Taxes

John Franks

Taxation; Yay or nay?

When the Constitution was progressing from an idea to reality, many great thinkers and political leaders went head-to-head on every single aspect being written about. That was because they all had different concerns. The different concerns came from their aberration in region and economics. Taxes were a main concern, and led to some very important debates. The two most important representations of how region and economy effected the concerns people had was the three-fifths compromise and the ratification of the Constitution itself.

When the American's broke free from British rule, they slowly started to see a large decline in their economy. The American's were actually in debt because of the war. The government then sought new ways to make money. Taxation was probably one of the first things that came up. Of course this idea had to go through the Articles of Confederation. Not only did they have to figure out if taxing was the right way to go or not, but they had to deal with how they would tax, and what qualified you for being taxed. Ultimately, after multiple propositions by Benjamin Harrison and many from New England, congress came to the conclusion that they would take James Madison's idea of a three-fifths ratio. Meaning they would count three-fifths of the slave's as general population. However, the idea didn't make it to the Articles of Confederation. It came up short of votes. The real controversy and fear that James Madison's idea brought was between the Northernly and Southernly states. The South had a very obviously large abundance of slaves, where as the Northernly states didn't. This meant that taxing in the South would be much larger then in the North. This modus operandi didn't bode to well with the Southerners. When the Constitutional Convention came around, this problem rose once again on the idea of tax and population. As the Convention went on, the Southerners started to notice the Pro's of...