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 Union that 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[1] 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.
[1] The New England States.
THE FEDERALIST.
No. XXXVII.
Concerning the Difficulties of the Convention in Devising a Proper Form
of Government
From the Daily Advertiser.
Friday, January 11, 1788.
MADISON
To the People of the State of New York:
In reviewing the defects of the existing Confederation, and showing
that they cannot be supplied by a government of less energy than that
before the public, several of the most important principles of the
latter fell of course under consideration. But as the ultimate object
of these papers is to determine clearly and fully the merits of this
Constitution, and the expediency of adopting it, our plan cannot be
complete without taking a more critical and thorough survey of the work
of the convention, without examining it on all its sides, comparing it
in all its parts, and calculating its probable effects.
That this remaining task may be executed under impressions conducive to
a just and fair result, some reflections must in this place be
indulged, which candor previously suggests.
It is a misfortune, inseparable from human affairs, that public
measures are rarely investigated with that spirit of moderation which
is essential to a just estimate of their real tendency to advance or
obstruct the public good; and that this spirit is more apt to be
diminished than promoted, by those occasions which require an unusual
exercise of it. To those who have been led by experience to attend to
this consideration, it could not appear surprising, that the act of the
convention, which recommends so many important changes and innovations,
which may be viewed in so many lights and relations, and which touches
the springs of so many passions and interests, should find or excite
dispositions unfriendly, both on one side and on the other, to a fair
discussion and accurate judgment of its merits. In some, it has been
too evident from their own publications, that they have scanned the
proposed Constitution, not only with a predisposition to censure, but
with a predetermination to condemn; as the language held by others
betrays an opposite predetermination or bias, which must render their
opinions also of little moment in the question. In placing, however,
these different characters on a level, with respect to the weight of
their opinions, I wish not to insinuate that there may not be a
material difference in the purity of their intentions. It is but just
to remark in favor of the latter description, that as our situation is
universally admitted to be peculiarly critical, and to require
indispensably that something should be done for our relief, the
predetermined patron of what has been actually done may have taken his
bias from the weight of these considerations, as well as from
considerations of a sinister nature. The predetermined adversary, on
the other hand, can have been governed by no venial motive whatever.
The intentions of the first may be upright, as they may on the contrary
be culpable. The views of the last cannot be upright, and must be
culpable. But the truth is, that these papers are not addressed to
persons falling under either of these characters. They solicit the
attention of those only, who add to a sincere zeal for the happiness of
their country, a temper favorable to a just estimate of the means of
promoting it.
Persons of this character will proceed to an examination of the plan
submitted by the convention, not only without a disposition to find or
to magnify faults; but will see the propriety of reflecting, that a
faultless plan was not to be expected. Nor will they barely make
allowances for the errors which may be chargeable on the fallibility to
which the convention, as a body of men, were liable; but will keep in
mind, that they themselves also are but men, and ought not to assume an
infallibility in rejudging the fallible opinions of others.
With equal readiness will it be perceived, that besides these
inducements to candor, many allowances ought to be made for the
difficulties inherent in the very nature of the undertaking referred to
the convention.
The novelty of the undertaking immediately strikes us. It has been
shown in the course of these papers, that the existing Confederation is
founded on principles which are fallacious; that we must consequently
change this first foundation, and with it the superstructure resting
upon it. It has been shown, that the other confederacies which could be
consulted as precedents have been vitiated by the same erroneous
principles, and can therefore furnish no other light than that of
beacons, which give warning of the course to be shunned, without
pointing out that which ought to be pursued. The most that the
convention could do in such a situation, was to avoid the errors
suggested by the past experience of other countries, as well as of our
own; and to provide a convenient mode of rectifying their own errors,
as future experiences may unfold them.
Among the difficulties encountered by the convention, a very important
one must have lain in combining the requisite stability and energy in
government, with the inviolable attention due to liberty and to the
republican form. Without substantially accomplishing this part of their
undertaking, they would have very imperfectly fulfilled the object of
their appointment, or the expectation of the public; yet that it could
not be easily accomplished, will be denied by no one who is unwilling
to betray his ignorance of the subject. Energy in government is
essential to that security against external and internal danger, and to
that prompt and salutary execution of the laws which enter into the
very definition of good government. Stability in government is
essential to national character and to the advantages annexed to it, as
well as to that repose and confidence in the minds of the people, which
are among the chief blessings of civil society. An irregular and
mutable legislation is not more an evil in itself than it is odious to
the people; and it may be pronounced with assurance that the people of
this country, enlightened as they are with regard to the nature, and
interested, as the great body of them are, in the effects of good
government, will never be satisfied till some remedy be applied to the
vicissitudes and uncertainties which characterize the State
administrations. On comparing, however, these valuable ingredients with
the vital principles of liberty, we must perceive at once the
difficulty of mingling them together in their due proportions. The
genius of republican liberty seems to demand on one side, not only that
all power should be derived from the people, but that those intrusted
with it should be kept in independence on the people, by a short
duration of their appointments; and that even during this short period
the trust should be placed not in a few, but a number of hands.
Stability, on the contrary, requires that the hands in which power is
lodged should continue for a length of time the same. A frequent change
of men will result from a frequent return of elections; and a frequent
change of measures from a frequent change of men: whilst energy in
government requires not only a certain duration of power, but the
execution of it by a single hand.
How far the convention may have succeeded in this part of their work,
will better appear on a more accurate view of it. From the cursory view
here taken, it must clearly appear to have been an arduous part.
Not less arduous must have been the task of marking the proper line of
partition between the authority of the general and that of the State
governments. Every man will be sensible of this difficulty, in
proportion as he has been accustomed to contemplate and discriminate
objects extensive and complicated in their nature. The faculties of the
mind itself have never yet been distinguished and defined, with
satisfactory precision, by all the efforts of the most acute and
metaphysical philosophers. Sense, perception, judgment, desire,
volition, memory, imagination, are found to be separated by such
delicate shades and minute gradations that their boundaries have eluded
the most subtle investigations, and remain a pregnant source of
ingenious disquisition and controversy. The boundaries between the
great kingdom of nature, and, still more, between the various
provinces, and lesser portions, into which they are subdivided, afford
another illustration of the same important truth. The most sagacious
and laborious naturalists have never yet succeeded in tracing with
certainty the line which separates the district of vegetable life from
the neighboring region of unorganized matter, or which marks the
termination of the former and the commencement of the animal empire. A
still greater obscurity lies in the distinctive characters by which the
objects in each of these great departments of nature have been arranged
and assorted.
When we pass from the works of nature, in which all the delineations
are perfectly accurate, and appear to be otherwise only from the
imperfection of the eye which surveys them, to the institutions of man,
in which the obscurity arises as well from the object itself as from
the organ by which it is contemplated, we must perceive the necessity
of moderating still further our expectations and hopes from the efforts
of human sagacity. Experience has instructed us that no skill in the
science of government has yet been able to discriminate and define,
with sufficient certainty, its three great provinces the legislative,
executive, and judiciary; or even the privileges and powers of the
different legislative branches. Questions daily occur in the course of
practice, which prove the obscurity which reins in these subjects, and
which puzzle the greatest adepts in political science.