resorted to only in times of war. It was considered a war tax. What are war taxes? We are paying them here. You must place a stamp on every bill and note that is issued. You cannot give your note of hand unless you pay a tax to the government on it; cannot write a will or any other legal paper unless it has a stamp upon it paying a government tax. These are war taxes. This income tax in Great Britain has always been left to be resorted to on extraordinary occasions. It was promised by the chancellor of the exchequer that as soon as the Crimean war was over that war-tax should be lifted. But then came on the war of India and they are yet laboring under that war expense. Here in this free State, in one of the sovereign and independent states of this Union, under republican institutions, here, we are asked to take this extraordinary tax, which people are willing to pay only in time of war or great public emergencies, and make it the common rule! That is what we are asked to do. If property is taxed according to its value, if 40 cents will not pay the expenses of the government, put on 50; if 50 is not enough, put on 60. But then it will be equal on all the citizens and on all the property of the State, which is the thing that is to bear the burden, for it is that mostly which is to be protected. We are all liable to turn out and bear arms for personal protection. That with a small capitation tax would be a sufficient equivalent for the personal protection we get. But all the rest of the machinery of the government is employed - nine-tenths of it - in the protection of property. Therefore, property should pay for it. But when you come to levy that tax on the property of the citizens of the State then according to the principle we have recognized everywhere in this Constitution, the fundamental and foundation principle of our financial system, on which our institutions are to be built up - that is equality of the citizens, we make them equal by taxing them each one in proportion to his property. You require more always where there is more protection given and less where there is less protection given. You require, for instance, more in personal services from the sound, healthy man than from the valetudinarian or aged man. You require the young man to shoulder his musket and turn out to defend his country; but only in extreme cases those whose health is feeble or from any other cause unable to perform the same service, and it is all perfectly right.
And so it is in reference to this question of taxation. Now this amendment I have offered embraces a fair and equal system. The amendment of the member from Logan is the old method under which we have been groaning and which has at last resulted in a general desire to repudiate the whole thing. I have provided that these licenses should be issued by the county authorities. They are the proper judges. That will be, of course, under regulations to be prescribed by law, and they can issue and demand a proper fee for issuing them. If they choose to make it five dollars or two dollars on a license, I have no objection; if they choose to make it fifteen or twenty dollars on an ordinary license, I have no objection to that; but I do think these businesses that are common to every citizen everywhere else ought to be common to every citizen here, and we do not want any of these tyrannical laws imposed on our citizens any more than they are imposed everywhere else. There is no call for it. Tax the merchant on his property and you will get all you are entitled to, and about as much as you will get by this special license. And as in some twenty or thirty states of this Union they have found out a way to apply this rule, there will be no difficulty in applying it here. Our officers have as much intelligence as they have there, and will be just as able to apply the rule as they are in any other states.
MR. SMITH. I offered the amendment at the solicitation. I thought, of my friend from Wood, and I expected to get his support.
MR. VAN WINKLE. My solicitation to you was to offer it as an independent section. It was in the old constitution as such; but I announced at the same time that I intended to oppose it.
MR. SMITH. I thought you said you would vote for it (Laughter).
I regret to see my friend from Wood take this ground he does. He is a member of the fraternity to which I belong, and with all the abuse that is heaped on them, I undertake to say that in all public measures calculated to advance the interests of the country - I say it now; I have got so far advanced in the profession I may say it without being immodest - I say they are the most liberal class of this whole community, and wherever a public measure fraught with public interest is before the country you will always find them shoulder to shoulder pressing it forward.
Now, let us see how the merchants and others stand up to the work; see how many merchants will vote for this measure. Lawyers are embraced in the licenses as well as the others. I call upon my friends, the members of the bar vindicate the character which I have now given them - by their votes come up to it (Laughter). I call upon my friend from Wood to come up and vindicate the reputation of his profession - a profession honorable and liberal and generous.
MR. VAN WINKLE. I hope I shall not need to vindicate my professional character by paying five dollars for the privilege of belonging to the profession. I value it a little higher (Laughter).
MR. SMITH. I believe the gentleman has got down into a more sober business profession, and since he has got down there he has lost some of that liberality that belongs to the profession (Merriment). But I call upon them to stand up and let us see how many merchants stand up and agree that they will pay license. It is a just and expedient law. I say they have a privilege, as a professional man I have a privilege of appearing before the bar and defending or prosecuting the causes of others, but the community at large is excluded from it. I say when you get a license to sell goods you have an exclusive right and you should pay for it. The country at large gives you that exclusive privilege and I demand that the commonwealth should be compensated for it and that you shall not go back on the farmer and laborer to pay up that deficiency which you ought to pay for the privilege granted you. That is the ground I take. I do not consider that I am practicing on the principle of a demagogue either. If there is anything I despise more than another it is legislating as the demagogue, looking to see how popular it will be.
MR. VAN WINKLE. Does the gentleman apply that to me?
MR. SMITH. Surely not. Because you are practicing on a principle that does not look demagoguical; because you are resisting what will be regarded as the principle of the demagogue, and I am advocating one that may be so regarded. I am vindicating myself against such a charge, not charging you with it.
I say it is just; and I do not ask that I as a lawyer should have this exclusive privilege and for that privilege pay no price, and go back and ask the farmer or the mechanic, or any other class of laboring men in the community, to pay it. I ask that the merchant who sells to the farmer and sells to others and holds an exclusive privilege of doing so shall come up and pay for the privilege. That is what I ask and it is just. And I will so provide, that if the farmer's land and his negroes and his other property is taxed, that then, sir, his income shall not be taxed; but if the lawyer is not taxed in his income, why, then let him pay for the privilege; but if his income is taxed then he does not come under the provisions of that. Nor is the merchant. If his goods are taxed, he is excepted from its operation, and where it is not taxed he is to pay. And you cannot - it is impossible to tax the merchant. His goods are traveling from hand to hand all the time - a thousand dollars today, six hundred dollars tomorrow - and how are you going to tax it? You must have the commissioner running every day to ascertain the amount of property he has got to assess the taxes he should pay. If you tax him as upon an income of $50,000 and lay a tax on an income on a stock of $50,000, then he will pay for his license; but if he don't pay as upon a property of $50,000, then he pays for the privilege. It is equality and justice, and I want him to pay a little more than the owner of his property. I want him to pay for the privilege. It is a privilege, an exclusive privilege he has when he is not taxed. I call upon the merchants now to come up, and I call upon my lawyer friends to stand up and vindicate themselves, the whole of them. It is proper and right.
MR. LAMB. I regret exceedingly the gentleman did not also call upon the bankers (Laughter). So far as they are concerned, some allusion has been made to them in a former part of this discussion. I may say the application of the principle embodied in this first section will certainly subject them to a much higher degree of taxation than they are now subject to. But however that may be, however it may affect lawyers or merchants or anybody else, I have from the beginning endeavored to occupy a position in this Convention of advocating and maintaining what I supposed to be great and correct principles. And, as I have already said, I look on this principle of the equality of property in regard to taxation as second only to that great principle which we have adopted, the equality of persons in regard to representation. However it may affect one class of the community, or another, it is a proper principle, and without reference to its operation on classes, as a just and fair principle I hope this Convention will adopt it. The merchant will pay a tax upon his stock, the value to be ascertained as shall be prescribed by law; and certainly there can be no difficulty in that more than in ascertaining the value of other property. He will pay a tax on the debts that are due him, on his furniture in the house, on all other property he may possess - a tax on that which we all pay and in precisely the same proportion. I doubt very much whether the commonwealth will not by such a system secure as abundant revenue from this source as they will upon a system like that which has heretofore existed in this state; for that system, proposed to be perpetuated here by the gentleman from Logan, is entirely an arbitrary one:
"The legislature may levy a tax on incomes, salaries and licenses, etc."
There is no principle here. The legislature may levy it without regard to any principle; without regard to justice; without regard to equality. There is nothing here to carry out this great principle of equality, even as between merchants, or as between persons who are in the receipt of salaries. There is no principle as between these classes, nor even as between persons in the same class; nothing to confine the legislature to any quality or any justice between the parties subjected to these arbitrary taxes. As for the lawyers, the prices for goods, and all this, why, gentlemen, the lawyer is perfectly indifferent about whatever tax you may impose on him. There is no patriotism in the declaration of the gentleman from Logan, for he knows whether the tax is ten dollars or a hundred dollars, the client pays it. If you want goods at low prices, if you want really to benefit the "rural districts," in that respect, subject these matters to as few embarrassing restrictions as possible; leave the business as free as you can. Where you have one merchant alongside your farm, let another man go there to enter into competition. That is the way in which the farmer and the rural districts will be benefited, in which they will secure goods at reasonable prices. If you are to make this an exclusive business, if you are here to grant exclusive privileges to a certain man or to a few men to sell goods to your farmers, you may depend upon it that not merely will the price of the license but ten times the price of that license will come out of the farmers' pocket. This great principle is not only a correct one, I maintain but it is one that will benefit all classes; one, too, that I think will secure to the commonwealth which we hope we are about to establish as full a treasury as you can secure to it by this exclusive system.
MR. STEVENSON of Wood. As I am neither a lawyer nor a merchant I suppose I may not come within the call of my friend from Logan, and of course he will not expect me to accept his proposition. I had supposed that gentleman, from his arguments heretofore, was opposed to stuffing the Constitution with legislation, but that our duty here as framers of a Constitution was to incorporate in that instrument only great principles and leave with the legislature power to apply and develop and carry out those principles as might be dictated by the interests of the people when the time arrived to apply them. Now, sir, there is but one principle involved, it seems to me, in the amendment proposed - I mean the amendment of the gentleman from Logan, because I must discuss that, of course in considering the substitute for it offered by my colleague, and that principle is simply this: whether after having labored all this forenoon to breathe the breath of life into a great principle - this ad valorem system of taxation of property - we shall go to work and knock the breath right out of it. That is just the substance of the proposition made by the gentleman from Logan. We have settled the principle here by a very decided vote that taxation shall be equal and uniform throughout the State on all property, real and personal; and now he proposes to give the legislature special authority in some particular cases to abandon that principle. Well, now, if there could be any good reasons urged here in favor of abandoning the principle at all; if it could be shown that more revenue could be raised in that way; that there would be less injustice done than in the other case, why that might possibly be an argument in an extreme case for the abandonment of that principle. But it seems to be agreed here that it will make but little difference in the amount of taxes or revenues raised for state purposes whether you abandon the principle or adhere to it, at least that no more will be raised by abandoning than by adhering to the principle you have adopted. Then shall we abandon the principle and especially shall we abandon it when it is not established here that we will make anything out of that abandonment? I hope not, sir. If a principle is worth anything it is worth being applied to all property wherever the legislature in the laws they make shall be able to find that property. That is the grand principle which we have adopted: that all property, whether in the hands of a lawyer, banker, farmer or merchant shall be taxed in proportion to its value. I say that is the correct principle. If you abandon that principle once, or if you give the legislature power to abandon it, in a particular case, or to a number of particular cases, you have opened the door to any amount of abuses almost in the way of taxation. You cannot tell where they will stop, because it is discretionary with them, as I understand the proposition, if we open this door at all in this particular, we leave them to use their discretion in imposing either a small or a large tax in these particular cases. I hope, sir, unless better reasons are adduced for abandoning this great principle of ad valorem taxation on property than those which have been urged, the members of this Convention will adhere to the principle they have already adopted.
Now, sir, I care nothing about this matter of taxing licenses: I mean I don't care whether you require a license from a professional man or not; or from merchants or not. My experience and observation in regard to license on merchants - and I have watched it with some care - is this: these extravagant prices which they have been compelled to pay for the privilege of merchandising has had the effect of driving the customers to move out of the State - particularly on the border across the river where they could purchase their goods cheaper and where the legislature have been more liberal to that class of men. That is the effect it has had. Numbers of merchants are driven into other states where a more liberal policy - perhaps I should say a less oppressive and harassing policy - is pursued. I say that will be the history of the adoption of this amendment. It is impossible where it will stop. You may wish it to apply only to particular cases or to persons of a particular class; but if that matter is left entirely to the legislature, they might adopt almost any plan it pleases in reference to this matter, and thus the operation of this principle and the objects of this Convention to be defeated. I hope, therefore, sir, it will be the pleasure of the Convention to preserve this principle of taxation which they have adopted in this first section all through this report, and never abandon it. If we do, sir, the principle itself is gone.
MR. STUART of Doddridge. I would like to inquire how this authorizes one county to levy a greater license than another.
MR. VAN WINKLE. It contemplates that the legislature may pass general laws. The idea is that it shall not be a tax but a reasonable charge for issuing the license.
MR. STUART. I only wonder that the gentleman did not leave this privilege to the townships (Laughter). Now, sir, the county may under that provision charge a license or may not. If licenses are to be charged for privileges it should be uniform it appears to me. One county may overrun another by granting licenses while another might desire to refuse. I shall vote against the amendment of the gentleman from Wood.
MR. SIMMONS. I ask for the yeas and nays on this.
MR. BROWN of Kanawha. The principle that taxation shall be equal and uniform is a fundamental principle in the proposition we have adopted. I want to see how far that question is to be maintained and what is to be the operation in the matter. One man has no property and therefore nothing to tax except his head, and that will pay a dollar, and with every other man in the community will receive the blessings of the government and enjoy its privileges and securities. He every year lives as well, enjoys as many comforts upon a salary of a thousand dollars, two, three, four or five thousand dollars; fares sumptuously every day and wears his purple and fine linen, and pays nothing but the tax of one dollar on his head. Now, is that carrying out the principle of equality? Is that applying the principle properly and rightly that is. Now, the principle is defective. There is the tax on property; but he has no property, nothing at all which the law can apply to.
MR. VAN WINKLE. I never supposed a man's labor is property and that the State could exact a tax on that. All taxes are laid on surplus - on what a man has left after he has paid the cost of living. I hope it is not intended to tax the white labor of the country. But the gentleman takes a very superficial view of this matter as he states it. The gentleman who enjoys that generous salary and lives in the style my friend supposes must live in a house, and for one living so luxuriously it would have to be a handsome and expensive house. He does not own the house but he pays roundly for the use of it. Now, you may depend that the State's tax on that house - all the taxes on that house, state and local - have been added to the rental which the owner requires this Sybarite to pay. He pays all those taxes on that house and grounds when he pays his rent. The renter pays as much tax on what he uses as the man who owns his own home - probably something more. Every man who knows anything about political economy knows how these things adjust themselves.
MR. BROWN of Kanawha. I am meeting this question as it stands, I say the commissioner will come around and be told, sir, I have no property. Here is my head; tax that a dollar. If that is not a violation of this principle, it is of the principle of similar equality. But here are the gentlemen whose offices vary from one thousand up to five thousand dollars a year. Why, there are plenty of officers that receive their salaries and live comfortably and fare well although they bear none of the expense of the government that secures them these privileges. Here is the president of the James River and Kanawha Company receives a salary of five thousand dollars. Yet he pays no tax at all, when his neighbor with a little farm worth $500 is taxed on the value of it, and his neighbor who has got a little old donkey is taxed on that. I want to know why this gentleman should not be taxed on his salary and why it should not be assessed on this principle in conformity with its value as much as anything else. I am unable to perceive why. It is this law which secures him the blessings of the country, and I am unable to see why he should not bear his per centum of its burden. Well, sir, you know the gentleman who wants to keep a hotel. He has got no hotel, but he wants to keep one; so he goes and rents one; and that man is taxed on the property, he is taxed on this house and lot; but the gentleman who wants to keep it rents it for whatever it is worth per year and then he goes to the court or some authority and asks the liberty to charge everybody that comes there and makes them pay to accommodate them for it. Well, sir, the traveler stops at this hotel and he pays the price. Another man comes to a neighbor who has no license, and if he charges for entertaining the man, he is fined for it, and this tavern-keeper will be the first man to indict him for it. Now, I want to know what difference there is in indicting one and not charging the other? If this gentleman for the mere trifle he has derived from the authority of the government can make a thousand dollars out of it I do not see why he shall not be taxed on his salary if he does not pay any tax for having the license. But if he does, then he has accomplished all that is required. I do not see why you should give this gentleman the privilege of charging his neighbor and not allow every other neighbor the same privilege. Now, it is necessary to have licenses for the public good; and it seems to me that you secure to the public these blessings at the same time that you obtain from the party who gets the privilege of enjoying it and making a profit out of it that remuneration for the State that every other individual is required to pay. It is no more a violation of this principle than taxing a man a dollar on his head. A gentleman wants to sell liquor and make a fine fortune in that way. He will spend a hundred dollars and get his stock on hand. You cannot tax him for what he did not have the day the tax was levied; and he will sell as he pleases and turn his money and be back to market perhaps twenty times before the commissioner comes around. He will use up all he made and in the final end he has nothing you can tax. How are you to tax this man on the principle contemplated unless you assess him every day in the year? Whatever day you may fix it on, he will buy his goods the day after that. It is not like a man who buys his goods to keep, who has something permanent in it from year to year. The man who buys horses to cultivate his fields. The goods are bought to sell and to be kept no longer than disposed of. The grocer, who will turn over his whole stock two or three times a year can whenever he pleases have none on hand. It is not like the farmer. His lands are all the time there - always to be found whenever you go for them. Unless you then levy this tax for the privilege to cover the whole transactions during the year, you are to ascertain from him what is expected to be the business transactions of the year; you have no other way of reaching that man.
Well, gentlemen argue very strangely. The merchants are always shrewd, smart men as alive to their interests as any other class of the community. Gentlemen tell us, if you lay this on the merchant, he will not pay it; he will lay it on the consumer to whom he sells his goods and that you really do not tax the merchant but the consumer. It is therefore argued do not lay this license because it is not on the merchant but on the consumer. If that was the case, why is it merchants feel any concern about it? Why, sir, whenever you touch the interest of a thing you will stir the world. Men are governed by their interests, merchants as well as others. Why is it the gentleman who has got a salary, who lives by it, does not want his salary taxed. Because it is to his interest not to have it taxed. I can see no reason. Every man ought to be taxed his per centum in proportion to the amount of benefit he derives from the government which protects him. The farmer is taxed on his head, his horses and everything else that he has got. But the lawyer has got something his neighbor has not got, the right to prosecute suits and charge fees, which is a capital in his brains; and is it not right that he should pay a license before he should obtain this privilege? The gentlemen say it is no tax on the lawyer at all, because he just charges it to the client. Well, now, if that is the case, clients have more interest in it. I am confident the lawyers always think they pay it and I am sure no lawyer ever added a little to his fee because he was charged with a license before he was allowed to practice. Clients will pay the very same and the treasury will be deficient that amount. Strike it all out and you have to make it up off the laboring men of the country and let out all these men who enjoy these privileges at the hands of the government. Well, sir, if that is to be your policy, to turn all the burdens of the government all back on the dray-horses of the community, then you are making a very fine constitution for the favored classes.
MR. VAN WINKLE. I want to repeat -
THE PRESIDENT. The Chair would remark that so far as his observation has gone a gentleman offering a proposition has a right to explanation which is not charged to him as a speech.
MR. VAN WINKLE. I don't want five minutes. I only want simply to repeat that the proposition of the gentleman from Kanawha is nothing more than this: either that you are going to tax labor for a man's daily work or that you are going to establish an inequality. Now, if a man is dependent alone on a salary for his living, that is his daily labor; and are you going to tax that man on his daily earnings and not tax the laborer who works by so much a day. What is the difference whether a man works for a dollar a day or $365 a year? Now, carry that out, and it would be the most obnoxious proposition that was ever passed in any deliberative body. And, sir, this inquitous law, as it now exists in Virginia is made to apply to engineers on railroads, who are nothing but mechanics and who earn a daily stipend. Do you want to put such a provision as that into your Constitution? Well, sir, all this gentleman's remarks which I have heard seem to allude to me in some way or other; but the facts do not bear them out. In the first place, I am not a practicing lawyer. In the second place, I am not in receipt of any salary. In the third place, I never was, but once, a candidate for any office. I ran once for the legislature, for which I hope to be forgiven, and was defeated - for which I desire to be thankful (Laughter). I was merely appointed an alternate to the June convention and the party who was delegate declining to come here, I came. I wrote to Parkersburg that I would not be a candidate for this Convention; but when I got there they insisted on it and I was elected by a heavy vote. I was tendered the highest office under the restored government, which I declined; was offered a high office under the United States Government, and was ready to take the second office. I was offered another office under the government, which I declined. I do not think, if I know myself I shall ever be a candidate for any office. If ever a man was sick and tired with the little experience he has had of public office, it is myself. Now, sir, I stand just there. I have no doubt or fear that my constituents will censure me. They all do know that if there is anything I am wedded to, it is precisely this principle of equality in legislation as affecting the rights of the citizen. I was as strenuous as I dared to be in the convention of 1850 - the more so in the committee touching county courts and county organization than I could be in the convention; but my speeches made there were published, and they knew precisely what my attitude was in that convention and what it would be in this Convention when I pledged them at the court-house. What I said then in regard to this tax on salaries I say now, and I at least claim credit for consistency.
MR. SIMMONS. I wish to make a single remark in regard to the attitude of the gentleman from Kanawha towards the merchants. I may be mistaken. There is something in his argument I do not understand. He goes on to tell you that a merchant is a very shrewd intelligent man and always watching opportunities to defraud the government in the matter of his taxes. I would ask the gentleman whether if the commissioner comes the day after the merchant has paid out his money for goods if the assessment is not made just the same, for he must have had the money the day before he paid it out. If he buys on time, he had no money and had no right to be assessed for it. I cannot see any advantage a merchant can take in defrauding the government in that respect. I do not wish the mind of this Convention to be poisoned in this manner. I do not think the commissioner would be deceived; because the merchant has the money in his business and he is assessed with that money. I just wished to make this single remark in order that gentlemen may not be deceived in this matter.
MR. BROWN of Kanawha. I am a little surprised the gentleman should suppose I would make any reflection on the merchants. On the contrary, I have the highest respect for them, and neither doubt their integrity or principle.
In regard to the intimation of the gentleman from Wood that he seemed to be the subject of my remarks, I had no reference to the gentleman. I did not know that he either had a salary or held an office, or anything about it, and therefore thought not about his salaries. The allusion I made to the president of the James River & Kanawha Company was in illustration of what I had to say about taxing salaries. With reference to the balance of the gentleman's remarks, I was glad to hear he had been so successful and hope he may continue in the public service.
MR. SMITH. I would just ask to make this remark. The gentleman from Wood said it was tyranny to tax the laborer. Now, there is no such thing as a license for a man to labor. Who ever heard of a man going to court for a permit to work?
MR. VAN WINKLE. Taxing salaries is to put a tax on labor, and I stated expressly that the enginemen who drive engines on the railroad are taxed. I wrote at their request to the auditor, Mr. Bennett, and got his views. He stated that it had been decided they should be taxed.
MR. SMITH. It is all left to the legislature - permissive to the legislature; and I never heard of a man who was working at his 50 cents or a dollar a day on the farm - I never heard of his being taxed on the money earned in that way. It is not a salary, it is daily labor or monthly labor, or yearly.
Here is another point I wish to submit to the Convention. Here is a man traveling about the country with a circus, all sorts of exhibitions. I say evil to the country. You say he shall not be taxed, no license shall be required of him. The gentleman from Wood charges me with inconsistency. I think the gentleman is wholly at fault there. I am not inconsistent but am perfectly consistent. He has got in a section here which I think from what has been exhibited, or was intended, or looks very much that way, to prevent this very thing - the taxing of these persons. I want to correct that interpretation if there is any mistake in it and give direct power to do this thing which by the other section might be inhibited; and I want to give them the power that would otherwise not exist. I would greatly prefer simply to say that taxation should be equal and uniform throughout the State and leave it there. But, no; you go on further and introduce other clauses that may tend to exclude or receive a construction that would exclude the legislature from the right of granting licenses and taxing them. It is that object I have in view, and it is not at all inconsistent. If you will go back to my doctrine, I will fall in with you and leave the whole of it to the legislature. Adopt that which we all seem to approve, that taxation shall be uniform and equal throughout the State; get that in and let it stay there, and I will withdraw my amendment. But I say, as the gentleman from Kanawha said: merchants, lawyers, doctors, everybody else who have brains and get the benefit of their brains, should have their brains taxed; and if a lawyer or anybody else gets a judgment that gives him $5000, will his brains be taxed for the $5000?
The hour for recess having arrived, the chair was vacated.
The Convention re-assembled at the appointed hour and resumed consideration of the Report on Taxation and Finance.
The question was on the substitute offered by Mr. Van Winkle for the additional section offered by Mr. Smith, and the yeas and nays had been ordered.
MR. STUART of Doddridge. I believe, Mr. President, I had not exhausted my privilege. I made one little speech perhaps. I want to occupy two or three minutes again; and I really think the best thing the Convention can do now is to leave this subject to the committee to read as it does: "Taxation shall be equal and uniform throughout the State, and all property both real and personal, shall be taxed in proportion to its value, to be ascertained as directed by law." Now, sir, I shall not go into the history of things as did my friend from Wood, but as we all want to have a little pitch at it occasionally I must make one observation in regard to the argument of the gentleman from Wood. He seems to intend to provide for such taxation here as to make it certain that he never will receive public office again. But I never before understood why he wants to go into such details in our Constitution. It is because he never expects to be in the legislature again, and he wants to do all that legislation in our Constitution that will be necessary for many years thereby he will be released from further obligations to the State (Merriment). I understand now why it is the gentleman is so anxious, perhaps only as he never intends to give us the benefit of his labors any more. This is why he desires to get so much legislation into our Constitution. Sufficient apology, and I will excuse him. But I cannot concur in the sentiment. Now, sir, the substitute he offers here:
"No tax shall be levied on licenses, salaries or incomes, but the property used in any business or calling shall be taxed as other property. Nothing herein contained shall be construed to prevent the county authorities from issuing licenses and charging such reasonable fees for the same as may be allowed by general laws."
Now, in some respects, that would answer, Mr. President; but how is it you are going to tax these peddlers?
MR. VAN WINKLE. Two words. The object of the amendment, which I see the gentleman misunderstands - about which several gentlemen have spoken to me since the recess also - "nothing herein contained shall be construed," is to preserve it as a police regulation, which it originally was: the taxing of peddlers, shows, ordinaries - or at least licensing them with a proper fee or consideration for it - for instance a circus - is preserved as a police regulation by the local authorities and not made the subject of taxation by the legislature. That is the distinction I intended to observe.
MR. STUART of Doddridge. Well, sir, I was going to remark that if our Constitution prohibits the legislature from imposing a tax on these licenses, I want to know how it is going to be done. How are you going to tax these ordinaries and peddlers and all classes of this kind? Do away with this power to levy and collect these licenses? I cannot understand unless it is by a general provision authorizing; and then I see no object to be aided by the substitute of the gentleman. If there is to be a general law proposing these taxes on licenses, what is the object of the substitute?
MR. VAN WINKLE. In the states where these similar provisions prevail, licenses are not taxed directly as a tax, but there is a charge. As, for instance: they charge in Ohio for a circus or theatrical exhibition, or perhaps a license to keep a hotel or ordinary, and various other things no doubt including peddlers - the peddlers' license is no doubt intended for the operation of home merchants; but it is not as a subject of taxation. If the gentleman will remember, these licenses are always issued, not by the state but by the county. They were originally a police regulation, and to that I have no objection. The objection is to taxing licenses ad libitum.
MR. STUART of Doddridge. I must admit it is very obscure, and I think the gentleman had better leave off his legislation and let the general assembly legislate concerning these matters. I really don't know what would be the effect of it if we adopted it here in our Constitution. At first it struck me as an anomaly. I tried to see through it and I have been studying it ever since and I must admit that I cannot see through this thing. The cat is still here I think. I cannot understand it. Now, sir, "nothing herein contained shall be construed to prevent the county authorities" from issuing licenses. There is nothing here to prevent the county authorities from issuing licenses, and there is nothing in this constitutional provision to prevent a man from carrying on the very same business even if the county does not issue licenses - is there? If there is I cannot see it. The county authorities may issue licenses, and even though they do there is nothing in this provision to prevent any person from carrying on the exact trade without a license.
MR. VAN WINKLE. It provides it is all to be regulated by law.
MR. STUART of Doddridge. Well, then, let us leave it all to law.
MR. VAN WINKLE. Well, but I hope the gentleman doesn't want the legislature to go beyond its proper functions.
MR. STUART of Doddridge. I think, sir, if you put this in our Constitution in its present form, the provision which says licenses shall not be granted, then I would rather trust the legislature than the county authorities. I think it must be apparent to the members of the Convention that we had better not adopt this substitute; leave this thing for legislation; and even if the gentleman will not aid us hereafter, adopt the fundamental principles which should govern us and let the legislature regulate these matters.
MR. VAN WINKLE. I think the county authorities should have someth