We are next to see how they have conducted themselves in
contriving equal impositions, proportioned to the means of the
citizens, and the least likely to lean heavy on the active capital
employed in the generation of that private wealth from whence the
public fortune must be derived. By suffering the several districts,
and several of the individuals in each district, to judge of what part
of the old revenue they might withhold, instead of better principles
of equality, a new inequality was introduced of the most oppressive
kind. Payments were regulated by dispositions. The parts of the
kingdom which were the most submissive, the most orderly, or the
most affectionate to the commonwealth bore the whole burden of the
state. Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble
government. To fill up all the deficiencies in the old impositions and
the new deficiencies of every kind which were to be expected- what
remained to a state without authority? The National Assembly called
for a voluntary benevolence: for a fourth part of the income of all
the citizens, to be estimated on the honor of those who were to pay.
They obtained something more than could be rationally calculated,
but what was far indeed from answerable to their real necessities, and
much less to their fond expectations. Rational people could have hoped
for little from this their tax in the disguise of a benevolence- a tax
weak, ineffective, and unequal; a tax by which luxury, avarice, and
selfishness were screened, and the load thrown upon productive
capital, upon integrity, generosity, and public spirit; a tax of
regulation upon virtue.
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