Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/444

 436, independent power. In the view of those, who maintain this opinion, the power, being general, cannot with any consistency be restrained to purposes of revenue.

§ 966. The next is, that the power is restrained by the subsequent clause, so that it is a power to lay taxes in order to pay debts, and to provide for the common defence and general welfare. Is raising revenue the only proper mode to provide for the common defence and general welfare? May not the general welfare, in the judgment of congress, be, in given circumstances, as well provided for, nay better provided for, by prohibitory duties, or by encouragements to domestic industry of all sorts? If a tax of one sort, as on tonnage, or foreign vessels, will aid commerce, and a tax on foreign raw materials will aid agriculture, and a tax on imported fabrics will aid domestic manufactures, and so promote the general welfare; may they not be all constitutionally united by congress in a law for this purpose? If congress can unite them all, may they not sustain them severally in separate laws? Is a tax to aid manufactures, or agriculture, or commerce, necessarily, or even naturally, against the general welfare, or the common defence? Who is to decide upon such a point? Congress, to whom the authority is given to exercise the power? Or any other body, state or national, which may choose to assume it?

§ 967. Besides; if a particular act of congress, not for revenue, should be deemed an excess of the powers; does it follow, that all other acts are so? If the common defence or general welfare can be promoted by laying taxes in any other manner, than for revenue, who is at liberty to say, that congress cannot constitutionally exercise the power for such a purpose? No