Thirty-four “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.”
Result: Referred to select committee.
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Repository: Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee
