Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 2.djvu/227

208 public the matter of the Message was more weighty than its manner. No kind of criticism had less political value than that wasted on the style of a public document.

Yet one thing was certainly wanting in this Message. No hint was given that Congress stood in danger of overstepping the limits of its powers, or would do well to return within them. This silence was not accidental; it marked the moment of separation between Jefferson and the old Republicans of 1798. Speaker Macon, John Randolph, and Joseph Nicholson soon showed that they meant to take no such view of their duties.

Hardly had legislation begun, when Randolph, November 26, made a report against the remission of duties on books imported for the use of schools and colleges. The Constitution, he said, was a grant of limited powers for general objects; its leading feature was an abhorrence of exclusive privileges; impost must be uniform; if Congress could exempt one class of the people from taxes, they might exempt other classes; and although the practice had been different, and philosophical apparatus for the use of schools was actually exempt by law, he believed that law to be unconstitutional. The doctrine, which if carried to its ultimate conclusions would have left hardly a tax on the statute-book, was accepted by the same House which had supported Randolph in defending the Louisiana purchase by arguments that, in President Jefferson's opinion, left no Constitution at all. Two