Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/466

 458 domestic character, is in the bounty given in the cod-fisheries, which was strenuously resisted on constitutional grounds in 1792; but which still maintains its place in the statute book of the United States.

§ 989. No more need be said upon this subject in this place. It will be necessarily resumed again in the discussion of other clauses of the constitution, and especially of the powers to regulate commerce, to establish post-offices and post-roads, and to make internal improvements.

§ 990. In order to prevent the necessity of recurring again to the subject of taxation, it seems desirable to bring together, in this connection, all the remaining provisions of the constitution on this subject, though they are differently arranged in that instrument. The first one is, "no capitation or other direct tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census, or enumeration, herein before directed to be taken." This includes poll taxes, and land taxes, as has been already remarked.

§ 991. The object of this clause doubtless is, to secure the Southern states against any undue proportion of taxation; and, as nearly as practicable, to overcome the necessary inequalities of direct tax. The South has a very large slave population; and consequently a poll tax, which should be laid by the rule of uniformity, would operate with peculiar severity on them. It would tax their property beyond its supposed