ABSTRACT
A review of the history of selective excise taxes illustrates most, if not all, of the sources of conflict between the state and the taxpayer, problems not unique to sin taxes but rather found in taxes of all forms. These problems center around the state’s use of its coercive powers against its own citizens. Today we tend to think of liberty arising from a private-property-based mar ket system with a democratic form of government. Historically, liberty meant freedom from abusive taxation.
