This is the voice of Science. It is not the voice of a political partisan, or of the representative of any Administration anxious to establish a system of taxation, but it is the voice of Science itself, speaking by one of its—I may say chosen authorities. How can this testimony be answered? If you come back to an authority of a different character, take a statesman. The Senator from California [Mr. Casserly] has referred to Sir Robert Peel, who is known as the modern author of the income tax; but he has left his testimony behind. I quote words from different speeches, showing how he has characterized it. He admitted that it was “a tax which had hitherto been reserved for time of war”; and that “the question of its imposition was, whether the political necessity was of such magnitude and urgency as to justify it”; and then that it “ought to be accompanied by measures of simultaneous relief.” Then, “he did not deny that it was an inquisitorial tax”; and again, that “a certain degree of inquisitorial scrutiny was inseparable from an income tax”; and further, that “a good deal of inconvenience inevitably arose from the inquiries that must be instituted into the properties of men, in the imposition of an income tax”; moreover, that “one great objection to the income tax was, that it fell with peculiar severity upon those who were determined to act honestly.”[20]
In harmony with his testimony is that also of Mr. Gladstone, named by the two Senators who have preceded me. The Senator from Ohio reminds us that Mr. Gladstone has sustained an income tax. Have we not all sustained an income tax?
Mr. Sherman. He does it this very year.
Mr. Sumner. This very year, and why? The Senator knows perfectly how England is pressed by taxation,—how difficult it is to find objects for taxation in order to meet the great demands upon her exchequer. He knows that England is obliged now, in time of peace, to meet the responsibilities of war. It is on account of that terrible war debt which still hangs over her, the interest of which must be annually paid, that she is obliged to assume even in a period of peace this responsibility. I think we are in no such condition. Our war is happily over, and I know no reason why the responsibilities and obligations assumed during that period should be prolonged now during the reign of peace. Sir, let us put an end to the war. And I know no better way to give our testimony to the end of the war than by stopping that taxation which was born of the war.
MORE WORK TO BE DONE.
Letter to the American Antislavery Society at its Final Meeting, April 8, 1870.
