Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/401

381 THE STATUS OF OUR NEW TERRITORIES. 38 1 It is, however, only a dictum^ as the learned Chief Justice himself admits. The circumstances of the case were these. Jan. 9, 1815, Congress passed an Act ^ laying an annual direct tax of $6,000,000 upon the United States, which sum it proceeded to apportion among the eighteen then existing States. Feb. 27, 181 5, Congress passed another Act,^ which in efifect extended the first Act to the District of Columbia. The plaintiff having refused to pay his share of the tax imposed upon the District by the second Act, claiming that the Act was unconstitutional, his property was seized, and he brought trespass against the officer making the seizure. The plaintiff's claim admitted of a very short answer, namely, that by Art. I of the Constitution, Section 8, subsection 17, Congress had all the power within the District that it had in any State plus the power of the legislature of that State, and, therefore, had an unqualified power of taxation. Still, the' Chief Justice thought it desirable (for what reason is not very apparent) to show that Con- gress also had the power to impose the tax under the same grants of power by which it was authorized to pass the first Act. Accord- ingly, he said, first, the power given to Congress to lay and col- lect taxes was in terms without limitation as to place; secondly, the power to lay and collect taxes had the same extent as to place as the power to lay and collect duties, imposts, and excises; thirdly, the latter power was required to be exercised uniformly th/oughout the United States, and it could not be so exer- cised unless it extended throughout the United States; and this brought him to the question, what was meant by "United States" in the phrase, "throughout the United States." "Does this term," said he,^ "designate the whole or any particular portion of the American Empire? Certainly this question can admit of but one answer. It is the name given to our great republic, which is composed of States and Territories. The District of Colum- bia, or the territory west of the Missouri, is not less within the United States than Maryland or Pennsylvania." If this dic- tum be taken as simply giving one of the meanings of the term "United States," and without reference to the Constitution, its cor- rectness cannot be questioned; but it seems not to have occurred to its learned author that, while the meaning which he attributed to the term was one of its meanings, it had other meanings also; » C. 21, 3 Stats. 164. * C. 60, 3 Stats. 216.
 * 5 Wheat. 319.