Taxation with (?) representation: The political economy of public finance in antebellum California

Many existing studies point to the political contentiousness of attempts by states in the 19th century to impose property taxes, which after mid-century comprised the main source of state revenues. Yet studies fail to establish a convincing connection between interest group political effectiveness and resulting favorable property tax legislation. This paper takes a closer look at one state that adopted property taxation in the mid-19th century and documents intense inter-occupational conflicts between miners and ranchers over creation and administration of the system of property taxes. These conflicts occurred for various institutional reasons, including differential costs of enforcing tax collection and the short-lived political ascendance of miners during, and in the years following, the Gold Rush. The empirical results strongly suggest short-term capture by miners of the state legislature, followed by loss of capture ability as gold declined in economic importance in the 1860s.