Montesquieu: Of the Relation Which Taxes and Public Revenues Bear to Liberty

The Spirit of Laws (1751)Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu

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Of the Relation Which the Levying of Taxes and the Greatness of the Public Revenues Bear to Liberty1. Of the Public Revenues.2. That it is bad Reasoning to say that the Greatness of Taxes is good in its own Nature.3. Of Taxes in Countries where Part of the People are Villains or Bondmen.4. Of a Republic in the like Case.5. Of a Monarchy in the like Case.6. Of a despotic Government in the like Case.7. Of Taxes in Countries where Villainage is not established.8. In what Manner the Deception is preserved.9. Of a bad Kind of Impost.10. That the Greatness of Taxes depends on the Nature of the Government.11. Of Confiscations.12. Relation between the Weight of Taxes and Liberty.13. In what Government Taxes are capable of Increase.14. That the Nature of the Taxes is in Relation to the Government.15. Abuse of Liberty.16. Of the Conquests of the Mahometans.17. Of the Augmentation of Troops.18. Of an Exemption from Taxes.19. Which is more suitable to the Prince and to the People, the farming the Revenues, or managing them by Commission.20. Of the Farmers of the Revenues. FOOTNOTES
   1. Plutarch, Notable Sayings of the Laced�monians.
   2. This is what induced Charlemagne to make his excellent institution upon this head. See the fifth book of the Capitularies, art. 303.
   3. This is the practice in Germany.
   4. Pollux, viii. 10, art. 130.
   5. Or 60 min�.
   6. Tacitus, Annals, xiii. 31.
   7. Father Du Halde, ii, p. 37.
   8. History of the Tartars, part III, p. 290.
   9. Being willing to trade with foreigners without having any communication with them, they have pitched upon two nations for that purpose -- the Dutch for the commerce of Europe, and the Chinese for that of Asia; they confine the factors and sailors in a kind of prison, and lay such a restraint upon them as tires their patience.
   10. In Russia the taxes are but small; they have been increased since the despotic power of the prince is exercised with more moderation. See the History of the Tartars, part II.
   11. The Pays d'etats, where the states of the province assemble to deliberate on public affairs.
   12. This is the practice of the emperors of China.
   13. See in history the greatness, the oddity, and even the folly of those taxes. Anastasius invented a tax for breathing, ut quisque pro haustu �ris penderet.
   14. True it is that this state of effort is the chief support of the balance, because it checks the great powers.
   15. All that is wanting for this is to improve the new invention of the militia established in most parts of Europe, and carry it to the same excess as they do the regular troops.
   16. See A Treatise on the Roman Finances, 2, Paris, 1740.
   17. C�sar was obliged to remove the publicans from the province of Asia, and to establish there another kind of regulation, as we learn from Dio, xlii. 6; and Tacitus, Annals, i. 76, informs us that Macedonia and Achaia, provinces left by Augustus to the people of Rome, and consequently governed pursuant to the ancient plan, obtained to be of the number of those which the emperor governed by his officers.
   18. See Sir John Chardin's Travels through Persia, vi.
   19. Tacitus, Annals, xiii. 51.