>FEDERALIST No. 31 (Hamilton)                                  .



The Same Subject Continued

(Concerning the General Power of Taxation)

From the New York Packet.

Tuesday, January 1, 1788.



HAMILTON



To the People of the State of New York:

IN DISQUISITIONS of every kind, there are certain primary

 truths, or first principles, upon which all subsequent reasonings

 must depend. These contain an internal evidence which, antecedent

 to all reflection or combination, commands the assent of the mind.

 Where it produces not this effect, it must proceed either from some

 defect or disorder in the organs of perception, or from the

 influence of some strong interest, or passion, or prejudice. Of

 this nature are the maxims in geometry, that ``the whole is greater

 than its part; things equal to the same are equal to one another;

 two straight lines cannot enclose a space; and all right angles

 are equal to each other.'' Of the same nature are these other

 maxims in ethics and politics, that there cannot be an effect

 without a cause; that the means ought to be proportioned to the

 end; that every power ought to be commensurate with its object;

 that there ought to be no limitation of a power destined to effect

 a purpose which is itself incapable of limitation. And there are

 other truths in the two latter sciences which, if they cannot

 pretend to rank in the class of axioms, are yet such direct

 inferences from them, and so obvious in themselves, and so agreeable

 to the natural and unsophisticated dictates of common-sense, that

 they challenge the assent of a sound and unbiased mind, with a

 degree of force and conviction almost equally irresistible.

The objects of geometrical inquiry are so entirely abstracted

 from those pursuits which stir up and put in motion the unruly

 passions of the human heart, that mankind, without difficulty, adopt

 not only the more simple theorems of the science, but even those

 abstruse paradoxes which, however they may appear susceptible of

 demonstration, are at variance with the natural conceptions which

 the mind, without the aid of philosophy, would be led to entertain

 upon the subject. The INFINITE DIVISIBILITY of matter, or, in other

 words, the INFINITE divisibility of a FINITE thing, extending even

 to the minutest atom, is a point agreed among geometricians, though

 not less incomprehensible to common-sense than any of those

 mysteries in religion, against which the batteries of infidelity

 have been so industriously leveled.

But in the sciences of morals and politics, men are found far

 less tractable. To a certain degree, it is right and useful that

 this should be the case. Caution and investigation are a necessary

 armor against error and imposition. But this untractableness may be

 carried too far, and may degenerate into obstinacy, perverseness, or

 disingenuity. Though it cannot be pretended that the principles of

 moral and political knowledge have, in general, the same degree of

 certainty with those of the mathematics, yet they have much better

 claims in this respect than, to judge from the conduct of men in

 particular situations, we should be disposed to allow them. The

 obscurity is much oftener in the passions and prejudices of the

 reasoner than in the subject. Men, upon too many occasions, do not

 give their own understandings fair play; but, yielding to some

 untoward bias, they entangle themselves in words and confound

 themselves in subtleties.

How else could it happen (if we admit the objectors to be

 sincere in their opposition), that positions so clear as those which

 manifest the necessity of a general power of taxation in the

 government of the Union, should have to encounter any adversaries

 among men of discernment? Though these positions have been

 elsewhere fully stated, they will perhaps not be improperly

 recapitulated in this place, as introductory to an examination of

 what may have been offered by way of objection to them. They are in

 substance as follows:

A government ought to contain in itself every power requisite to

 the full accomplishment of the objects committed to its care, and to

 the complete execution of the trusts for which it is responsible,

 free from every other control but a regard to the public good and to

 the sense of the people.

As the duties of superintending the national defense and of

 securing the public peace against foreign or domestic violence

 involve a provision for casualties and dangers to which no possible

 limits can be assigned, the power of making that provision ought to

 know no other bounds than the exigencies of the nation and the

 resources of the community.

As revenue is the essential engine by which the means of

 answering the national exigencies must be procured, the power of

 procuring that article in its full extent must necessarily be

 comprehended in that of providing for those exigencies.

As theory and practice conspire to prove that the power of

 procuring revenue is unavailing when exercised over the States in

 their collective capacities, the federal government must of

 necessity be invested with an unqualified power of taxation in the

 ordinary modes.

Did not experience evince the contrary, it would be natural to

 conclude that the propriety of a general power of taxation in the

 national government might safely be permitted to rest on the

 evidence of these propositions, unassisted by any additional

 arguments or illustrations. But we find, in fact, that the

 antagonists of the proposed Constitution, so far from acquiescing in

 their justness or truth, seem to make their principal and most

 zealous effort against this part of the plan. It may therefore be

 satisfactory to analyze the arguments with which they combat it.

Those of them which have been most labored with that view, seem

 in substance to amount to this: ``It is not true, because the

 exigencies of the Union may not be susceptible of limitation, that

 its power of laying taxes ought to be unconfined. Revenue is as

 requisite to the purposes of the local administrations as to those

 of the Union; and the former are at least of equal importance with

 the latter to the happiness of the people. It is, therefore, as

 necessary that the State governments should be able to command the

 means of supplying their wants, as that the national government

 should possess the like faculty in respect to the wants of the Union.

 But an indefinite power of taxation in the LATTER might, and

 probably would in time, deprive the FORMER of the means of providing

 for their own necessities; and would subject them entirely to the

 mercy of the national legislature. As the laws of the Union are to

 become the supreme law of the land, as it is to have power to pass

 all laws that may be NECESSARY for carrying into execution the

 authorities with which it is proposed to vest it, the national

 government might at any time abolish the taxes imposed for State

 objects upon the pretense of an interference with its own. It might

 allege a necessity of doing this in order to give efficacy to the

 national revenues. And thus all the resources of taxation might by

 degrees become the subjects of federal monopoly, to the entire

 exclusion and destruction of the State governments.''

This mode of reasoning appears sometimes to turn upon the

 supposition of usurpation in the national government; at other

 times it seems to be designed only as a deduction from the

 constitutional operation of its intended powers. It is only in the

 latter light that it can be admitted to have any pretensions to

 fairness. The moment we launch into conjectures about the

 usurpations of the federal government, we get into an unfathomable

 abyss, and fairly put ourselves out of the reach of all reasoning.

 Imagination may range at pleasure till it gets bewildered amidst

 the labyrinths of an enchanted castle, and knows not on which side

 to turn to extricate itself from the perplexities into which it has

 so rashly adventured. Whatever may be the limits or modifications

 of the powers of the Union, it is easy to imagine an endless train

 of possible dangers; and by indulging an excess of jealousy and

 timidity, we may bring ourselves to a state of absolute scepticism

 and irresolution. I repeat here what I have observed in substance

 in another place, that all observations founded upon the danger of

 usurpation ought to be referred to the composition and structure of

 the government, not to the nature or extent of its powers. The

 State governments, by their original constitutions, are invested

 with complete sovereignty. In what does our security consist

 against usurpation from that quarter? Doubtless in the manner of

 their formation, and in a due dependence of those who are to

 administer them upon the people. If the proposed construction of

 the federal government be found, upon an impartial examination of

 it, to be such as to afford, to a proper extent, the same species of

 security, all apprehensions on the score of usurpation ought to be

 discarded.

It should not be forgotten that a disposition in the State

 governments to encroach upon the rights of the Union is quite as

 probable as a disposition in the Union to encroach upon the rights

 of the State governments. What side would be likely to prevail in

 such a conflict, must depend on the means which the contending

 parties could employ toward insuring success. As in republics

 strength is always on the side of the people, and as there are

 weighty reasons to induce a belief that the State governments will

 commonly possess most influence over them, the natural conclusion is

 that such contests will be most apt to end to the disadvantage of

 the Union; and that there is greater probability of encroachments

 by the members upon the federal head, than by the federal head upon

 the members. But it is evident that all conjectures of this kind

 must be extremely vague and fallible: and that it is by far the

 safest course to lay them altogether aside, and to confine our

 attention wholly to the nature and extent of the powers as they are

 delineated in the Constitution. Every thing beyond this must be

 left to the prudence and firmness of the people; who, as they will

 hold the scales in their own hands, it is to be hoped, will always

 take care to preserve the constitutional equilibrium between the

 general and the State governments. Upon this ground, which is

 evidently the true one, it will not be difficult to obviate the

 objections which have been made to an indefinite power of taxation

 in the United States.

PUBLIUS.





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