Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v4.djvu/619

1828.] constructions, without any plea of precipitancy, or a paucity of the constructive precedents they oppose; without any appeal to material facts newly brought to light; without any claim to a better knowledge of the original evils and inconveniences for which remedies were needed—the very best keys to the true object and meaning of all laws and constitutions.

And may it not be fairly left to the unbiased judgment of all men of experience and of intelligence, to decide, which is most to be relied on for a sound and safe test of the meaning of a constitution,—a uniform interpretation by all the successive authorities under it, commencing with its birth, and continued for a long period, through the varied stale of political contests; or the opinion of every new legislature, heated as it may be by the strife of parties—or warped, as often happens, by the eager pursuit of some favorite object—or carried away, possibly, by the powerful eloquence or captivating addresses of a few popular statesmen, themselves, perhaps, influenced by the same misleading causes? If the latter test is to prevail, every new legislative opinion might make a new constitution, as the foot of every new chancellor would make a new standard of measure.

It is seen, with no little surprise, that an attempt has been made, in a highly-respectable quarter, and at length reduced to a resolution, formally proposed in Congress, to substitute, for the power of Congress to regulate trade so as to encourage manufactures, a power in the several states to do so, with the consent of that body; and this expedient is derived from a clause in the 10th section of article 1st of the Constitution, which says, "No state shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws; and the net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any state on imports and exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the Congress."

To say nothing of the clear indications in the Journal of the Convention of 1787, that the clause was intended merely to provide for expenses incurred by particular states, in their inspection laws, and in such improvements as they might choose to make in their harbors and rivers, with the sanction of Congress,—objects to which the reserved power has been applied, in several instances, at the request of Virginia and Georgia,—how could it ever be imagined that any state would wish to tax its own trade for the encouragement of manufactures, if possessed of the authority—or could, in fact, do so, if wishing it?

A tax on imports would be a tax on its own consumption; and the net proceeds going, according to the clause, not into its own treasury, but into the treasury of the United States, the state would tax itself separately for the equal gain of all the other states; and as far as the manufactures, so encouraged, might succeed in ultimately increasing the stock in market, and lowering the price by competition, this advantage, also, procured at the sole expense of the state, would be common to all the others.

But the very suggestion of such an expedient to any state would have an air of mockery, when its experienced impracticability is taken into view. No one, who recollects or recurs to the period when the power over commerce was in the individual states, and separate attempts were made to tax, or otherwise regulate it, need be told that the attempts were not only abortive, but, by demonstrating the necessity of general and uniform regulations, gave the original impulse to the constitutional reform which provided for such regulations.

To refer a state, therefore, to the exercise of a power, as reserved to her by the Constitution, the impossibility of exercising which was an inducement to adopt the Constitution, is, of all remedial devices, the last that ought to be brought forward. And what renders it the more extraordinary is, that, as the tax on commerce, as far as it could be separately collected, instead of belonging to the treasury of the state, as previous to the Constitution, would be a tribute to the United States, the state would be in a worse condition, after the adoption of the Constitution, than before, in reference to an important interest, the improvement of which was a particular object in adopting the Constitution.

Were Congress to make the proposed declaration of consent to state tariffs in favor of state manufactures, and the permitted attempts did not defeat