Civil Government in the United States Considered with Some Reference to Its Origins Part 3

[Sidenote: Field-drivers and pound keepers.]

The field-driver takes stray animals to the pound, and then notifies their owner; or if he does not know who is the owner he posts a description of the animals in some such place as the village store or tavern, or has it published in the nearest country newspaper.

Meanwhile the strays are duly fed by the pound-keeper, who does not let them out of his custody until all expenses have been paid.

[Sidenote: Fence-viewers.]

If the owners of contiguous farms, gardens, or fields get into a dispute about their part.i.tion fences or walls, they may apply to one of the fence-viewers, of whom each town has at least two. The fence-viewer decides the matter, and charges a small fee for his services. Where it is necessary he may order suitable walls or fences to be built.

[Sidenote: Other officers.]

The surveyors of lumber measure and mark lumber offered for sale.

The measurers of wood do the same for firewood. The sealers test the correctness of weights and measures used in trade, and tradesmen are not allowed to use weights and measures that have not been thus officially examined and sealed. Measurers and sealers may be appointed by the selectmen.

Such are the officers always to be found in the Ma.s.sachusetts town, except where the duties of some of them are discharged by the selectmen. Of these officers, the selectmen, town-clerk, treasurer, constable, school committee, and a.s.sessors must be elected by ballot at the annual town-meeting.

[Sidenote: Calling the town-meeting.]

When this meeting is to be called the selectmen issue a warrant for the purpose, specifying the time and place of meeting and the nature of the business to be transacted. The constable posts copies of the warrant in divers conspicuous places not less than a week before the time appointed. Then, after making a note upon the warrant that he has duly served it, he hands it over to the town-clerk. On the appointed day, when the people have a.s.sembled, the town-clerk calls the meeting to order and reads the warrant. The meeting then proceeds to choose by ballot its presiding officer, or "moderator," and business goes on in accordance with parliamentary customs pretty generally recognized among all people who speak English.

[Sidenote: Town, country, and state taxes.]

At this meeting the amount of money to be raised by taxation for town purposes is determined. But, as we shall see, every inhabitant of a town lives not only under a town government, but also under a county government and a state government, and all these governments have to be supported by taxation. In Ma.s.sachusetts the state and the county make use of the machinery of the town government in order to a.s.sess and collect their taxes. The total amounts to be raised are equitably divided among the several towns and cities, so that each town pays its proportionate share. Each year, therefore, the town a.s.sessors know that a certain amount of money must be raised from the taxpayers of their town,--partly for the town, partly for the county, partly for the state,--and for the general convenience they usually a.s.sess it upon the taxpayers all at once. The amounts raised for the state and county are usually very much smaller than the amount raised for the town. As these amounts are all raised in the town and by town officers, we shall find it convenient to sum up in this place what we have to say about the way in which taxes are raised. Bear in mind that we are still considering the New England system, and our ill.u.s.tration is taken from the practice in Ma.s.sachusetts. But the general principles of taxation are so similar in the different states that, although we may now and then have to point to differences of detail, we shall not need to go over the whole subject again. We have now to observe how and upon whom the taxes are a.s.sessed.

[Sidenote: Poll-tax.]

They are a.s.sessed partly upon persons, but chiefly upon property, and property is divisible into real estate and personal estate. The tax a.s.sessed upon persons is called the poll-tax, and cannot exceed the sum of two dollars upon every male citizen over twenty years old. In cases of extreme poverty the a.s.sessors may remit the poll-tax.

[Sidenote: Real-estate taxes.]

As to real estate, there are in every town some lands and buildings which, for reasons of public policy, are exempted from paying taxes; as, for example, churches, graveyards, and tombs; many charitable inst.i.tutions, including universities and colleges; and public buildings which belong to the state or to the United States. All lands and buildings, except such as are exempt by law, must pay taxes.

[Sidenote: Taxes on personal property.]

Personal property includes pretty much everything that one can own except lands and buildings,--pretty much everything that can be moved or carried about from one place to another. It thus includes ready money, stocks and bonds, s.h.i.+ps and wagons, furniture, pictures, and books. It also includes the amount of debts due to a person in excess of the amount that he owes; also the income from his employment, whether in the shape of profits from business or a fixed salary.

Some personal property is exempted from taxation; as, for example, household furniture to the amount of $1,000 in value, and income from employment to the extent of $2,000. The obvious intent of this exemption is to prevent taxation from bearing too hard upon persons of small means; and for a similar reason the tools of farmers and mechanics are exempted.[2]

[Footnote 2: United States bonds are also especially exempted from taxation.]

[Sidenote: When and where taxes are a.s.sessed.]

The date at which property is annually reckoned for a.s.sessment is in Ma.s.sachusetts the first day of May. The poll-tax is a.s.sessed upon each person in the town or city where he has his legal habitation on that day; and as a general rule the taxes upon his personal property are a.s.sessed to him in the same place. But taxes upon lands or buildings are a.s.sessed in the city or town where they are situated, and to the person, wherever he lives, who is the owner of them on the first day of May. Thus a man who lives in the Berks.h.i.+re mountains, say for example in the town of Lanesborough, will pay his poll-tax to that town. For his personal property, whether it he bonds of a railroad in Colorado, or shares in a bank in New York, or costly pictures in his house at Lanesborough, he will likewise pay taxes to Lanesborough. So for the house in which he lives, and the land upon which it stands, he pays taxes to that same town. But if he owns at the same time a house in Boston, he pays taxes for it to Boston, and if he owns a block of shops in Chicago he pays taxes for the same to Chicago. It is very apt to be the case that the rate of taxation is higher in large cities than in villages; and accordingly it often happens that wealthy inhabitants of cities, who own houses in some country town, move into them before the first of May, and otherwise comport themselves as legal residents of the country town, in order that their personal property may be a.s.sessed there rather than in the city.

[Sidenote: Tax lists.]

About the first of May the a.s.sessors call upon the inhabitants of their town to render a true statement as to their property. The most approved form is for the a.s.sessors to send by mail to each taxable inhabitant a printed list of questions, with blank s.p.a.ces which he is to fill with written answers. The questions relate to every kind of property, and when the person addressed returns the list to the a.s.sessors he must make oath that to the best of his knowledge and belief his answers are true. He thus becomes liable to the penalties for perjury if he can be proved to have sworn falsely. A reasonable time--usually six or eight weeks--is allowed for the list to be returned to the a.s.sessors. If any one fails to return his list by the specified time, the a.s.sessors must make their own estimate of the probable amount of his property. If their estimate is too high, he may pet.i.tion the a.s.sessors to have the error corrected, but in many cases it may prove troublesome to effect this.

[Sidenote: Cheating the government.]

Observe here an important difference between the imposition of taxes upon real estate and upon personal property. Houses and lands cannot run away or be tucked out of sight. Their value, too, is something of which the a.s.sessors can very likely judge as well as the owner.

Deception is therefore extremely difficult, and taxation for real estate is pretty fairly distributed among the different owners. With regard to personal estate it is very different. It is comparatively easy to conceal one's owners.h.i.+p of some kinds of personal property, or to understate one's income. Hence the temptation to lessen the burden of the tax bill by making false statements is considerable, and doubtless a good deal of deception is practised. There are many people who are too honest to cheat individuals, but still consider it a venial sin to cheat the government.

[Sidenote: The rate of taxation.]

After the a.s.sessors have obtained all their returns they can calculate the total value of the taxable property in the town; and knowing the amount of the tax to be raised, it is easy to calculate the rate at which the tax is to be a.s.sessed. In most parts of the United States a rate of one and a half per cent, or $15 tax on each $1,000 worth of property, would be regarded as moderate; three per cent would be regarded as excessively high. At the lower of these rates a man worth $50,000 would pay $750 for his yearly taxes. The annual income of $50,000, invested on good security, is hardly more than $2,500.

Obviously $750 is a large sum to subtract from such an income.

[Sidenote: Undervaluation.]

[Sidenote: The burden of taxation.]

In point of fact, however, the tax is seldom quite as heavy as this. It is not easy to tell exactly how much a man is worth, and accordingly a.s.sessors, not wis.h.i.+ng to be too disagreeable in the discharge of their duties, have naturally fallen into a way of giving the lower valuation the benefit of the doubt, until in many places a custom has grown up of regularly undervaluing property for purposes of taxation. Very much as liquid measures have gradually shrunk until it takes five quart bottles to hold a gallon, so there has been a shrinkage of valuations until it has become common to tax a man for only three fourths or perhaps two thirds of what his property is worth in the market. This makes the rate higher, to be sure, but the individual taxpayer nevertheless seems to feel relieved by it.

Allowing for this undervaluation, we may say that a man worth $50,000 commonly pays not less than $500 for his yearly taxes, or about one fifth of the annual income of the property. We thus begin to see what a heavy burden taxes are, and how essential to good government it is that citizens should know what their money goes for, and should be able to exert some effective control over the public expenditures.

Where the rate of taxation in a town rises to a very high point, such as two and a half or three per cent, the prosperity of the town is apt to be seriously crippled. Traders and manufacturers move away to other towns, or those who would otherwise come to the town in question stay away, because they cannot afford to use up all their profits in paying taxes. If such a state of things is long kept up, the spirit of enterprise is weakened, the place shows signs of untidiness and want of thrift, and neighbouring towns, once perhaps far behind it in growth, by and by shoot ahead of it and take away its business.

[Sidenote: The "magic fund" delusion.]

Within its proper sphere, government by town-meeting is the form of government most effectively under watch and control. Everything is done in the full daylight of publicity. The specific objects for which public money is to be appropriated are discussed in the presence of everybody, and any one who disapproves of any of these objects, or of the way in which it is proposed to obtain it, has an opportunity to declare his opinions. Under this form of government people are not so liable to bewildering delusions as under other forms. I refer especially to the delusion that "the Government" is a sort of mysterious power, possessed of a magic inexhaustible fund of wealth, and able to do all manner of things for the benefit of "the People."

Some such notion as this, more often implied than expressed, is very common, and it is inexpressibly dear to demagogues. It is the prolific root from which springs that luxuriant crop of humbug upon which political tricksters thrive as pigs fatten upon corn. In point of fact no such government, armed with a magic fund of its own, has ever existed upon the earth. No government has ever yet used any money for public purposes which it did not first take from its own people,--unless when it may have plundered it from some other people in victorious warfare.

The inhabitant of a New England town is perpetually reminded that "the Government" is "the People." Although he may think loosely about the government of his state or the still more remote government at Was.h.i.+ngton, he is kept pretty close to the facts where local affairs are concerned, and in this there is a political training of no small value.

[Sidenote: Educational value of the town-meeting.]

In the kind of discussion which it provokes, in the necessity of facing argument with argument and of keeping one's temper under control, the town-meeting is the best political training school in existence. Its educational value is far higher than that of the newspaper, which, in spite of its many merits as a diffuser of information, is very apt to do its best to bemuddle and sophisticate plain facts. The period when town-meetings ware most important from the wide scope of their transactions was the period of earnest and sometimes stormy discussion that ushered in our Revolutionary war. Country towns were then of more importance relatively than now; one country town--Boston--was at the same time a great political centre; and its meetings were presided over and addressed by men of commanding ability, among whom Samuel Adams, "the man of the town-meeting," was foremost[3]. In those days great principles of government were discussed with a wealth of knowledge and stated with masterly skill in town-meeting.

[Footnote 3: The phrase is Professor Hosmer's: see his _Samuel Adams, the Man of the Town Meeting_, in "Johns Hopkins Univ. Studies," vol. II. no.

iv.; also his _Samuel Adams_, in "American Statesmen" series; Boston, 1885.]

[Sidenote: By-laws.]

The town-meeting is to a very limited extent a legislative body; it can make sundry regulations for the management of its local affairs. Such regulations are known by a very ancient name, "by-laws." _By_ is an Old Norse word meaning "town," and it appears in the names of such towns as _Derby_ and _Whitby_ in the part of England overrun by the Danes in the ninth and tenth centuries. By-laws are town laws[4].

[Footnote 4: In modern usage the roles and regulations of clubs, learned societies, and other a.s.sociations, are also called by-laws.]

[Sidenote: Power and responsibility.]

In the selectmen and various special officers the town has an executive department; and here let us observe that, while these officials are kept strictly accountable to the people, they are entrusted with very considerable authority. Things are not so arranged that an officer can plead that he has failed in his duty from lack of power. There is ample power, joined with complete responsibility. This is especially to be noticed in the case of the selectmen. They must often be called upon to exercise a wide discretion in what they do, yet this excites no serious popular distrust or jealousy. The annual election affords an easy means of dropping an unsatisfactory officer.

But in practice nothing has been more common than for the same persons to be reelected as selectmen or constables or town-clerks for year after year, as long as they are able or willing to serve. The notion that there is anything peculiarly American or democratic in what is known as "rotation in office" is therefore not sustained by the practice of the New England town, which is the most complete democracy in the world. It is the most perfect exhibition of what President Lincoln called "government of the people by the people and for the people."

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT.

1. What reason exists for beginning the study of government with that of the New England towns.h.i.+p?

2. Give the origin of the towns.h.i.+p in New England according to the following a.n.a.lysis:--

a. Settlement in groups.

b. The chief reason for coming to New England.

c. The leaders of the groups.

d. The favouring action of the Ma.s.sachusetts government.

e. Small farms.

f. Defence against the Indians.

g. The limits of a towns.h.i.+p.

h. The village within the towns.h.i.+p.

3. What was the social standing of the first settlers?

4. What training had they received in self-government?

5. Who do the governing in a New England towns.h.i.+p?

6. Give an account of the town-meeting in accordance with the following a.n.a.lysis:--

a. The name of the meeting.