Page:Federalist, Dawson edition, 1863.djvu/358

 source of revenue for any sum beyond the extent of two hundred thousand pounds? 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 part 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, one tenth 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 observation will justify the position which has been elsewhere laid down, that " in the article of taxation was the only admissible substitute for an entire