Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/399

 CH. XIV.] The first resolution adopted by the convention on this subject of the powers of the general government, was that the national legislature ought to be empowered to enjoy the legislative rights vested in congress by the confederation, and moreover to legislate in all cases, to which the separate states are incompetent, or in which the harmony of the United States may be interrupted by the exercise of individual legislation. At a subsequent period, the latter clause was altered, so as to read thus: "And, moreover, to legislate in all cases for the general interests of the Union, and also in those, to which the states are separately incompetent, or in which the harmony of the United States may be interrupted by the exercise of individual legislation." When the first draft of the constitution was prepared, in pursuance of the resolutions of the convention, the clause respecting taxation (being the first section of the seventh article) stood thus: "The legislature of the United States shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises," without any qualification or limitation whatsoever.

§ 926. Afterwards a motion was made to refer certain propositions, and among others a proposition to secure the payment of the public debt, and to appropriate funds exclusively for that purpose, and to secure the public creditors from a violation of the public faith, when pledged by the authority of the legislature, to a select committee, (of five,) which was accordingly done. Another committee (of eleven) was appointed at the same time, to consider the necessity and expediency of the debts of the several states being assumed