153 provides for the appointment of the receiver of direct taxes in each department by the directory; and 154 prescribes the appointment of the superior heads in the administration of indirect taxes by this executive authority.

205 says: "Justice is awarded without pay." (We would say fees.)

302. "The public taxes are every year considered and established by the legislative body. It belongs alone to the same to levy taxes; they cannot exist longer than a year unless they are expressly renewed by the same.'

303. "The legislative body may introduce any kind of taxes, which it may deem necessary, but it must levy every year a tax on real and personal estate."

304 says: "Every individual not included in Art. XII. and XIII. of the Constitution (convicted criminals) and in the register of direct taxes, has the right to appear before the municipal administration of his commune and have himself enrolled for a personal tax, equal to the local value of three days' manual labor."

306. "The taxes of every description are distributed among all taxable persons in proportion to their property."

307. "The executive directory guides and watches over the raising and payment of taxes, and issues all necessary orders accordingly."

308, 309, and 310 relates to accounts, their publication and verification.

311 reads: "The departments, administrations, and municipalities can make no change regarding the sums determined upon by the legislative body, nor, without being empowered by the latter, negotiate or allow a local loan on the citizens of the departments, of the communes or cantons."

314. "The legislative body establishes the taxes of the colonies and their mercantile relations to the mother state."

315 to 325 provides for five commissioners of the national treasury, prescribes their duties, system of accounts, &c., "so as to insure the accurate and regular paying over of the moneys," &c.

It requires three steps to allow a payment from the treasury(1) a degree of the legislative body; (2) a degree of the directory; (3) the signature of the minister, who proposes the expense; and on every order must be the date of the degrees. "The departmental taxes are examined and approved at the national treasury, after certification from the commissioners of accounts."

"The last-named board must give to the legislative body information of all abuses, defalcations, and all cases of responsibility, and they may propose measures advantageous to the republic. The legislative body may suspend or remove the commissioners."

354 says: "No one can be forced to contribute towards the support of any religious service. The republic pays nothing towards it."

370. "No citizen can wholly or in part refuse compensation or a salary, which is assigned to him by law, by virtue of his office."

The Constitution of 1799-republican in name, really Napoleonic-requires, Art. XXV., that new laws must be "proposed by the government, communicated to the tribunate, and decreed by the legislative body," so that the initiation of all new taxes is with the Executive.

Art. XLV. says: "The government regulates the revenues and expenditures according to the provision of the law which establishes every year the amount of both."

By Art. LVI." one of the ministers is specially charged with the administration of the public treasure; he secures the revenues, and regulates the raising of money and the payment approved by law." The three requisites of the Constitution of 1795, for a payment from the treasury, are also adopted in this. It provides for a commission of national accounts, for regulating and correcting all revenues and expenditures.

The Constitution (Charter) of 1814, provided by Louis XVIII., says:

Art. XLVIII. "No taxes can be levied and raised unless they be assented to by both chambers and sanctioned by the king' (a sort of reciprocal check).

XLIX. "The tax on real estate can be granted only for one year. The indirect imposts may be granted for several years." LXXI. "No grant of title and rank by the king can release from the burthens and duties of society."

XVII. "Laws regarding taxes must first be brought before the chamber of deputies.'

We call the special attention of the reader to these several provisions. They are in some respects inferior in protecting the citizen against arbitrary taxation, but in others again, superior to those of our states. The verbiage has the same general characteristics; it is plain, however, that those who drafted them were much clearer in their views as to what they wished to abrogate and guard against as known evils, than they were as to measures whose evils lay in an unknown

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future. The declaration that an obligation of honor rests on all citizens to be tax-payers, modern science would express in more definite terms, but it fully acknowledges the principle. An excellent idea is the prescription of central bureaus of accounts. The Germans have this in their "Rechnungs höfe." Making legislators responsible for "money squandered," is a sound provision. The attempt to make three days' labor a normal tax basis is worthy of careful consideration and closer elaboration. So is the placing into the hands of the executive authorities the collection of taxes and the power to issue decrees and orders, as well as instructions in relation thereto. The attempted abolition of judicial fees was found impracticable and unfair; but it should be revived in an amended form, by prohibiting excessive fees, and making cost of stationery and time the criterion. Their amount is often in England and America a denial of justice. The very word "costs" should revive the idea of the old rule or standard.

The provisions against local public debts is as weak as that of New York, but does not open as wide the door to constructive inherent powers. The clause against tax exemptions under cover of grants from the king, is a wise rule; it should be extended to all grants, charters, corporations, &c., including specially those from the legislature.

In closing this chapter we must mention the fact, that in all our researches we find taxation-antecedent to our age-to be (subjugations and war contributions excepted) the result of agreements and compacts, either in writing or by common law; while modern taxation is mostly based on the assumption of more or less arbitrary (sovereign) power. The only difference being, that in Europe it was a sovereign king and parliament, that levied the taxes, now it is a sovereign legislature and people. We cannot see then in our American Constitutions greater safeguards against arbitrary taxation, than in the old European institutions; on the contrary, society is less protected against government. And to this we must add the observation, that the few modern improvements in tax laws are not American inventions. This is specially true of our municipal taxation. As to it we have not only removed the circumvallations of the old cities, but we have built new causeways for popular sovereignty, so as to enable it to invade and plunder our municipalities in the garb of public benefactions.

CHAPTER XVIII.

PUBLIC CAREERS IN AMERICA.

"Extremum Malorum tot fortissimi viri, proditoris opem invocantur."-Tacitus.

SINCERE men no longer deny, that the offices of trust and profit are now filled, in the United States, with much more inferior men, than as compared with former periods; indeed, it is admitted, that if we want to find political conditions like unto ours, anywhere, we have to search in the records of the worst phases of public administration, which history affords. The quotation at the head of this chapter fits our case; for with us, good men have to invoke the co-operation of mean men to have a public career. And the roots of the evil grow from that pernicious assumption, that there is a universal qualification for office. Under it the whole public service has now become either a gratuitous or a false distribution of wealth. The greatest personal merit and talent must be abject to the respective party multitudes, to gain distinction; the ethical sense, the only one that makes political rule safe, has been blunted. Good citizens have either to pass through a degrading ordeal of abuse and villification, or ward it off by subserviency; and the popular mind has been so drilled into the belief that killing great men by their votes is preserving liberty, that all efforts towards an efficient public service are looked upon as contumacy to legitimate popular power. And thus the commonwealth presents the paradox of the theory on the one side, that all men are qualified for every office, and the practice on the other, which treats all specially qualified men as dangerous if placed in power; and this, the more, the abler they are.

To show the loss America has sustained, because its public mind has been miseducated as to the reciprocal rights and duties between the body of society and its prominent public men, we think it well to place before the reader a table giving the time wasted in retiring too early by the best personages of America:

Washington was retired th of his adult life, 12 years.

We might add to the list hundreds of the very best officers of the Revolution, dozens of diplomatists, many cabinet officers, senators, &c. Many of these were forced into an absence from public life, most galling to them, because they knew, that they had capacities, that ought to be employed in public affairs. Public conscience has sought to relieve itself of the odium that must always attach to a society, that fails to give honorable employment to proven talents and integrity, by our miserable pension systems; and by giving preferences to soldiers at elections and appointments, as if a vicious generosity could ever atone for the neglect of wise economic justice.

The logic, or rather illogic, of the thing rests on the false premise, that a people have any more justification for conferring or denying office from arbitrary reasons, than kings or nobles. From it has flown the decline in our civil service, which distresses us. But, we ask: Could, under this premise, things be otherwise? Had we based our government on the principle: that it is the bounden duty of all governments to place no one in a public position, who is not technically qualified by education and for his upright character; and we should now be, where France, Belgium, Switzerland, indeed all Europe except Russia and Turkey, are; that is, we would have a public service officered, with few exceptions, by qualified men. Our rule was the reverse of theirs, to wit: that the people are unfree as long as there is one officer not subject to arbitrary popular will. Theirs was, that society is unfree, as long as there is an officer subject to any arbitrary public will. And the result of this difference is that while we have produced the servitude of the better elements of our society under those of the inferior forces, they have freed their society from the arbitrary rules of their several potentates. Hence whilst they have raised up a body of public men, who stand upright before power, and yet serve the public faithfully, we have nurtured a body of demagogues, who cringe to the voters before the election, and domineer over and defraud them afterwards. We have made them truckle to low men, and wonder that they are now mean themselves. But not alone that; we have so organized our parties, that the gate