ON THE LAW OF TAXATION, INCLUDING THE LAW OF LOCAL ASSESSMENTS. BY THOMAS M. COOLEY, LL. D., PROFESSOR OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW AND POLITICAL SCIENCE SECOND EDITION. GREATLY ENLARGED. CHICAGO: LAW BOOK PUBLISHERS. 1886. HARVARD COLL MAR 12 1889 LIR Minot Fund BOUND JAN 16 1915 Entered according to Act of Congress in the year eighteen hundred and eighty-six, by CALLAGHAN AND COMPANY, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. DAVID ATWOOD, MADISON, Wis. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. The following pages have been prepared with a view to present in a shape for practical use, the general rules which must govern the action of all authorities acting in matters of taxation. Had a similar task been previously undertaken, the writer would gladly have been spared the labor; but Mr. Blackwell's Treatise on Tax Titles covers the ground only in part, and Judge Dillon, though he has done valuable service in the same direction, has not, in his work on Municipal Corporations, deemed it advisable to go beyond what seemed necessary to a legitimate and perspicuous presentation of that subject. Other writers have had occasion to discuss only particular topics in the law of taxation, leaving a comprehensive examination of the general subject to be still entered upon. The decisions in this country on the subject of taxation have become so numerous, that it would be impossible to give abstracts of them all, within any reasonable compass. The author has thought it preferable, instead of attempting a digest of them, to group the references about the controlling principles. The tax systems of the several states are so dissimilar, that a mere digest of the cases is exceedingly liable to mislead, by giving, as a general rule of law, what is only a conclusion from a local law or custom. There are, or should be, general principles underlying all the cases; and an understanding of these will enable one to make use of decisions under the various tax systems without confusion. The subject of taxation seems to invite some consideration of questions of political economy; but these have been passed by after bare mention, as not being necessarily involved in a discussion of the legal points. They present considerations |