gether 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, so 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 defence, 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 we must be obliged to exceed this point, where can we stop short of an indefinite power of providing for emergencies as they may arise? Though it be 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 calculations: 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.

Admitting 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 unam

bitious 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 already 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, would be to calculate on the weaker springs of the human character.

What 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 answer 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 relate to the mere domestic police of a State, to the support of its legislative, executive, and judiciary 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 defence.

In 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 vain glorious 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.

But let us take a view of 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 expenditure. It is true, that several of the States, separately, are incumbered 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 ex

perience, will be for the mere support of their respective civil lists; to which, if we add all contingencies, the total amount in every State ought to fall considerably short of a million of dollars.

If it cannot be denied to be a just principle, that in framing the constitution of government for a nation, we ought in those provisions which are designed to be permanent, to calculate, not on temporary, but on permanent causes of expense; our attention would be directed to a provision in favour of the State governments for an annual sum of about 1,000,000 dollars; 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 that which has been stated? 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.

Suppose 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 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, onetenth 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.

The preceding train of observations 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 au"thority 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. PUBLIUS.

No. 35.-BY ALEXANDER HAMILTON.

The same subject continued.

BEFORE we proceed to examine any other objections to an indefinite power of taxation in the Union, I shall make one general remark; which is, that if the jurisdiction of the National Government, in the article of revenue, should be restricted to particular objects, it would naturally occasion an undue proportion of the public burthens to fall upon those objects. Two evils would spring from this source-the oppression of particular branches of industry, and an unequal distribution of the taxes, as well among the several States, as among the citizens of the same State.

Suppose, as has been contended for, the Federal power of taxation were to be confined to duties on imports; it is evident that the Government for want of being able to command other resources, would frequently be tempted to extend these duties to an injurious excess. There are persons who imagine that this can never be the case; since the higher they are, the more it is alleged they will tend to discour age an extravagant consumption, to produce a favourable balance of trade, and to promote domestic manufactures. But all extremes are pernicious in various ways. Exorbitant duties on imported articles serve to beget a general spirit of smuggling, which is always prejudicial to the fair trader, and eventually to the revenue itself: they tend to render other classes of the community tributary, in an improper degree, to the manufacturing classes, to whom they give a premature monopoly of the markets: they sometimes force industry out of its most natural channels into others, in which it flows with less advantage and in the last place, they oppress the merchant, who is often obliged to pay them himself without any retribution from the consuWhen the demand is equal to the quantity of goods at market, the consumer generally pays the duty; but when the markets happen to be overstocked, a great proportion falls upon the merchant, and sometimes not only exhausts his profits but breaks ir upon his capital. I am apt to think, that a division of the duty, bet een the seller and the buyer, more often happens than is commonly imagined. It is not always possible to raise the price of a commodity, in exact proportion to every additional imposition laid upon it. The merchant, especially in a country of small commercial capital, is often under a necessity of keeping prices down in order to a more expeditious sale.

mer.

The maxim, that the consumer is the payer, is so much oftener true than the reverse of the proposition, that it is far more equitable that the duties on imports should go into a common stock, than that they should redound to the exclusive benefit of the importing States. But it is not

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so generally true, as to render it equitable, that those duties should form the only National fund. When they are paid by the merchant, they operate as an additional tax upon the importing State; whose citizens 'pay their proportion of them in the character of consumers. In this view, they are productive of inequality among the States; which inequality would be increased, with the increased extent of the duties. The confinement of the National revenues to this species of imposts, would be attended with inequality, from a different cause, between the manufacturing and the non-manufacturing States. The States which can go furthest towards the supply of their own wants, by their own manufactures, will not, according to their numbers or wealth, consume so great a proportion of imported articles, as those States which are not in the same favourable situation. They would not, therefore, in this mode alone, contribute to the public treasury in a ratio to their abilities. To make them do this, it is necessary that recourse be had to excises; the proper objects of which are particular kinds of manufactures. New York is more deeply interested in these considerations, than such of her citizens as contend for limiting the power of the Union to external taxation, may be aware of. New York is an importing State, and from a greater disproportion between her population and territory, is less likely than some other States, speedily to become in any considerable degree a manufacturing State. She would of course suffer, in a double light, from restraining the jurisdiction of the Union to commercial imposts.

So far as these observations tend to inculcate a danger of the import duties being extended to an injurious extreme, it may be observed, conformably to a remark made in another part of these papers, that the interest of the revenue itself would be a sufficient guard against such an extreme. I readily admit that this would be the case, as long as other resources were open; but if the avenues to them were closed, HOPE, stimulated by necessity, might beget experiments, fortified by rigorous precautions and additional penalties; which, for a time, might have the intended effect, till there had been leisure to contrive expedients to elude these new precautions. The first success would be apt to inspire false opinions; which it might require a long course of subsequent experience to correct. Necessity, especially in politics, often occasions false hopes, false reasonings, and a system of measures correspondently erroneous. But even if this supposed excess should not be a consequence of the limitation of the Federal power of taxation, the inequalities spoken of would still ensue, though not in the same degree, from the other causes that have been noticed. Let us now return to the examination of objections.

One which, if we may judge from the frequency of its repetition, seems most to be relied on, is, that the House of Representatives is not sufficiently numerous for the reception of all the different classes of citizens; in order to combine the interests and feelings of every part of the community, and to produce a due sympathy between the representative body and its constituents. This argument presents itself under a very specious and seducing form; and is well calculated to lay hold of the