Nothing could be gained by it even if
each individual who contributed a portion of the tax could receive back
promptly the same portion. But it is apparent that no system of the kind
can ever be enforced which will not absorb a considerable portion of
the money to be distributed in salaries and commissions to the agents
employed in the process and in the various losses and depreciations
which arise from other causes, and the practical effect of such an
attempt must ever be to burden the people with taxes, not for purposes
beneficial to them, but to swell the profits of deposit banks and
support a band of useless public officers.
A distribution to the people is impracticable and unjust in other
respects. It would be taking one man's property and giving it to
another. Such would be the unavoidable result of a rule of equality
(and none other is spoken of or would be likely to be adopted), inasmuch
as there is no mode by which the amount of the individual contributions
of our citizens to the public revenue can be ascertained. We know
that they contribute _unequally_, and a rule, therefore, that would
distribute to them _equally_ would be liable to all the objections
which apply to the principle of an equal division of property.
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