those of which time has established the value.
This is a subject which may well occupy the
deliberations of the Convention; because the
object of government is not alone to protect
life and the person, bait also to furnish secu-
rity and a safeguard for property. There is
no higher power of sovereignty which a State
can exercise than that of taxation. It is well
therefore, that that power should be wisely
guarded. It seems to me that the discussion
this morning has not gone exactly to the
merits of the case, and has not presented it
to the Convention in the proper view. It
seems to me that the discussion this morning
has been more as to the expediency of laying
the tax, than of granting to the Legislature
the right or power to lay the tax. The ques-
tion is not now whether we shall lay a poll
tax; but whether or not the Convention of
the State of Maryland shall tie up the hands
of the Legislature hereafter to assemble, and
prohibit that Legislature from laying the tax.
The people must be supported; our na-
tures are so constituted, that we must have
food and the means of life. So communities
must be supported; they must have the
means of carrying on their operations, which
are to result in the individual benefit. The
great means of their support is by taxation.
Individuals in communities must be taxed
for the individual good. The question is, how
can this individual good be best arrived at ?
This clause in the bill of rights is of revo-
lutionary date. It comes down to us from
the time when our State was just marching
through the blood and thunder of the revo-
lution, and felt the oppression of the taxation
to which they bad been subjected by the
mother government. Smarting under those
wrongs, they inserted this provision, and it
has been continued from that day to this.
Yon will see at once from the phraseology of
it, that this view is correct. " That the levy-
ing of taxes by the poll, is grievous and op-
pressive, and ought to beabolished." Abol-
ished I How can you abolish a thing that
does not exist? Why ought it to beabol-
ished? Because then, when this clause was
first framed, it did exist. It ought to be
abolished; and it was abolished; and now
it has not existed for three-quarters of a cen-
tury, So far as that particular expression,
therefore, is concerned, there is an obvious
impropriety in retaining it.
But the question comes up. Is the thing
right in itself, or will it ever be right in itself?
Can this Convention undertake to say that it
never will be right to give to the Legislature of
Maryland the power to impose a poll tax.
Can this Convention, in the plenitude of its
wisdom, say that the time will never arrive,
under any circumstances, under; any emer-
gency, in any conjuncture of affairs, when it
will be wise and expedient for the Legislature
of Maryland to impose a poll tax ?
My friend, the gentleman from Washing- |
ton, (Mr. Negley) looks upon it as a tax upon
the elective franchise. I do not regard it in
that light. I cannot see bow the gentleman
comes to that conclusion. Does antecedent
legislation fix upon it that particular mean-
ing, and show that. the word "poll" meant
necessarily "vole?" Most unquestionably
not. What is a challenge of the poll, which
in every jury trial the party accused has the
right to call for? It has nothing to do with
voting. It is a challenge of the poll of the
head. So this is a tax upon the poll, upon
the head, upon the individual,
In a time like this, when mothers and
fathers are called upon to give their first-
born, their last born, and their all, by the
force of the law, can the gentleman tell me
that it may not become necessary that a poll
tax should by the Legislature be wisely im
posed, it seems to me that it would be
proper to leave this whole question to the
wisdom of the Legislature. Leave it to-day,
so that hereafter when the circumstances
of the times may require the Legislature to
act, they may be able to impose such a tax.
It cannot possibly apply to the elective fran-
chise, because the Constitution now exis: ting.
and the Constitution we shall propose, will
define the rights of voters and prescribe their
qualifications. Men having the qualifications
prescribed in the Constitution for voters will
have the right of suffrage, whether a poll tax
be imposed or not, unless the payment of
such a tax be a qualification imposed in the
organic law.
Mr. MARBURY. I would like to ask the
gentleman, whether, when the bill of rights
says the poll tax is " grievous and oppres-
sive, and ought to be abolished, " that does
not show that up to that date, the experience
of the world and the history of the State had
not shown conclusively to the minds of the
framers of that bill of rights that a poll tax is
grievous and oppressive in its nature. Were
they not speaking of ageneral principle, that
a poll tax in its very nature is oppressive and
grievous, and wherever it. existed ought to
be abolished? If we now leave it in the
power of the Legislature to adopt the poll
tax system, that would be putting too much
power in the hands of the Legislature, and it
might be exercised for the ruin of some and
the advantage of others.
Let me give the gentleman an illustration.
Suppose you take all of one species of prop-
erty from a man. Suppose you take all of
his labor away from him. You leave him all
his lands to work, but be cannot get labor to
work his lands. You put a tax upon him
individually. That tax must be of a specific
character; and it may be a thousand dollars.
Ho may have point of fact a thousand dollars'
worth of land; but it may be worth
nothing to him at that moment. He must
raise the tax; and it is equivalent to the
confiscation of that land |
