{"petition":[{"petition_analysis_number":"11484908","petition_url":"https:\/\/dlas.uncg.edu\/petitions\/petition\/11484908","state":"Tennessee","county":"Dekalb","location_type":"County","file_day":5,"file_month":11,"file_year":1849,"filing_court":"Legislative","result":"referred to committee","enslaved_count":0,"fpoc_count":0,"total_people_count":10,"repository":"Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee","abstract":"Nineteen “Merchants and others” complain about excessive taxation.  On sales of $200,000 worth of merchandise, they point out that wholesalers pay the enormous sum of $2,000, not including corporation or city taxes. The petitioners decry that \"if this tax is persisted in, it will destroy the Wholesale business, which it has already seriously crippled\"; in addition, another $2,000 in taxes is imposed at the retail level.  Complaining that land owners and slave owners pay only one-tenth this amount, the petitioners “humbly pray that the equitable principle of the Constitution, that ‘no species of property, from which a tax may be collected, shall be taxed higher than any other species of property of equal value’ shall be extended to Merchandise as well as to other kinds of property.”","subjects":[{"subject":"Taxation (enslaved)"}]}]}