wish a law passed to tax the rents on durable leases,
or on all leases, in order to choke the landlords off from their claims,
but such men are true friends to neither justice nor their country. Such
a law would be a tax on the incomes of a particular class of society,
and on no other. It is a law that would justify the aggrieved parties in
taking up arms to resist it, unless the law would give 'em relief, as I
rather think it would. By removing into another State, however, they
would escape the tax completely, laugh at those who framed it, who would
incur the odium of doing an impotent wrong, and get laughed at as well
as despised, besides injuring the State by drawing away its money to be
spent out of its limits. Think, for one moment, of the impression that
would be made of New York justice, if a hundred citizens of note and
standing were to be found living in Philadelphia or Paris, and
circulating to the world the report that they were exiles to escape a
special taxation! The more the matter was inquired into, the worse it
must appear; for men may say what they please, to be ready ag'in
election time, as there is but one piece, or parcel of property to tax,
it is an income tax, and nothing else. What makes the matter still worse
is, that every man of sense will know that it is taxing the same person
twice, substantially for the same thing, since the landlord has the
direct land tax deducted from the rent in the original bargain.

"As for all this cry about aristocracy, I don't understand it. Hugh
Littlepage has just as good a right to his ways as I have to mine. The
gentleman says he needs gold spoons and silver forks to eat with. Well,
what of that? I dare say the gentleman himself finds a steel knife and
fork useful, and has no objection to a silver, or, at least, to a
pewter spoon. Now, there are folks that use wooden forks, or no forks,
and who are glad to get horn spoons; and _they_ might call that
gentleman himself an aristocrat. This setting of ourselves up as the
standard in all things is anything but liberty. If I don't like to eat
my dinner with a man who uses a silver fork, no man in this country can
compel me. On the other hand, if young Mr. Littlepage don't like a
companion who chews tobacco, as I do, he ought to be left to follow his
own inclination.

"Then, this doctrine that one man's as good as another has got two sides
to it. One man ought to have the same general rights as another, I am
ready to