Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/501

 CH. XIV.] all the measures of the government, and of prostrating it, at the foot of the states. The American people have declared their constitution, and the laws made in pursuance thereof, to be supreme; but this principle would transfer the supremacy, in fact, to the states. If the states may tax one instrument, employed by the government in the execution of its powers, they may tax any, and every other instrument. They may tax the mail; they may tax the mint; they may tax patent rights; they may tax the papers of the custom-house; they may tax judicial process; they may tax all the means employed by the government, to an excess, which would defeat all the ends of government. This was not intended by the American people. They did not design to make their government dependent on the states. Gentlemen say, they do not claim the right to extend state taxation to these objects. They limit their pretensions to property. But on what principle is this distinction made? Those, who make it, have furnished no reason for it; and the principle, for which they contend, denies it. They contend, that the power of taxation has no other limit, than is found in the 10th section of the 1st article of the constitution; that, with respect to every thing else, the power of the states is supreme, and admits of no control. If this be true, the distinction between property and other subjects, to which the powder of taxation is applicable, is merely arbitrary, and can never be sustained. This is not all. If the controlling powder of the states be established; if their supremacy, as to taxation, be acknowledged; what is to restrain their exercising this control, in any shape they may please to give it? Their sovereignty is not confined to taxation. This is not the only mode, in which it might be displayed. The question is, in truth,