M & S Rare Books
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Document Information
Our
descriptions are copyrighted, and may not be reproduced without permission.
(title 17, U. S. Code).
(GEORGIA). FARROW, HENRY P. The Injustice of Poll Taxes. To the Members of the Constitutional Convention: [Caption title]. Broadside, 16" x 10". Printed in three columns. [Atlanta, Georgia: 1867?]. $450.00
Hummel 594, recording the University of Georgia copy. A strong and stirring plea in opposition to the poll tax as "the most unjust and oppressive taxation every imposed," despite the apparently lofty aim of providing monies for public schools. It is, Farrow declares, "a tax upon man's inalienable rights."
He explains that even a person who has never met the tax collector is still, as a consumer, a taxpayer, and argues that since the poll tax will simply disenfranchise the poor, it is a tax which will never be collected, and can have no valid purpose.
The issue in Georgia was really much simpler than Farrow's stirring ethics would suggest. The issue was chiefly whether Negroes would be disenfranchised, which the Republicans did not want. In 1870 the legislature declared the poll tax levied for the previous three years illegal.
In 1869 Farrow published The Status of Georgia. He ran for the Senate and was later federal attorney for Georgia. A Republican, he was a member of the "Augusta Ring." Cf. Duncan Russell, Freedom's Shore., p. 142.