Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/398

 390 by congress, and may fairly be deemed, that which the deliberate sense of a majority of the nation has at all times supported. This, too, seems to be the construction maintained by the Supreme Court of the United States. In the case of Gibbons v. Ogden, Mr. Chief Justice Marshall, in delivering the opinion of the court, said, Congress is authorized to lay and collect taxes, &c. to pay the debts, and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States. This does not interfere with the power of the states to tax for the support of their own governments; nor is the exercise of that power by the states an exercise of any portion of the power, that is granted to the United States. In imposing taxes for state purposes, they are not doing, what congress is empowered to do. Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes, which are within the exclusive province of the states. When, then, each government is exercising the power of taxation, neither is exercising the power of the other. Under such circumstances, it is not, perhaps, too much to contend, that it is the truest, the safest, and the most authoritative construction of the constitution.

§ 925. The view thus taken of this clause of the constitution will receive some confirmation, (if it should be thought by any person necessary,) by an historical examination of the proceedings of the convention.