I continue to receive letters by private property advocates that misundertand the American Founders point about taxation. The protest against mother England was not about the rightness of the power to tax, but the wrongness of taxation without consent, that is, "taxation without representation."

Slavery was the destiny of the people who stood by and did nothing when taxed without consent, they reasoned.

The colonists first petitioned, then protested, and finally went to war to maintain their right to consent. But all the while they taxed themselves (via their state governments), before, during, and after the war.

One body, during the Revolutionary War, did not have this power - the Continental Congress (or budding Federal Government). They could only "request" monies from the states - who more often than not, failed to deliver. This almost cost us the war, as well as the peace afterward, and thus our liberties.

Founder John Jay, President of the Continental Congress remarked at the time that "[Taxes were] the price of liberty, the peace and the safety of yourselves and posterity." Americans should never let it be said, he continued, "that America had no sooner become independent than she became insolvent," or that "her infant glories and growing fame were obscured and tarnished by broken contracts and violated faith."

But contracts and faith were indeed violated. Soldiers went without salaries (they nearly marched on Congress to collect), foreign loans went unpaid (which made America appear less than honorable - and threatened yet other wars), the Continental Dollar became worthless, and fortunes, great and small were lost. America's fate hung precariously in the balance.

The establishment of a federal government that was finally empowered to tax and enforce that tax, saved the day.

The power to tax is not evil. What matters is consent. What matters is that that taxation be limited to enumerated powers. What matters is that the majority of taxation ought to take place locally where elected officials are easiest to hold accountable. And so the issue today is to return the majority of governing back to the states, the counties, the cities, and the people. In most cases: the more local, the better.

Even welfare, which is socialist in nature, isn't true socialism so long as consent is maintained. But the Founders believed, and believed it firmly, that if there were such plans in place AT ALL (and some were even back then), that they had to be locally funded and controlled. This is the key to a wise and accountable sort of state welfare: keep it local; but even better, where church groups and other charities are in place, keep it private.

Jay quote source: Burnett, "Continental Congress," 413, Ferguson, "Power of the Purse," 32; as quoted in Walter Stahr's, "John Jay," 107-108.

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