port would be final. The legislature can have
no desire or reason for imposing upon a coun-
ty a tax which is not needed, and which must
have been imposed only at the request of the
counties. There is not an instance in which
the legislature has forced a county to collect a
school tax which has not been asked for by
the county itself. The counties have from
time to time represented that the assessment
was insufficient, and have come to the legisla-
ture with the request that the county commis-
sioners be empowered to increase the tax, and
the legislature have granted it. If they
should hereafter come to the legislature again
and tell them that by general laws there has
been provided a sufficient tax; that taking as
they did the whole taxable property of the
State and getting their proportion raised
from the taxable property in the State, there
is no further necessity for taxing these indi-
vidual counties. There is no doubt that the
legislature will grant the power to discontinue
these taxes, exactly as they have heretofore
granted the power to assess them.
Look at the question of taxation fairly, and
do not ignore the fact that the counties pay
ten, twelve, fifteen, and twenty cents on the
$100; and because it is proposed to collect it
in a different channel fly off into the idea that
your taxes are increased, when under this re-
port you will be paying twenty cents only,
and heretofore the average has been in nine
counties 21 7-9 cents on the $100. The aver-
age taxation in the counties will be exactly
1 7-9 cents on the $100 less under the opera-
tion of the report than they have hitherto
been.
For the same reason that I thought the
gentleman's argument unfair last night, I
thought it unfair this morning, because it
ignores the fact of paying two taxes, and he
does not see that it costs as much to pay ten
cents to the State and fifteen cents to the coun-
ty on the $100 as to pay twenty cents to the
State directly. I do not see that I save the
five cents by paying it from my pocket to
a different set of assessors. It is certain-
ly surprising that there should be found
representatives of counties believing this.
The report throws into this school taxation
the whole taxable property of the State. It
makes the educational tax equal throughout
the State, instead of what it has hitherto been
in many of the counties, a very unequal bur-
den, as. you will see by the schedule given by
the gentleman from Anne Arundel (Mr. Mil-
ler) himself. The gentleman last night told
us that it was now proposed to add ten cents
to the 1100. Either ignorantly or otherwise
the gentleman overlooked the fact that the
last ten cents put on were destroyed when the
bonds forming the sinking fund were burnt
at the treasury office.
Mr. MILLER. I say that it increases the
present tax.
Mr. CUSHING. The present tax not having |
been paid; it does not increase the tax paid
last year.
Mr. MILLER. I paid mine. I do not know
whether the gentleman has paid his or not.
Mr, CUSHING. The gentleman's argument
is not fair; because if the taxation is really
less, why does be call it excessive? He comes
in here and talks to us about the excessive tax
under which the State will groan, and it seems
that be is comparing it with the diminished
tax. We have a right to compare it with the
old fax. The argument is not a fair one any
way that you look at it. It is an argument
which if entertained would lead to the de-
struction of every interest in the State.
When he attempts to complicate the question
of public school education in this State by re-
ference to your judiciary, and subsequently
endeavors to kill the judiciary system by re-
ference to what you have established in your
common school system, it does not show a
strong desire for a good constitution for this
State. It shows what I maintained last night
that the preference is for no change in the
constitution, a desire to destroy what will
make this constitution a good one and accep-
table to the people of the State. The gentle-
man's own figures tell against him in every
respect, as to what the counties have paid;
for the gentleman told us the part paid to the
counties and ignored the part paid to the State
direct.
But there are some merits in the question
itself. There comes the great question to in-
telligent men, whether upon the gentleman's
own theory of the cost the education of the
State would not be worth the money. The
gentleman makes a specious argument drawn
from a particular State where a school sys-
tem has worked for many years, and all the
hard points of the system have been rubbed
off, and where all the expense of starting a
system has been gotten rid off—and without
going into the statistics of that statement,
without knowing anything about the amount
of taxation, he assumes to instruct us as to
what their system has cost. With 248,220
minors in your State between five and twenty
years of age, this convention has of itself
sense sufficient to know, whether probably
two hundred and fifty or three hundred
thousand dollars per annum is more than
enough for their education. You would sup-
pose the gentleman would be found an advo-
cate for education, but the whole tone of his
argument has been against it altogether.
You had better have no system at all than a
system so bad that it will not be supported
or that it will make no fitting return for the
outlay. It is the old Judas cry—selling the
Lord for thirty pieces; it is putting a mere
petty amount of silver against a great inter-
est—only in the argument of the gentleman,
(Mr. Miller)—not fairly weighing the silver
against the good that is to come, but ignor- |
