viii

It is a sound principle that no more taxes should be drawn
from the people than are necessary to meet the demand for
the expenses of government, economically administered.
This principle, always good, is peculiarly so now, when the
people have been required to pay taxes in so many forms, and
to a large extent for the support of the General Govern-
ment, and which will probably be increased by the present
Congress.

I would not advocate a discontinuance or decrease of taxes,
under circumstances involving jeopardy of the State's faith
or credit; but I am convinced by the experience of nearly
two years past, that we have reached a time when the people
may be relieved of a very considerable portion of the bur-
then they have borne with patience and fortitude. The Le-
gislature of 1862, in causing an increase of State Taxes of
fifteen cents in the hundred dollars, and in authorizing .a
loan, acted upon the known condition of the Treasury at that
time, and of its inability to meet promptly all the demands
upon it. They knew that the payment of certain claims had
been postponed for want of means to pay them, and they
knew of the sum demanded of Maryland by the General
Government as the State's proportion of the War Tax. They
were not aware, and could not be expected to be, that the
decrease in the receipts from year to year, for some years
previously, and until, in the fiscal year ended 30th Septem-
ber, 1861, they amounted to the meagre sum of $960,813.08,
whilst the disbursements were in excess of the receipts, arose
from the want of a vigorous effort on the part of the Trea-
sury officers to enforce the revenue laws and cause those
revenues to be brought to the Treasury. They could not
then, know that the tax upon the States for war purposes, by
the General Government, would be suspended after the pay-
ment of 1862. It was not entirely safe for them to assume
for the future a more vigorous and efficient discharge of duty
on the part of the Treasury officers, then recently installed,
than there has been hitherto ; and they could not know that
a more strict accountability on the part of holders of public
money, would be required and enforced. They had also in
view the long recess of the Legislature under the Constitu-