to be equally enforced, is, to the extent that it is enforced, a discriminating tax of the most unjust and unequal character. Under the internal revenue laws of the United States as they existed not many years ago, there was a very striking example of this character in the case of the tax on matches, to which more particular reference will be made hereafter, and one worthy of notice still exists, in the case of the tax on negotiable securities (or instruments)—as railroad and other corporate bonds—which the laws of every State in the Federal Union make subject to taxation; inasmuch as it is notorious that such taxes are not paid by the great majority of the citizens who own such securities, but are paid as a rule by guardians, trustees, and executors, who are obliged to inventory them in probate offices; with the result that widows, orphans, and minors are plundered and crushed; while those who evade the tax, through the utter inability of the State to collect it, are rewarded for their evasion in an increased rate of interest. Uniformity or proportionality in taxation is, therefore, one of the fundamental principles of every free and just government; and the safety of all tax-payers against the grossest abuses demands that in taxing any class or locality the principle of equality of rate should be kept sacred and inviolate.
The Constitution of the United States requires that "all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States"; and the question as to what constitutes uniformity of taxation under this provision has repeatedly come before the courts—Federal and State—for the purpose of definition, and so has become invested with a degree of historical interest. A natural inference, at first thought, would be, that under this provision of the Federal Constitution all property subject to taxation must necessarily be taxed at the same rate or ratio—that is, if horses, wagons, and land are taxed, then the same per cent of value must be assessed upon the horses and wagons as upon the land; and if some eight hundred per cent is assessed upon distilled spirits—whisky—(as is the case in the United States at the present time) every other commodity from which it was proposed to raise revenue ought to be taxed in the same proportion. In like manner under the customs, all imports liquors and pig iron, for example would have to be subjected to one rate of duty. This difficulty, so far as the Federal Government is concerned, has been obviated by an assumption, which the courts have sustained, that a tax "is uniform within the meaning of the constitutional requirement if it is made to bear the same percentage over all the United States"—that is, it must be uniform as regards any particular article in all places; that whisky or any other commodity, for example, shall not be subjected to Federal taxation at one rate in one State and at a different rate in another State, but that differ-
