Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/504

 496 and in full force. The power operates upon the contract, the instant it is framed, and must imply a right to affect that contract. If the states and corporations throughout the Union, possess the power to tax a contract for the loan of money, what shall arrest this principle in its application to every other contract? What measure can government adopt, which will not be exposed to its influence?

§ 1043. But it is unnecessary to pursue this principle, through its diversified application to all the contracts, and to the various operations of government. No one can be selected, which is of more vital interest to the community, than this of borrowing money on the credit of the United States. No power has been conferred by the American people on their government, the free and unburthened exercise of which more deeply affects every member of our republic. In war, when the honour, the safety, the independence of the nation are to be defended, when all its resources are to be strained to the utmost, credit must be brought in aid of taxation, and the abundant revenue of peace and prosperity must be anticipated to supply the exigencies, the urgent demands of the moment. The people, for objects the most important, which can occur in the progress of nations, have empowered their government to make these anticipations, "to borrow money on the credit of the United States." Can any thing be more dangerous, or more injurious, than the admission of a principle, which authorizes every state, and every corporation in the Union, which possesses the right of taxation, to burthen the exercise of this power at their discretion?

§ 1044. If the right to impose the tax exists, it is a right, which in its nature acknowledges no limits. It