property is not one to be deliberately adhered to, some consistent adherents of the quid pro quo principle go on to observe that protection being required for persons as well as property, and everybody's person receiving the same amount of protection, a poll-tax of a fixed sum per head is a proper equivalent for this part of the benefits of government, while the remaining part, protection to property, should be paid for in proportion to property. But, in the first place, it is not admissible that the protection of persons and that of property are the sole purposes of government. In the second place, the practice of setting definite values on things essentially indefinite, and making them a ground of practical conclusions, is peculiarly fertile in the false views of social questions. It can not be admitted that to be protected in the ownership of ten times as much property is to be ten times as much protected. If we wanted to estimate the degrees of benefit which different persons derive from the protection of government, we should have to consider who would suffer most if that protection were withdrawn: to which question, if any answer could be made, it must be, that those would suffer most who were weakest in mind or body, either by nature or by position.
§ 3. Should the same percentage be levied on all amounts of Income?
Setting out, then, from the maxim that equal sacrifices ought to be demanded from all, we have next to inquire whether this is in fact done, by making each contribute the same percentage on his pecuniary means. Many persons maintain the negative, saying that a tenth part taken from a small income is a heavier burden than the same fraction deducted from one much larger; and on this is grounded the very popular scheme of what is called a graduated property-tax, viz., an income-tax in which the percentage rises with the amount of the income.
On the best consideration I am able to give