able to know.

The same rate of taxation which may easily be supported by a wealthy
contributor will reduce a poor one to extreme misery. The wealth of
nations is composed of several distinct elements, of which population
is the first, real property the second, and personal property the third.
The first of these three elements may be discovered without difficulty.
Amongst civilized nations it is easy to obtain an accurate census of
the inhabitants; but the two others cannot be determined with so much
facility. It is difficult to take an exact account of all the lands in
a country which are under cultivation, with their natural or their
acquired value; and it is still more impossible to estimate the entire
personal property which is at the disposal of a nation, and which eludes
the strictest analysis by the diversity and the number of shapes under
which it may occur. And, indeed, we find that the most ancient civilized
nations of Europe, including even those in which the administration
is most central, have not succeeded, as yet, in determining the exact
condition of their wealth.

In America the attempt has never been made; for how would such an
investigation be possible in a country where society has not yet
settled into habits of regularity and tranquillity; where the national
Government is not assisted by a multiple of agents whose exertions it
can command and direct to one sole end; and where statistics are not
studied, because no one is able to collect the necessary documents,
or to find time to peruse them? Thus the primary elements of the
calculations which have been made in France cannot be obtained in the
Union; the relative wealth of the two countries is unknown; the property
of the former is not accurately determined, and no means exist of
computing that of the latter.

I consent, therefore, for the sake of the discussion, to abandon this
necessary term of the comparison, and I confine myself to a computation
of the actual amount of taxation, without investigating the relation
which subsists between the taxation and the revenue. But the reader will
perceive that my task has not been facilitated by the limits which I
here lay down for my researches.

It cannot be doubted that the central administration of France, assisted
by all the public officers who are at its disposal, might determine with
exactitude the amount of the direct and indirect taxes levied upon
the citizens. But this investigation, which no