Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/170

156 to the convention by which it was formed, wrote thus in The Federalist:

"The power of taxation is the most important of the authorities proposed to be conferred on the Union."

The necessity of conferring adequate power in this particular upon the new Government which it was proposed to create was admitted by all; and yet there was no power which the people were more determined to guard, so that it could never be arbitrarily or unjustly exercised. And if it had not been supposed that the provisions of the new Constitution furnished ample security against any such action, not one of the States would have assented to its ratification.

The preamble of the Constitution asserts, almost in the first instance, that the object of its formation was to "establish justice," an obvious correlative of which is that there must be equality, and no discrimination in taxation as respects the same persons or things. In its first article (second section) it next provided that "representatives (in Congress) and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, excluding Indians not taxed." The explanation of this provision, which now seems singular, is undoubtedly to be found in the assumption of the framers of the Constitution that taxation in the future, as it had been in the past, would be mainly direct in its assessment and incidence; and that wealth was so equitably distributed in the colonies (as it was at that time), and, as Roger Sherman, of Connecticut, expressed it, "the number of people alone "was" the best rate of measuring wealth." And on such supposition the absolute requirement of a strict apportionment of taxation according to population, with an inherent penalty of loss in congressional representation as the result of evasion, was undoubtedly regarded as a safeguard against unjust or discriminating taxation.

Next, in section 8, article 1, after empowering Congress "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises," to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States, was added another provision, the like of which does not find an exact counterpart in any political constitution or statute of which there is historical record—namely, that "all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States." This provision is one of the first importance. It would seem that there could be no doubt that the framers of the Constitution, having specially in view the fact that, under the Articles of Confederation, the several States endeavored to tax everything belonging to every other State that came within their territorial jurisdiction, and that there was no authority on the part of the then General Government to prevent such action, did not mean