The Same Subject Continued

(Concerning the General Power of Taxation)

From the New York Packet.

Tuesday January 8, 1788.

To the People of the State of New York:

WE HAVE seen that the result of the observations, to which the

foregoing number has been principally devoted, is, that from the

natural operation of the different interests and views of the

various classes of the community, whether the representation of the

people be more or less numerous, it will consist almost entirely of

proprietors of land, of merchants, and of members of the learned

professions, who will truly represent all those different interests

and views. If it should be objected that we have seen other

descriptions of men in the local legislatures, I answer that it is

admitted there are exceptions to the rule, but not in sufficient

number to influence the general complexion or character of the

government. There are strong minds in every walk of life that will

rise superior to the disadvantages of situation, and will command

the tribute due to their merit, not only from the classes to which

they particularly belong, but from the society in general. The door

ought to be equally open to all; and I trust, for the credit of

human nature, that we shall see examples of such vigorous plants

flourishing in the soil of federal as well as of State legislation;

but occasional instances of this sort will not render the reasoning

founded upon the general course of things, less conclusive.

The subject might be placed in several other lights that would

all lead to the same result; and in particular it might be asked,

What greater affinity or relation of interest can be conceived

between the carpenter and blacksmith, and the linen manufacturer or

stocking weaver, than between the merchant and either of them? It

is notorious that there are often as great rivalships between

different branches of the mechanic or manufacturing arts as there

are between any of the departments of labor and industry; so that,

unless the representative body were to be far more numerous than

would be consistent with any idea of regularity or wisdom in its

deliberations, it is impossible that what seems to be the spirit of

the objection we have been considering should ever be realized in

practice. But I forbear to dwell any longer on a matter which has

hitherto worn too loose a garb to admit even of an accurate

inspection of its real shape or tendency.

There is another objection of a somewhat more precise nature

that claims our attention. It has been asserted that a power of

internal taxation in the national legislature could never be

exercised with advantage, as well from the want of a sufficient

knowledge of local circumstances, as from an interference between

the revenue laws of the Union and of the particular States. The

supposition of a want of proper knowledge seems to be entirely

destitute of foundation. If any question is depending in a State

legislature respecting one of the counties, which demands a

knowledge of local details, how is it acquired? No doubt from the

information of the members of the county. Cannot the like knowledge

be obtained in the national legislature from the representatives of

each State? And is it not to be presumed that the men who will

generally be sent there will be possessed of the necessary degree of

intelligence to be able to communicate that information? Is the

knowledge of local circumstances, as applied to taxation, a minute

topographical acquaintance with all the mountains, rivers, streams,

highways, and bypaths in each State; or is it a general

acquaintance with its situation and resources, with the state of its

agriculture, commerce, manufactures, with the nature of its products

and consumptions, with the different degrees and kinds of its

wealth, property, and industry?

Nations in general, even under governments of the more popular

kind, usually commit the administration of their finances to single

men or to boards composed of a few individuals, who digest and

prepare, in the first instance, the plans of taxation, which are

afterwards passed into laws by the authority of the sovereign or

legislature.

Inquisitive and enlightened statesmen are deemed everywhere best

qualified to make a judicious selection of the objects proper for

revenue; which is a clear indication, as far as the sense of

mankind can have weight in the question, of the species of knowledge

of local circumstances requisite to the purposes of taxation.

The taxes intended to be comprised under the general

denomination of internal taxes may be subdivided into those of the

DIRECT and those of the INDIRECT kind. Though the objection be made

to both, yet the reasoning upon it seems to be confined to the

former branch. And indeed, as to the latter, by which must be

understood duties and excises on articles of consumption, one is at

a loss to conceive what can be the nature of the difficulties

apprehended. The knowledge relating to them must evidently be of a

kind that will either be suggested by the nature of the article

itself, or can easily be procured from any well-informed man,

especially of the mercantile class. The circumstances that may

distinguish its situation in one State from its situation in another

must be few, simple, and easy to be comprehended. The principal

thing to be attended to, would be to avoid those articles which had

been previously appropriated to the use of a particular State; and

there could be no difficulty in ascertaining the revenue system of

each. This could always be known from the respective codes of laws,

as well as from the information of the members from the several

States.

The objection, when applied to real property or to houses and

lands, appears to have, at first sight, more foundation, but even in

this view it will not bear a close examination. Land taxes are co

monly laid in one of two modes, either by ACTUAL valuations,

permanent or periodical, or by OCCASIONAL assessments, at the

discretion, or according to the best judgment, of certain officers

whose duty it is to make them. In either case, the EXECUTION of the

business, which alone requires the knowledge of local details, must

be devolved upon discreet persons in the character of commissioners

or assessors, elected by the people or appointed by the government

for the purpose. All that the law can do must be to name the

persons or to prescribe the manner of their election or appointment,

to fix their numbers and qualifications and to draw the general

outlines of their powers and duties. And what is there in all this

that cannot as well be performed by the national legislature as by a

State legislature? The attention of either can only reach to

general principles; local details, as already observed, must be

referred to those who are to execute the plan.

But there is a simple point of view in which this matter may be

placed that must be altogether satisfactory. The national

legislature can make use of the SYSTEM OF EACH STATE WITHIN THAT

STATE. The method of laying and collecting this species of taxes in

each State can, in all its parts, be adopted and employed by the

federal government.

Let it be recollected that the proportion of these taxes is not

to be left to the discretion of the national legislature, but is to

be determined by the numbers of each State, as described in the

second section of the first article. An actual census or

enumeration of the people must furnish the rule, a circumstance

which effectually shuts the door to partiality or oppression. The

abuse of this power of taxation seems to have been provided against

with guarded circumspection. In addition to the precaution just

mentioned, there is a provision that ``all duties, imposts, and

excises shall be UNIFORM throughout the United States.''

It has been very properly observed by different speakers and

writers on the side of the Constitution, that if the exercise of the

power of internal taxation by the Union should be discovered on

experiment to be really inconvenient, the federal government may

then forbear the use of it, and have recourse to requisitions in its

stead. By way of answer to this, it has been triumphantly asked,

Why not in the first instance omit that ambiguous power, and rely

upon the latter resource? Two solid answers may be given. The

first is, that the exercise of that power, if convenient, will be

preferable, because it will be more effectual; and it is impossible

to prove in theory, or otherwise than by the experiment, that it

cannot be advantageously exercised. The contrary, indeed, appears

most probable. The second answer is, that the existence of such a

power in the Constitution will have a strong influence in giving

efficacy to requisitions. When the States know that the Union can

apply itself without their agency, it will be a powerful motive for

exertion on their part.

As to the interference of the revenue laws of the Union, and of

its members, we have already seen that there can be no clashing or

repugnancy of authority. The laws cannot, therefore, in a legal

sense, interfere with each other; and it is far from impossible to

avoid an interference even in the policy of their different systems.

An effectual expedient for this purpose will be, mutually, to

abstain from those objects which either side may have first had

recourse to. As neither can CONTROL the other, each will have an

obvious and sensible interest in this reciprocal forbearance. And

where there is an IMMEDIATE common interest, we may safely count

upon its operation. When the particular debts of the States are

done away, and their expenses come to be limited within their

natural compass, the possibility almost of interference will vanish.

A small land tax will answer the purpose of the States, and will be

their most simple and most fit resource.

Many spectres have been raised out of this power of internal

taxation, to excite the apprehensions of the people: double sets of

revenue officers, a duplication of their burdens by double

taxations, and the frightful forms of odious and oppressive

poll-taxes, have been played off with all the ingenious dexterity of

political legerdemain.

As to the first point, there are two cases in which there can be

no room for double sets of officers: one, where the right of

imposing the tax is exclusively vested in the Union, which applies

to the duties on imports; the other, where the object has not

fallen under any State regulation or provision, which may be

applicable to a variety of objects. In other cases, the probability

is that the United States will either wholly abstain from the

objects preoccupied for local purposes, or will make use of the

State officers and State regulations for collecting the additional

imposition. This will best answer the views of revenue, because it

will save expense in the collection, and will best avoid any

occasion of disgust to the State governments and to the people. At

all events, here is a practicable expedient for avoiding such an

inconvenience; and nothing more can be required than to show that

evils predicted to not necessarily result from the plan.

As to any argument derived from a supposed system of influence,

it is a sufficient answer to say that it ought not to be presumed;

but the supposition is susceptible of a more precise answer. If

such a spirit should infest the councils of the Union, the most

certain road to the accomplishment of its aim would be to employ the

State officers as much as possible, and to attach them to the Union

by an accumulation of their emoluments. This would serve to turn

the tide of State influence into the channels of the national

government, instead of making federal influence flow in an opposite

and adverse current. But all suppositions of this kind are

invidious, and ought to be banished from the consideration of the

great question before the people. They can answer no other end than

to cast a mist over the truth.

As to the suggestion of double taxation, the answer is plain.

The wants of the Union are to be supplied in one way or another;

if to be done by the authority of the federal government, it will

not be to be done by that of the State government. The quantity of

taxes to be paid by the community must be the same in either case;

with this advantage, if the provision is to be made by the

Uniongthat the capital resource of commercial imposts, which is the

most convenient branch of revenue, can be prudently improved to a

much greater extent under federal than under State regulation, and

of course will render it less necessary to recur to more

inconvenient methods; and with this further advantage, that as far

as there may be any real difficulty in the exercise of the power of

internal taxation, it will impose a disposition to greater care in

the choice and arrangement of the means; and must naturally tend to

make it a fixed point of policy in the national administration to go

as far as may be practicable in making the luxury of the rich

tributary to the public treasury, in order to diminish the necessity

of those impositions which might create dissatisfaction in the

poorer and most numerous classes of the society. Happy it is when

the interest which the government has in the preservation of its own

power, coincides with a proper distribution of the public burdens,

and tends to guard the least wealthy part of the community from

oppression!

As to poll taxes, I, without scruple, confess my disapprobation

of them; and though they have prevailed from an early period in

those States%n1%n which have uniformly been the most tenacious of

their rights, I should lament to see them introduced into practice

under the national government. But does it follow because there is

a power to lay them that they will actually be laid? Every State in

the Union has power to impose taxes of this kind; and yet in

several of them they are unknown in practice. Are the State

governments to be stigmatized as tyrannies, because they possess

this power? If they are not, with what propriety can the like power

justify such a charge against the national government, or even be

urged as an obstacle to its adoption? As little friendly as I am to

the species of imposition, I still feel a thorough conviction that

the power of having recourse to it ought to exist in the federal

government. There are certain emergencies of nations, in which

expedients, that in the ordinary state of things ought to be

forborne, become essential to the public weal. And the government,

from the possibility of such emergencies, ought ever to have the

option of making use of them. The real scarcity of objects in this

country, which may be considered as productive sources of revenue,

is a reason peculiar to itself, for not abridging the discretion of

the national councils in this respect. There may exist certain

critical and tempestuous conjunctures of the State, in which a poll

tax may become an inestimable resource. And as I know nothing to

exempt this portion of the globe from the common calamities that

have befallen other parts of it, I acknowledge my aversion to every

project that is calculated to disarm the government of a single

weapon, which in any possible contingency might be usefully employed

for the general defense and security.

I have now gone through the examination of such of the powers

proposed to be vested in the United States, which may be considered

as having an immediate relation to the energy of the government;

and have endeavored to answer the principal objections which have

been made to them. I have passed over in silence those minor

authorities, which are either too inconsiderable to have been

thought worthy of the hostilities of the opponents of the

Constitution, or of too manifest propriety to admit of controversy.

The mass of judiciary power, however, might have claimed an

investigation under this head, had it not been for the consideration

that its organization and its extent may be more advantageously

considered in connection. This has determined me to refer it to the

branch of our inquiries upon which we shall next enter.

PUBLIUS.