Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1917, Vol. 31
Whatever the framers may have intended, the second tax act enacted after the adoption of the constitution, provided that all property except unimproved lands should be assessed at 6 per cent of its real value, and that such lands should be assessed at 2 per cent. This was obviously a classification of property, and it con tinned to be the law of the Commonwealth until its repeal in 1828 without any question being raised con cerning its constitutionality. Another law of 1781' levied a duty upon coaches, chariots, and carriages, and required the inhabitants of the Commonwealth under oath to make returns of such property to the local assessors. This was in everything except name a direct tax upon property, and could not have been upheld as an excise or duty except under such a broad construction of those terms as to render meaningless the distinction between the taxing power and the excise power. It also passed without question.
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