The Daily Phoenix

Taxes.--The Barnwell Sentinel publishes a capital article on the payment of the unjust and unreasonable taxes levied by the Legislature, from which we make the following extract:

"Now for the practical working of the plan. The County Treasurer will open his books and call upon the tax-payers to pay the tax assessed. No one responds. There is no money in that. The next step he will put on the defaulters the penalty. No one responds. There is no money in that. The next step, he will make a levy and offer the land for sale. No one bids. There is no money in that. This is the whole operation, if there be unity among the people. But it is urged there may be some people at home who have capital, and there will be capitalists from the North who will bid, and thus the land will be sacrificed. If the worst comes to the worst, and the land-owner can raise the money to pay the tax, penalty and costs, he may run his land to any amount he pleases, because that will be all he has to pay. But if the capitalist at home or from abroad shall run the land to a price that the proprietor is willing to take, he will have made a good sale. But there is no probability in this. The people at home will not be disposed to buy, had they never so much capital, and there will be no buyers from abroad, because if they do not offer to purchase now, when the land is placed on the market voluntarily, they will not be anxious to purchase when it is put up for sale in unlimited quantities, to exact taxes from an unwilling people. But suppose the speculator does appear, the land-owner can out-bid him; not being able to pay his bid, the land will be offered again the next sales-day. At the second sale, of course, the bid of the owner will not be received, his son will take his place, with the same result, and so on, ad infinitum. Bidders who do not intend to comply, can always out-bid those who do. The result will be, the Treasury will be empty, there will be no money to feed the rapacity of those who have been preying on the resources of the State, and no money to pay the per diem of the ignorant men who have been imposing taxes for the last four years. In a word, the wheels of government will stop.

"There is nothing revolutionary in this. No armed combination--no violent resistance to the law--no Ku Klux--no intimidation--no call for President Grant's cohorts, or if he does send them, nobody to fight. It is simply the quiet determination of the people to make common cause for self-protection. And yet some people who, by the way, were very urgent secessionists, but not very active campaigners, see great danger in this passive resistance; they fear it will bring upon us the soldiers of the United States army. Soldiers will not be sent to a place where there is no violence to repress, and if they do come, they will not hurt those who do not interfere with them. It will be our interest and policy to treat them politely and respectfully, and the money they will spend with us on pay day will not incommode our people in the least."