A Civilized Society Requires Taxation: Education and Tax Reform in the Jim Crow South

Joan Malczewski, University of California, Irvine

In 1850, John C. Calhoun, wrote “Disquisition on Government,” an essay that was inspired by his interest in maintaining slavery and southern sectionalism and explored minority rights within the context of majority rule. In his exploration of the economic roots of political events, Calhoun divided citizens into “tax-payers” and “tax-consumers,” foreshadowing the connection that would be made between taxation and citizenship rights in late 19th and 20th Century education policy and law. Legal cases demanding educational equity reflect citizens’ perceptions of economic stakes and related rights, with white taxpayers often perceiving that their higher total contribution to the tax base means that relatively greater educational benefits should redound to whites, while black taxpayers have argued that their relative tax burden means they are owed at least an equal education. Education reformers in the Jim Crow South understood the distinctions that Calhoun made in 1850 and recognized the importance of taxpayer perception to the success of education reform. Their work demonstrated that citizen perceptions of relative rights on the basis of taxes paid are not a byproduct of tax policy, but something that might be deliberately shaped through tax reform. Northern foundations who were active in southern education reform focused on the tax policies in individual southern states and made tax reform central to efforts to create a public system of schooling in the South between 1900 and 1935. They promoted policies that would increase the revenues available for education reform and place the burden of schooling on public rather than private sources. They also hoped that tax reform might mitigate the distinctions between “tax payer” and “tax consumer” that Calhoun made in his defense of the racial state.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 265. Social Origins of Institutions