Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/537

 CH. XV.] and would certainly refuse it, if the result would be what the advocates of free trade contend for. In the next place, it would be utterly impracticable with such consent to protect their manufactures by any such local regulations. To be of any value they must be general, and uniform through the nation. This is not a matter of theory. Our whole experience under the confederation established beyond all controversy the utter local futility, and even the general mischiefs of independent state legislation upon such a subject. It furnished one of the strongest grounds for the establishment of the constitution.

§ 1082. In the next place, if revenue be the sole legitimate object of an impost, and the encouragement of domestic manufactures be not within the scope of the power of regulating trade, it would follow, (as has been already hinted,) that no monopolizing or unequal regulations of foreign nations could be counteracted. Under such circumstances, neither the staple articles of subsistence, nor the essential implements for the public safety, could be adequately ensured or protected at home by our regulations of commerce. The duty might be wholly unnecessary for revenue; and incidentally, it might even check revenue. But, if congress may, in arrangements for revenue, incidentally and designedly protect domestic manufactures, what ground is there to suggest, that they may not incorporate this design through the whole system of duties, and select and arrange them accordingly? There is no constitutional measure, by which to graduate, how much shall be assessed for revenue, and how much for encouragement of home industry. And no system ever yet 67