ances, trustees' commissions, and all kinds of
collateral taxation have been resorted to. And
I want to leave it to the Legislature, if they
see fit, to levy a poll tax, which will reach a
great number of individuals who are abun-
dantly able to pay taxes, but who do not now
contribute a single cent to the public revenue.
I shall, therefore, vote for the proposed
amendment.
Mr. THOMAS. I merely wish to make one
remark to the majority of this Convention,
and that is, that in my opinion, if this pro-
vision of the Declaration of Bights is stricken
out, the majority which is responsible for this
Constitution, will be forging a chain for them-
selves, and making a magazine which will
burst this Constitution into fragments when
it comes before the people. Suppose you
strike out this provision which says "that
the levying of taxes by the poll is grievous
and oppressive," a declaration which, as has
been well said by my colleague (Mr. Stirling)
is as venerable as the old Constitution of 17 76.
I do not say that gentlemen upon the other
side, who are now advocating the amendment
to strike out that provision, will go before the
people and make that argument against the
Constitution; but men will be found who
will go before the people and say that this
Convention has stricken out this venerable
clause which has always been looked upon as
sacred, to wit: "that the levying of taxes by
the poll is grievous and oppressive," for the
purpose of enabling the Legislature to impose
upon the people an additional burden of tax-
ation, and they will make lire people believe
that the object is to put an additional fetter
around the elective franchise, whether it be so
or not. Now if the principle is true that a
poll tax is oppressive, why not state it in this
article ?
Mr. MILLER. Will the gentleman) as alaw-
yer, say that the imposition of a poll tax by
the Legislature, unless there is a property
qualification prescribed by this Constitution,
will prevent any man from voting?
Mr. THOMAS. No, sir: I say it would not.
I say if the Constitution prescribes the quali-
fications of voters, no legislative act can go
behind that constitutional provision. But I
say that if you strike out this prohibition of
a poll tax—and it does not say whether it
shall be one dollar, or ten dollars, or one
hundred or one thousand dollars—you give
future Legislatures the power to put an in-
creased burden upon the poor, who are not
able to bear that burden, I say that a poll
"tax is wrong in principle, is grievous and oppressive;
and whether the right belongs to
the people or not in their legislative capacity
to carry this provision into effect in case it is
not in the Constitution, I am in favor of
letting this article stand just as it is; so that
we can go before the people and tell them that
we have not sought to deprive them of every
single right they had. |
One gentleman asks, when this article says
"that the levying of taxes by the poll is
grievous and oppressive, and ought to be
abolished," whether such a tax has ever had
any existence. I say it has no existence now,
but it is for the reason that our Declaration
of Rights, since 1776, has said that it should
have no existence. Strike out this provision
and it will have an existence either in the
brain of some gentleman here, or in the brains
of some future Legislature. I shall vote
against striking it out.
Mr. CUSHING, In stating my intention to
vote for the amendment, as offered by my
colleague (Mr, Daniel) I would like to express
my opinion that this amendment has been
treated as if it were a. legislative enactment;
and, so far as the minds of some members
seem to have gone, the altering this article so
as to leave out the prohibition of a poll tax,
was already actually a grievous burden upon
the people. They seem to think that the
striking out this prohibition is actually levy-
ing a poll tax. Now the only thing proposed
by this amendment is to leave that subject to
the Legislature of the State. Who are they
who elect the members of that Legislature
but the men upon whom this tax will fall, if
it is imposed by the Legislature? and they
will not be apt to elect a Legislature which
will impose a poll tax upon them if they do
not desire it. Nor will there probably ever
be found a Legislature in the State of Mary-
land so entirely dissevered from all political
connections and interests, that solely and only
with regard to their own views, and without
regard to the views of their constituents, will
levy a poll tax, unless the people who send
them here desire it to be done.
. But this is so venerable, say gentlemen here,
that we must not touch it. Yet there are in-
timations that we are going to touch much
more venerable things. Now if antiquity is
a reason for not touching this clause of the
bill of rights, that reason ii ay be thundered
against us in regard to all the clauses of the
bill of rights and of the Constitution; and
though some of them may be old and rotten,
yet they are venerable from their antiquity,
and we must not knock them out. Now let
us examine this article, and see what it is.
This first clause is put in here as though its
framers had had the conviction forced upon
their minds that a poll tax was unjust and op-
pressive, and they intended to prohibit any
such tax in the future. Yet they would seem
to have changed their intention when they
reached the latter clause; and having seen
that they were depriving the Legislature of a
right which the people might desire them to
exercise, they destroy the whole force of the
first clause by giving to the Legislature the
power to impose a tax upon persons and prop-
erty with a political view. Now that tax on
persons might be a poll tax of one dollar, or
one hundred dollars, or more. And with this |
