[1] Trial by the country, and no taxation without consent,
mutually sustain each other, and can be sustained only by each
other, for these reasons: 1. Juries would refuse to enforce a tax
against a man who had never agreed to pay it. They would also
protect men in forcibly resisting the collection of taxes to
which they had never consented. Otherwise the jurors would
authorize the government to tax themselves without their consent,
a thing which no jury would be likely to do. In these two ways,
then, trial by the country would sustain the principle of no
taxation without consent. 2. On the other hand, the principle of
no taxation without consent would sustain the trial by the
country, because men in general would not consent to be taxed for
the support of a government under which trial by the country was
not secured. Thus these two principles mutually sustain each
other.
But, if either of these principles were broken down, the other
would fall with it, and for these reasons:If trial by the country
were broken down, the principle of no taxation without consent
would fall with it, because the government would then be able
totax the people without their consent, inasmuch as the legal
tribunals would be mere tools of the government, and would
enforce such taxation, and punish men for resisting such
taxation, as the government ordered.
On the other hand, if the principle of no taxation without
consent were broken down, trial by the country would fall with
it, because the government, if it could tax people without their
consent, would, of course, take enough of their money to enable
it to employ all the force necessary for sustaining its own
tribunals, (in the place of juries,) and carrying their decrees
into execution.
By what force, fraud, and conspiracy, on the part of kings,
nobles, and "a few wealthy freeholders," these pillars have been
prostrated in England, it is desired to show more fully in the
next volume, if it should be necessary.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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