Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/456

 448 to the states; as the power to raise money from the people, whether it be by taxes, duties, imposts, or excises, though concurrent in the states, as to taxes and excises, must necessarily do. But the use or application of the money, after it is raised, is a power altogether of a different character. It imposes no burthen on the people, nor can it act on them in a sense to take power from the states; or in any sense, in which power can be controverted, or become a question between the two governments. The application of money raised under a lawful power, is a right or grant, which may be abused. It may be applied partially among the states, or to improper purposes in our foreign and domestic concerns; but still it is a power not felt in the sense of other powers; since the only complaint, which any state can make of such partiality and abuse is, that some other state or states have obtained greater benefit from the application, than, by a just rule of apportionment, they were entitled to. The right of appropriation is, therefore, from its nature, secondary and incidental to the right of raising money; and it was proper to place it in the same grant, and same clause with that right. By finding them then in that order, we see a new proof of the sense, in which the grant was made, corresponding with the view herein taken of it.

§ 979. The last part of this grant, which provides, that all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States, furnishes another strong proof, that it was not intended, that the second part should constitute a distinct grant, in the sense above stated, or convey any other right, than that of appropriation. This provision operates exclusively on the power granted in the first part of the clause. It recites three branches of that power—duties, imposts, and