Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/499

 CH. XIV.] § 1036. If we measure the power of taxation residing in a state, by the extent of sovereignty, which the people of a single state possess, and can confer on its government, we have an intelligible standard, applicable to every case, to which the power may be applied. We have a principle, which leaves the power of taxing the people and property of a state unimpaired; which leaves to a state the command of all its resources; and which places beyond its reach all those powers, which are conferred by the people of the United States on the government of the Union, and all those means, which are given for the purpose of carrying those powers into execution. We have a principle, which is safe for the states, and safe for the Union. We are relieved, as we ought to be, from clashing sovereignty; from interfering powers; from a repugnancy between a right in one government to pull down, what there is an acknowledged right in another to build up; from the incompatibility of a right in one government to destroy, what there is a right in another to preserve. We are not driven to the perplexing inquiry, so unfit for the judicial department, what degree of taxation is the legitimate use, and what degree may amount to the abuse of the power. The attempt to use it on the means employed by the government of the Union, in pursuance of the constitution, is itself an abuse, because it is the usurpation of a power, which the people of a single state cannot give.

§ 1037. We find, then, on just theory, a total failure of this original right to tax the means employed by the government of the Union, for the execution of its powers. The right never existed; and the question, whether it has been surrendered, cannot arise.

§ 1038. But waiving this theory for the present, let