ough, comprehensive
systems of taxation ever devised by any Government. Spiritous and
malt liquors and tobacco were relied upon for a very large share
of revenue; a considerable sum was expected from stamps; and three
per cent. was exacted from all annual incomes over six hundred
dollars and less than ten thousand, and five per cent.--afterwards
increased to ten per cent.--on all incomes exceeding ten thousand
dollars. Manufactures of cotton, wool, flax, hemp, iron, steel,
wood, stone, earth, and every other material were taxed three per
cent. Banks, insurance and railroad companies, telegraph companies,
and all other corporations were made to pay tribute. The butcher
paid thirty cents for every beef slaughtered, ten cents for every
hog, five cents for every sheep. Carriages, billiard-tables,
yachts, gold and silver place, and all other articles of luxury
were levied on heavily. Every profession and every calling, except
the ministry of religion, was included within the far-reaching
provisions of the law and subjected to tax for license. Bankers
and pawnbrokers, lawyers and horse-dealers, physicians and
confectioners, commercial brokers and peddlers, proprietors of
theatres and jugglers on the street, were indiscriminately summoned
to aid the National Treasury. The law was so extended and so minute
that it required thirty printed pages of royal octavo and more than
twenty thousand words to express its provisions.

Sydney Smith's striking summary of English taxation was originally
included in a warning to the United States after the war of 1812
against indulging a marital spirit or being inflamed with a desire
for naval renown. "Taxes," said the witty essayist in the _Edinburgh
Review_, "are the inevitable consequences of being too fond of
glory." He bade us beware of Essex, Porter, and Stephen Decatur.
Even in the second year of the civil war in which we were struggling
for life rather than for glory, we had come to realize every exaction
ascribed to the British system. We were levying "taxes upon every
article which enters into the mouth or covers the back or is placed
under the foot; taxes on every thing which it is pleasant to see,
hear, feel, smell, or taste; taxes upon warmth, light, and locomotion;
taxes on every thing on earth and the waters under the earth; taxes
on every thing that comes from abroad or is grown at home; on the
sauce which pampers man's appetite and on the drug that restores
him to