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To the People of
the State of New York:
OOOOI FLATTER myself it has been clearly
shown in my last number that the particular States, under the proposed
Constitution, would have COEQUAL authority with the Union in the
article of revenue, except as to duties on imports. As this leaves
open to the States far the greatest part of the resources of the
community, there can be no color for the assertion that they would not
possess means as abundant as could be desired for the supply of their
own wants, independent of all external control. That the field is
sufficiently wide will more fully appear when we come to advert to the
inconsiderable share of the public expenses for which it will fall to
the lot of the State governments to provide.
OOOOTo argue upon abstract principles
that this co-ordinate authority cannot exist, is to set up supposition
and theory against fact and reality. However proper such reasonings
might be to show that a thing OUGHT NOT TO EXIST, they are wholly to
be rejected when they are made use of to prove that it does not exist
contrary to the evidence of the fact itself. It is well known that in
the Roman republic the legislative authority, in the last resort,
resided for ages in two different political bodies not as branches of
the same legislature, but as distinct and independent legislatures, in
each of which an opposite interest prevailed: in one the patrician; in
the other, the plebian. Many arguments might have been adduced to
prove the unfitness of two such seemingly contradictory authorities,
each having power to ANNUL or REPEAL the acts of the other. But a man
would have been regarded as frantic who should have attempted at Rome
to disprove their existence. It will be readily understood that I
allude to the COMITIA CENTURIATA and the COMITIA TRIBUTA. The former,
in which the people voted by centuries, was so arranged as to give a
superiority to the patrician interest; in the latter, in which numbers
prevailed, the plebian interest had an entire predominancy. And yet
these two legislatures coexisted for ages, and the Roman republic
attained to the utmost height of human greatness.
OOOOIn the case particularly under
consideration, there is no such contradiction as appears in the
example cited; there is no power on either side to annul the acts of
the other. And in practice there is little reason to apprehend any
inconvenience; because, in a short course of time, the wants of the
States will naturally reduce themselves within A VERY NARROW COMPASS;
and in the interim, the United States will, in all probability, find
it convenient to abstain wholly from those objects to which the
particular States would be inclined to resort.
OOOOTo form a more precise judgment of
the true merits of this question, it will be well to advert to the
proportion between the objects that will require a federal provision
in respect to revenue, and those which will require a State provision.
We shall discover that the former are altogether unlimited, and that
the latter are circumscribed within very moderate bounds. In pursuing
this inquiry, we must bear in mind that we are not to confine our view
to the present period, but to look forward to remote futurity.
Constitutions of civil government are not to be framed upon a
calculation of existing exigencies, but upon a combination of these
with the probable exigencies of ages, according to the natural and
tried course of human affairs. Nothing, therefore, can be more
fallacious than to infer the extent of any power, proper to be lodged
in the national government, from an estimate of its immediate
necessities. There ought to be a CAPACITY to provide for future
contingencies as they may happen; and as these are illimitable in
their nature, it is impossible safely to limit that capacity. It is
true, perhaps, that a computation might be made with sufficient
accuracy to answer the purpose of the quantity of revenue requisite to
discharge the subsisting engagements of the Union, and to maintain
those establishments which, for some time to come, would suffice in
time of peace. But would it be wise, or would it not rather be the
extreme of folly, to stop at this point, and to leave the government
intrusted with the care of the national defense in a state of absolute
incapacity to provide for the protection of the community against
future invasions of the public peace, by foreign war or domestic
convulsions? If, on the contrary, we ought to exceed this point, where
can we stop, short of an indefinite power of providing for
emergencies as they may arise? Though it is easy to assert, in general
terms, the possibility of forming a rational judgment of a due
provision against probable dangers, yet we may safely challenge those
who make the assertion to bring forward their data, and may affirm
that they would be found as vague and uncertain as any that could be
produced to establish the probable duration of the world. Observations
confined to the mere prospects of internal attacks can deserve no
weight; though even these will admit of no satisfactory calculation:
but if we mean to be a commercial people, it must form a part of our
policy to be able one day to defend that commerce. The support of a
navy and of naval wars would involve contingencies that must baffle
all the efforts of political arithmetic.
OOOOAdmitting that we ought to try the
novel and absurd experiment in politics of tying up the hands of
government from offensive war founded upon reasons of state, yet
certainly we ought not to disable it from guarding the community
against the ambition or enmity of other nations. A cloud has been for
some time hanging over the European world. If it should break forth
into a storm, who can insure us that in its progress a part of its
fury would not be spent upon us? No reasonable man would hastily
pronounce that we are entirely out of its reach. Or if the combustible
materials that now seem to be collecting should be dissipated without
coming to maturity, or if a flame should be kindled without extending
to us, what security can we have that our tranquillity will long
remain undisturbed from some other cause or from some other quarter?
Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our
option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot
count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of
others. Who could have imagined at the conclusion of the last war that
France and Britain, wearied and exhausted as they both were, would so
soon have looked with so hostile an aspect upon each other? To judge
from the history of mankind, we shall be compelled to conclude that
the fiery and destructive passions of war reign in the human breast
with much more powerful sway than the mild and beneficent sentiments
of peace; and that to model our political systems upon speculations of
lasting tranquillity, is to calculate on the weaker springs of the
human character.
OOOOWhat are the chief sources of
expense in every government? What has occasioned that enormous
accumulation of debts with which several of the European nations are
oppressed? The answers plainly is, wars and rebellions; the support of
those institutions which are necessary to guard the body politic
against these two most mortal diseases of society. The expenses
arising from those institutions which are relative to the mere
domestic police of a state, to the support of its legislative,
executive, and judicial departments, with their different appendages,
and to the encouragement of agriculture and manufactures (which will
comprehend almost all the objects of state expenditure), are
insignificant in comparison with those which relate to the national
defense.
OOOOIn the kingdom of Great Britain,
where all the ostentatious apparatus of monarchy is to be provided
for, not above a fifteenth part of the annual income of the nation is
appropriated to the class of expenses last mentioned; the other
fourteen fifteenths are absorbed in the payment of the interest of
debts contracted for carrying on the wars in which that country has
been engaged, and in the maintenance of fleets and armies. If, on the
one hand, it should be observed that the expenses incurred in the
prosecution of the ambitious enterprises and vainglorious pursuits of
a monarchy are not a proper standard by which to judge of those which
might be necessary in a republic, it ought, on the other hand, to be
remarked that there should be as great a disproportion between the
profusion and extravagance of a wealthy kingdom in its domestic
administration, and the frugality and economy which in that particular
become the modest simplicity of republican government. If we balance a
proper deduction from one side against that which it is supposed ought
to be made from the other, the proportion may still be considered as
holding good.
OOOOBut let us advert to the large debt
which we have ourselves contracted in a single war, and let us only
calculate on a common share of the events which disturb the peace of
nations, and we shall instantly perceive, without the aid of any
elaborate illustration, that there must always be an immense
disproportion between the objects of federal and state expenditures.
It is true that several of the States, separately, are encumbered with
considerable debts, which are an excrescence of the late war. But this
cannot happen again, if the proposed system be adopted; and when these
debts are discharged, the only call for revenue of any consequence,
which the State governments will continue to experience, will be for
the mere support of their respective civil list; to which, if we add
all contingencies, the total amount in every State ought to fall
considerably short of two hundred thousand pounds.
OOOOIn framing a government for
posterity as well as ourselves, we ought, in those provisions which
are designed to be permanent, to calculate, not on temporary, but on
permanent causes of expense. If this principle be a just one our
attention would be directed to a provision in favor of the State
governments for an annual sum of about two hundred thousand pounds;
while the exigencies of the Union could be susceptible of no limits,
even in imagination. In this view of the subject, by what logic can it
be maintained that the local governments ought to command, in
perpetuity, an EXCLUSIVE source of revenue for any sum beyond the
extent of two hundred thousand pounds? To extend its power further, in
EXCLUSION of the authority of the Union, would be to take the
resources of the community out of those hands which stood in need of
them for the public welfare, in order to put them into other hands
which could have no just or proper occasion for them.
OOOOSuppose, then, the convention had
been inclined to proceed upon the principle of a repartition of the
objects of revenue, between the Union and its members, in PROPORTION
to their comparative necessities; what particular fund could have been
selected for the use of the States, that would not either have been
too much or too little too little for their present, too much for
their future wants? As to the line of separation between external and
internal taxes, this would leave to the States, at a rough
computation, the command of two thirds of the resources of the
community to defray from a tenth to a twentieth part of its expenses;
and to the Union, one third of the resources of the community, to
defray from nine tenths to nineteen twentieths of its expenses. If we
desert this boundary and content ourselves with leaving to the States
an exclusive power of taxing houses and lands, there would still be a
great disproportion between the MEANS and the END; the possession of
one third of the resources of the community to supply, at most, one
tenth of its wants. If any fund could have been selected and
appropriated, equal to and not greater than the object, it would have
been inadequate to the discharge of the existing debts of the
particular States, and would have left them dependent on the Union for
a provision for this purpose.
OOOOThe preceding train of observation
will justify the position which has been elsewhere laid down, that "A
CONCURRENT JURISDICTION in the article of taxation was the only
admissible substitute for an entire subordination, in respect to this
branch of power, of State authority to that of the Union.'' Any
separation of the objects of revenue that could have been fallen upon,
would have amounted to a sacrifice of the great INTERESTS of the Union
to the POWER of the individual States. The convention thought the
concurrent jurisdiction preferable to that subordination; and it is
evident that it has at least the merit of reconciling an indefinite
constitutional power of taxation in the Federal government with an
adequate and independent power in the States to provide for their own
necessities. There remain a few other lights, in which this important
subject of taxation will claim a further consideration.
OOOOPUBLIUS.
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