Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/472

 464 extends throughout the United States, it follows, that the power to impose direct taxes also extends throughout the United States.

§ 997. The extent of the grant being ascertained, how far is it abridged by any part of the constitution? The twentieth section of the first article declares, that "representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states, which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers."

§ 998. The object of this regulation is, we think, to furnish a standard, by which taxes are to be apportioned, not to exempt from their operation any part of our country. Had the intention been to exempt from taxation those, who are not represented in congress, that intention would have been expressed in direct terms. The power having been expressly granted, the exception would have been expressly made. But a limitation can scarcely be said to be insinuated. The words used do not mean, that direct taxes shall be imposed on states only, which are represented, or shall be apportioned to representatives; but that direct taxation, in its application to states, shall be apportioned to numbers. Representation is not made the foundation of taxation. If, under the enumeration of a representative for every 30,000 souls, one state had been found to contain 59,000, and another 60,000, the first would have been entitled to only one representative, and the last to two. Their taxes, however, would not have been as one to two, but as fifty-nine to sixty. This clause was obviously not intended to create any exemption from taxation, or to make taxation dependent on representation, but to furnish a standard for the apportionment of each on the states.