after the termination of the war, by the hostile public sentiment. This hostility, as we have learned, is always to be observed at the outset of any system of income tax. In Eng. land and Prussia it was many decades before the opposition diminished, while in the United States the tax was abolished before there was any real abatement in the feeling of repugnance to the tax. In the face of a hostile public sentiment, even the best administrative methods are powerless; and when we have, as in the United States during the period of the Civil War, a combination of poor administration and of popular prejudice, the result, so far as concerns the fundamental requisite of equality of taxation, was bound to be a comparative failure. APPENDIX THE INCOME TAX IN THE CONFEDERACY THE history of the Civil War period would not be complete without calling attention to the fiscal experiments made by the Confederate government. The Confederacy was fortunate in having at the head of its finances in C. G. Memminger a secretary of the treasury whose fitness for the position was far greater than that of the statesman who filled a similar position in the North. In fact, had the fortunes of the war been determined by the comparative ability of the statesmen and the generals rather than by sheer economic superiority, there is not much doubt but that the South would have been the victor. Notwithstanding the great ability of Memminger's reports, however,1 the peculiar situation of the South made a resort to taxation exceedingly difficult, and the fortunes of the war soon undermined the economic basis of the fiscal policy. The Confederacy, like the Union, started out with a direct. tax. On July 24, 1861, Secretary Memminger sent a communication to the provisional Congress, urging that twentyfive millions be raised by taxing real estate, slaves, and all personal property. Congress followed his recommendation, and by the act of August 19, 1861, imposed the so-called war tax of one-half of one per cent on all property. The Confederate constitution contained a provision as to direct taxes analogous to that found in the constitution of the United States; but as the war precluded the taking of any census, the president ruled that the provision as to apportionment of the tax might be dispensed with. The collection of the tax was therefore left to the individual states, with a consequence that only an insignificant amount was collected, and 1 All of the financial reports of Memminger are printed in the appendix to Henry D. Caper, The Life and Times of C. G. Memminger. Richmond, 1893. This volume will hereafter be referred to as Memminger. |