prompt:
Chapter: The Same Subject Continued (The Idea of Restraining the Legislative
Authority in Regard to the Common Defense Considered)

For the Independent Journal. Wednesday, December 26, 1787

HAMILTON

To the People of the State of New York:

THAT there may happen cases in which the national government may be
necessitated to resort to force, cannot be denied. Our own experience
has corroborated the lessons taught by the examples of other nations;
that emergencies of this sort will sometimes arise in all societies,
however constituted; that seditions and insurrections are, unhappily,
maladies as inseparable from the body politic as tumors and eruptions
from the natural body; that the idea of governing at all times by the
simple force of law (which we have been told is the only admissible
principle of republican government), has no place but in the reveries
of those political doctors whose sagacity disdains the admonitions of
experimental instruction.

Should such emergencies at any time happen under the national
government, there could be no remedy but force. The means to be employed
must be proportioned to the extent of the mischief. If it should be a
slight commotion in a small part of a State, the militia of the residue
would be adequate to its suppression; and the national presumption is
that they would be ready to do their duty. An insurrection, whatever may
be its immediate cause, eventually endangers all government. Regard to
the public peace, if not to the rights of the Union, would engage the
citizens to whom the contagion had not communicated itself to oppose the
insurgents; and if the general government should be found in practice
conducive to the prosperity and felicity of the people, it were
irrational to believe that they would be disinclined to its support.

If, on the contrary, the insurrection should pervade a whole State, or a
principal part of it, the employment of a different kind of force might
become unavoidable. It appears that Massachusetts found it necessary
to raise troops for repressing the disorders within that State; that
Pennsylvania, from the mere apprehension of commotions among a part of
her citizens, has thought proper to have recourse to the same measure.
Suppose the State of New York had been inclined to re-establish her lost
jurisdiction over the inhabitants of Vermont, could she have hoped for
success in such an enterprise from the efforts of the militia alone?
Would she not have been compelled to raise and to maintain a more
regular force for the execution of her design? If it must then be
admitted that the necessity of recurring to a force different from the
militia, in cases of this extraordinary nature, is applicable to the
State governments themselves, why should the possibility, that the
national government might be under a like necessity, in similar
extremities, be made an objection to its existence? Is it not surprising
that men who declare an attachment to the Union in the abstract, should
urge as an objection to the proposed Constitution what applies with
tenfold weight to the plan for which they contend; and what, as far as
it has any foundation in truth, is an inevitable consequence of civil
society upon an enlarged scale? Who would not prefer that possibility
to the unceasing agitations and frequent revolutions which are the
continual scourges of petty republics?

Let us pursue this examination in another light. Suppose, in lieu of
one general system, two, or three, or even four Confederacies were to be
formed, would not the same difficulty oppose itself to the operations of
either of these Confederacies? Would not each of them be exposed to the
same casualties; and when these happened, be obliged to have recourse to
the same expedients for upholding its authority which are objected to in
a government for all the States? Would the militia, in this supposition,
be more ready or more able to support the federal authority than in the
case of a general union? All candid and intelligent men must, upon
due consideration, acknowledge that the principle of the objection is
equally applicable to either of the two cases; and that whether we
have one government for all the States, or different governments
for different parcels of them, or even if there should be an entire
separation of the States, there might sometimes be a necessity to make
use of a force constituted differently from the militia, to preserve the
peace of the community and to maintain the just authority of the laws
against those violent invasions of them which amount to insurrections
and rebellions.

Independent of all other reasonings upon the subject, it is a full
answer to those who require a more peremptory provision against military
establishments in time of peace, to say that the whole power of the
proposed government is to be in the hands of the representatives of the
people. This is the essential, and, after all, only efficacious security
for the rights and privileges of the people, which is attainable in
civil society.(1)

If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there
is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of
self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government,
and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted
with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of
the rulers of an individual state. In a single state, if the persons
intrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels,
subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct
government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The
citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without
system, without resource; except in their courage and despair. The
usurpers, clothed with the forms of legal authority, can too often crush
the opposition in embryo. The smaller the extent of the territory, the
more difficult will it be for the people to form a regular or systematic
plan of opposition, and the more easy will it be to defeat their
early efforts. Intelligence can be more speedily obtained of their
preparations and movements, and the military force in the possession
of the usurpers can be more rapidly directed against the part where
the opposition has begun. In this situation there must be a peculiar
coincidence of circumstances to insure success to the popular
resistance.

The obstacles to usurpation and the facilities of resistance increase
with the increased extent of the state, provided the citizens understand
their rights and are disposed to defend them. The natural strength
of the people in a large community, in proportion to the artificial
strength of the government, is greater than in a small, and of course
more competent to a struggle with the attempts of the government
to establish a tyranny. But in a confederacy the people, without
exaggeration, may be said to be entirely the masters of their own fate.
Power being almost always the rival of power, the general government
will at all times stand ready to check the usurpations of the state
governments, and these will have the same disposition towards the
general government. The people, by throwing themselves into either
scale, will infallibly make it preponderate. If their rights are invaded
by either, they can make use of the other as the instrument of redress.
How wise will it be in them by cherishing the union to preserve to
themselves an advantage which can never be too highly prized!

It may safely be received as an axiom in our political system, that the
State governments will, in all possible contingencies, afford complete
security against invasions of the public liberty by the national
authority. Projects of usurpation cannot be masked under pretenses so
likely to escape the penetration of select bodies of men, as of the
people at large. The legislatures will have better means of information.
They can discover the danger at a distance; and possessing all the
organs of civil power, and the confidence of the people, they can at
once adopt a regular plan of opposition, in which they can combine all
the resources of the community. They can readily communicate with each
other in the different States, and unite their common forces for the
protection of their common liberty.

The great extent of the country is a further security. We have already
experienced its utility against the attacks of a foreign power. And
it would have precisely the same effect against the enterprises of
ambitious rulers in the national councils. If the federal army should be
able to quell the resistance of one State, the distant States would
have it in their power to make head with fresh forces. The advantages
obtained in one place must be abandoned to subdue the opposition in
others; and the moment the part which had been reduced to submission was
left to itself, its efforts would be renewed, and its resistance revive.

We should recollect that the extent of the military force must, at all
events, be regulated by the resources of the country. For a long time to
come, it will not be possible to maintain a large army; and as the
means of doing this increase, the population and natural strength of the
community will proportionably increase. When will the time arrive
that the federal government can raise and maintain an army capable of
erecting a despotism over the great body of the people of an immense
empire, who are in a situation, through the medium of their State
governments, to take measures for their own defense, with all
the celerity, regularity, and system of independent nations? The
apprehension may be considered as a disease, for which there can be
found no cure in the resources of argument and reasoning.

PUBLIUS

1. Its full efficacy will be examined hereafter.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: In this paper, Hamilton acknowledges that there may be times in which the government must use force to maintain law and order. However, he contends that this is an unavoidable possibility in any political system. He argues that having a standing army, as opposed to just a militia, will be necessary at times to subdue large scale domestic insurrections or foreign aggression. Hamilton emphasizes that the people need not fear the military establishment because it will be controlled by a government run by the representatives of the people. However, if for some reason, the representatives of the people were to betray their constituents, the people would be better able to resist "the usurpation of the national rulers" than "those of the rulers of an individual state." If the national government were to use standing armies to usurp power, the people could rally around the state governments and resist the national rulers. The larger the polity, the harder it is for a government to gain absolute control. In the system designed by the proposed constitution, the state governments would act as natural checks on the national government and vice versa: "power being almost always the rival of power." However, if each state were totally independent and no national army existed, then state governments could more easily violate the rights of the people, who would have very limited means for organizing a strong resistance.


prompt:
Chapter: Concerning the Militia

From the New York Packet. Wednesday, January 9, 1788

HAMILTON

To the People of the State of New York:

THE power of regulating the militia, and of commanding its services in
times of insurrection and invasion are natural incidents to the duties
of superintending the common defense, and of watching over the internal
peace of the Confederacy.

It requires no skill in the science of war to discern that uniformity
in the organization and discipline of the militia would be attended with
the most beneficial effects, whenever they were called into service for
the public defense. It would enable them to discharge the duties of the
camp and of the field with mutual intelligence and concert an advantage
of peculiar moment in the operations of an army; and it would fit them
much sooner to acquire the degree of proficiency in military functions
which would be essential to their usefulness. This desirable uniformity
can only be accomplished by confiding the regulation of the militia to
the direction of the national authority. It is, therefore, with the most
evident propriety, that the plan of the convention proposes to empower
the Union "to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the
militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the
service of the United States, RESERVING TO THE STATES RESPECTIVELY THE
APPOINTMENT OF THE OFFICERS, AND THE AUTHORITY OF TRAINING THE MILITIA
ACCORDING TO THE DISCIPLINE PRESCRIBED BY CONGRESS."

Of the different grounds which have been taken in opposition to the
plan of the convention, there is none that was so little to have been
expected, or is so untenable in itself, as the one from which this
particular provision has been attacked. If a well-regulated militia be
the most natural defense of a free country, it ought certainly to
be under the regulation and at the disposal of that body which is
constituted the guardian of the national security. If standing armies
are dangerous to liberty, an efficacious power over the militia, in the
body to whose care the protection of the State is committed, ought, as
far as possible, to take away the inducement and the pretext to such
unfriendly institutions. If the federal government can command the aid
of the militia in those emergencies which call for the military arm in
support of the civil magistrate, it can the better dispense with the
employment of a different kind of force. If it cannot avail itself of
the former, it will be obliged to recur to the latter. To render an army
unnecessary, will be a more certain method of preventing its existence
than a thousand prohibitions upon paper.

In order to cast an odium upon the power of calling forth the militia
to execute the laws of the Union, it has been remarked that there is
nowhere any provision in the proposed Constitution for calling out the
POSSE COMITATUS, to assist the magistrate in the execution of his duty,
whence it has been inferred, that military force was intended to be his
only auxiliary. There is a striking incoherence in the objections
which have appeared, and sometimes even from the same quarter, not much
calculated to inspire a very favorable opinion of the sincerity or fair
dealing of their authors. The same persons who tell us in one breath,
that the powers of the federal government will be despotic and
unlimited, inform us in the next, that it has not authority sufficient
even to call out the POSSE COMITATUS. The latter, fortunately, is as
much short of the truth as the former exceeds it. It would be as absurd
to doubt, that a right to pass all laws NECESSARY AND PROPER to execute
its declared powers, would include that of requiring the assistance of
the citizens to the officers who may be intrusted with the execution
of those laws, as it would be to believe, that a right to enact laws
necessary and proper for the imposition and collection of taxes would
involve that of varying the rules of descent and of the alienation of
landed property, or of abolishing the trial by jury in cases relating to
it. It being therefore evident that the supposition of a want of power
to require the aid of the POSSE COMITATUS is entirely destitute of
color, it will follow, that the conclusion which has been drawn from it,
in its application to the authority of the federal government over the
militia, is as uncandid as it is illogical. What reason could there
be to infer, that force was intended to be the sole instrument of
authority, merely because there is a power to make use of it when
necessary? What shall we think of the motives which could induce men of
sense to reason in this manner? How shall we prevent a conflict between
charity and conviction?

By a curious refinement upon the spirit of republican jealousy, we are
even taught to apprehend danger from the militia itself, in the hands of
the federal government. It is observed that select corps may be formed,
composed of the young and ardent, who may be rendered subservient to the
views of arbitrary power. What plan for the regulation of the militia
may be pursued by the national government, is impossible to be foreseen.
But so far from viewing the matter in the same light with those who
object to select corps as dangerous, were the Constitution ratified, and
were I to deliver my sentiments to a member of the federal legislature
from this State on the subject of a militia establishment, I should hold
to him, in substance, the following discourse:

"The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is
as futile as it would be injurious, if it were capable of being carried
into execution. A tolerable expertness in military movements is a
business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a
week, that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great
body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to
be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and
evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of
perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated
militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public
inconvenience and loss. It would form an annual deduction from the
productive labor of the country, to an amount which, calculating upon
the present numbers of the people, would not fall far short of the whole
expense of the civil establishments of all the States. To attempt
a thing which would abridge the mass of labor and industry to so
considerable an extent, would be unwise: and the experiment, if made,
could not succeed, because it would not long be endured. Little more
can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to
have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be
not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in
the course of a year.

"But though the scheme of disciplining the whole nation must be
abandoned as mischievous or impracticable; yet it is a matter of the
utmost importance that a well-digested plan should, as soon as possible,
be adopted for the proper establishment of the militia. The attention of
the government ought particularly to be directed to the formation of a
select corps of moderate extent, upon such principles as will really fit
them for service in case of need. By thus circumscribing the plan, it
will be possible to have an excellent body of well-trained militia,
ready to take the field whenever the defense of the State shall require
it. This will not only lessen the call for military establishments, but
if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an
army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties
of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at
all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready
to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This
appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing
army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist."

Thus differently from the adversaries of the proposed Constitution
should I reason on the same subject, deducing arguments of safety
from the very sources which they represent as fraught with danger and
perdition. But how the national legislature may reason on the point, is
a thing which neither they nor I can foresee.

There is something so far-fetched and so extravagant in the idea of
danger to liberty from the militia, that one is at a loss whether to
treat it with gravity or with raillery; whether to consider it as a mere
trial of skill, like the paradoxes of rhetoricians; as a disingenuous
artifice to instil prejudices at any price; or as the serious offspring
of political fanaticism. Where in the name of common-sense, are our
fears to end if we may not trust our sons, our brothers, our neighbors,
our fellow-citizens? What shadow of danger can there be from men who
are daily mingling with the rest of their countrymen and who participate
with them in the same feelings, sentiments, habits and interests? What
reasonable cause of apprehension can be inferred from a power in the
Union to prescribe regulations for the militia, and to command its
services when necessary, while the particular States are to have the
SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE APPOINTMENT OF THE OFFICERS? If it were possible
seriously to indulge a jealousy of the militia upon any conceivable
establishment under the federal government, the circumstance of the
officers being in the appointment of the States ought at once to
extinguish it. There can be no doubt that this circumstance will always
secure to them a preponderating influence over the militia.

In reading many of the publications against the Constitution, a man is
apt to imagine that he is perusing some ill-written tale or romance,
which instead of natural and agreeable images, exhibits to the mind
nothing but frightful and distorted shapes--

                "Gorgons, hydras, and chimeras dire";

discoloring and disfiguring whatever it represents, and transforming
everything it touches into a monster.

A sample of this is to be observed in the exaggerated and improbable
suggestions which have taken place respecting the power of calling for
the services of the militia. That of New Hampshire is to be marched to
Georgia, of Georgia to New Hampshire, of New York to Kentucky, and of
Kentucky to Lake Champlain. Nay, the debts due to the French and Dutch
are to be paid in militiamen instead of louis d'ors and ducats. At one
moment there is to be a large army to lay prostrate the liberties of the
people; at another moment the militia of Virginia are to be dragged from
their homes five or six hundred miles, to tame the republican contumacy
of Massachusetts; and that of Massachusetts is to be transported an
equal distance to subdue the refractory haughtiness of the aristocratic
Virginians. Do the persons who rave at this rate imagine that their
art or their eloquence can impose any conceits or absurdities upon the
people of America for infallible truths?

If there should be an army to be made use of as the engine of despotism,
what need of the militia? If there should be no army, whither would
the militia, irritated by being called upon to undertake a distant and
hopeless expedition, for the purpose of riveting the chains of slavery
upon a part of their countrymen, direct their course, but to the seat
of the tyrants, who had meditated so foolish as well as so wicked a
project, to crush them in their imagined intrenchments of power, and
to make them an example of the just vengeance of an abused and incensed
people? Is this the way in which usurpers stride to dominion over
a numerous and enlightened nation? Do they begin by exciting the
detestation of the very instruments of their intended usurpations? Do
they usually commence their career by wanton and disgustful acts
of power, calculated to answer no end, but to draw upon themselves
universal hatred and execration? Are suppositions of this sort the sober
admonitions of discerning patriots to a discerning people? Or are they
the inflammatory ravings of incendiaries or distempered enthusiasts?
If we were even to suppose the national rulers actuated by the most
ungovernable ambition, it is impossible to believe that they would
employ such preposterous means to accomplish their designs.

In times of insurrection, or invasion, it would be natural and proper
that the militia of a neighboring State should be marched into another,
to resist a common enemy, or to guard the republic against the violence
of faction or sedition. This was frequently the case, in respect to the
first object, in the course of the late war; and this mutual succor is,
indeed, a principal end of our political association. If the power of
affording it be placed under the direction of the Union, there will
be no danger of a supine and listless inattention to the dangers of
a neighbor, till its near approach had superadded the incitements of
self-preservation to the too feeble impulses of duty and sympathy.

PUBLIUS

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Hamilton address criticisms of the constitution's provisions for federal control of the militia. Specifically, the constitution empowers the union "to provide for organizing, arming and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving the states respectively the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by congress." Hamilton defends this provision by stating that it will reduce the need for large standing armies, which were widely viewed as a threat to liberty. He furthermore rejects the criticism that the authors of the constitution intended to create a system in which military force would be the primary instrument for enforcing legislation. The critics based their claim on the fact that the constitution lacks any provision for magistrates employing the use of the posse comitatus, which is the authority of a magistrate to enlist the services of able-bodied men to assist him in enforcing the law. Essentially, the critics are claiming that by not specifically authorizing posse comitatus, the constitution is setting up a system under which the government would have to resort to military forces to execute its duties rather than relying the citizens themselves. However, Hamilton points out that the authority granted to congress to "pass all laws necessary and proper to execute its declared powers" would include the authority to require citizens to help officers enforce the law. Hamilton also suggests how the national government may choose to regulate the militia. He suggests that most militiamen would only muster once a year to ensure that they are properly armed and equipped. In addition there would be a select force that would be more highly trained and stand ready to quickly take to the field whenever the defense of the state required it. Hamilton furthermore dismisses the claim that granting the federal government authority over state militias would lead to the government using these militias as instruments of tyranny. In particular, critics claimed that one state militia would be used to oppress the people of a different state. Hamilton argues that state militias would never be willing to do such a thing and would instead overthrow the tyrants who issued such orders. Furthermore, the states would retain the right to appoint the officers of the militia, which would guard against them becoming instruments of tyranny. Finally, Hamilton asserts that federal control over the militia would allow the national government to deploy state militias to different states in times of war. If the national government did not have the authority to do this, then some states might end up bearing a disproportionately high burden during wartime.


prompt:
Chapter: Concerning the General Power of Taxation

From the New York Packet. Friday, December 28, 1787.

HAMILTON

To the People of the State of New York:

IT HAS been already observed that the federal government ought to
possess the power of providing for the support of the national forces;
in which proposition was intended to be included the expense of raising
troops, of building and equipping fleets, and all other expenses in any
wise connected with military arrangements and operations. But these are
not the only objects to which the jurisdiction of the Union, in respect
to revenue, must necessarily be empowered to extend. It must embrace a
provision for the support of the national civil list; for the payment
of the national debts contracted, or that may be contracted; and, in
general, for all those matters which will call for disbursements out of
the national treasury. The conclusion is, that there must be interwoven,
in the frame of the government, a general power of taxation, in one
shape or another.

Money is, with propriety, considered as the vital principle of the body
politic; as that which sustains its life and motion, and enables it to
perform its most essential functions. A complete power, therefore, to
procure a regular and adequate supply of it, as far as the resources
of the community will permit, may be regarded as an indispensable
ingredient in every constitution. From a deficiency in this particular,
one of two evils must ensue; either the people must be subjected to
continual plunder, as a substitute for a more eligible mode of supplying
the public wants, or the government must sink into a fatal atrophy, and,
in a short course of time, perish.

In the Ottoman or Turkish empire, the sovereign, though in other
respects absolute master of the lives and fortunes of his subjects, has
no right to impose a new tax. The consequence is that he permits the
bashaws or governors of provinces to pillage the people without mercy;
and, in turn, squeezes out of them the sums of which he stands in need,
to satisfy his own exigencies and those of the state. In America, from
a like cause, the government of the Union has gradually dwindled into a
state of decay, approaching nearly to annihilation. Who can doubt,
that the happiness of the people in both countries would be promoted by
competent authorities in the proper hands, to provide the revenues which
the necessities of the public might require?

The present Confederation, feeble as it is intended to repose in the
United States, an unlimited power of providing for the pecuniary wants
of the Union. But proceeding upon an erroneous principle, it has been
done in such a manner as entirely to have frustrated the intention.
Congress, by the articles which compose that compact (as has already
been stated), are authorized to ascertain and call for any sums of money
necessary, in their judgment, to the service of the United States; and
their requisitions, if conformable to the rule of apportionment, are
in every constitutional sense obligatory upon the States. These have no
right to question the propriety of the demand; no discretion beyond
that of devising the ways and means of furnishing the sums demanded.
But though this be strictly and truly the case; though the assumption of
such a right would be an infringement of the articles of Union; though
it may seldom or never have been avowedly claimed, yet in practice it
has been constantly exercised, and would continue to be so, as long
as the revenues of the Confederacy should remain dependent on the
intermediate agency of its members. What the consequences of this system
have been, is within the knowledge of every man the least conversant in
our public affairs, and has been amply unfolded in different parts of
these inquiries. It is this which has chiefly contributed to reduce
us to a situation, which affords ample cause both of mortification to
ourselves, and of triumph to our enemies.

What remedy can there be for this situation, but in a change of the
system which has produced it in a change of the fallacious and delusive
system of quotas and requisitions? What substitute can there be imagined
for this ignis fatuus in finance, but that of permitting the national
government to raise its own revenues by the ordinary methods of taxation
authorized in every well-ordered constitution of civil government?
Ingenious men may declaim with plausibility on any subject; but no
human ingenuity can point out any other expedient to rescue us from the
inconveniences and embarrassments naturally resulting from defective
supplies of the public treasury.

The more intelligent adversaries of the new Constitution admit the force
of this reasoning; but they qualify their admission by a distinction
between what they call INTERNAL and EXTERNAL taxation. The former they
would reserve to the State governments; the latter, which they explain
into commercial imposts, or rather duties on imported articles,
they declare themselves willing to concede to the federal head. This
distinction, however, would violate the maxim of good sense and sound
policy, which dictates that every POWER ought to be in proportion to
its OBJECT; and would still leave the general government in a kind of
tutelage to the State governments, inconsistent with every idea of vigor
or efficiency. Who can pretend that commercial imposts are, or would be,
alone equal to the present and future exigencies of the Union? Taking
into the account the existing debt, foreign and domestic, upon any plan
of extinguishment which a man moderately impressed with the importance
of public justice and public credit could approve, in addition to the
establishments which all parties will acknowledge to be necessary, we
could not reasonably flatter ourselves, that this resource alone, upon
the most improved scale, would even suffice for its present necessities.
Its future necessities admit not of calculation or limitation; and upon
the principle, more than once adverted to, the power of making provision
for them as they arise ought to be equally unconfined. I believe it may
be regarded as a position warranted by the history of mankind, that,
IN THE USUAL PROGRESS OF THINGS, THE NECESSITIES OF A NATION, IN EVERY
STAGE OF ITS EXISTENCE, WILL BE FOUND AT LEAST EQUAL TO ITS RESOURCES.

To say that deficiencies may be provided for by requisitions upon the
States, is on the one hand to acknowledge that this system cannot be
depended upon, and on the other hand to depend upon it for every thing
beyond a certain limit. Those who have carefully attended to its vices
and deformities as they have been exhibited by experience or delineated
in the course of these papers, must feel invincible repugnancy to
trusting the national interests in any degree to its operation. Its
inevitable tendency, whenever it is brought into activity, must be to
enfeeble the Union, and sow the seeds of discord and contention between
the federal head and its members, and between the members themselves.
Can it be expected that the deficiencies would be better supplied
in this mode than the total wants of the Union have heretofore been
supplied in the same mode? It ought to be recollected that if less will
be required from the States, they will have proportionably less means
to answer the demand. If the opinions of those who contend for the
distinction which has been mentioned were to be received as evidence of
truth, one would be led to conclude that there was some known point in
the economy of national affairs at which it would be safe to stop and to
say: Thus far the ends of public happiness will be promoted by supplying
the wants of government, and all beyond this is unworthy of our care or
anxiety. How is it possible that a government half supplied and always
necessitous, can fulfill the purposes of its institution, can provide
for the security, advance the prosperity, or support the reputation of
the commonwealth? How can it ever possess either energy or stability,
dignity or credit, confidence at home or respectability abroad? How can
its administration be any thing else than a succession of expedients
temporizing, impotent, disgraceful? How will it be able to avoid a
frequent sacrifice of its engagements to immediate necessity? How can it
undertake or execute any liberal or enlarged plans of public good?

Let us attend to what would be the effects of this situation in the very
first war in which we should happen to be engaged. We will presume, for
argument's sake, that the revenue arising from the impost duties
answers the purposes of a provision for the public debt and of a peace
establishment for the Union. Thus circumstanced, a war breaks out. What
would be the probable conduct of the government in such an emergency?
Taught by experience that proper dependence could not be placed on the
success of requisitions, unable by its own authority to lay hold of
fresh resources, and urged by considerations of national danger,
would it not be driven to the expedient of diverting the funds already
appropriated from their proper objects to the defense of the State? It
is not easy to see how a step of this kind could be avoided; and if it
should be taken, it is evident that it would prove the destruction of
public credit at the very moment that it was becoming essential to
the public safety. To imagine that at such a crisis credit might be
dispensed with, would be the extreme of infatuation. In the modern
system of war, nations the most wealthy are obliged to have recourse
to large loans. A country so little opulent as ours must feel this
necessity in a much stronger degree. But who would lend to a government
that prefaced its overtures for borrowing by an act which demonstrated
that no reliance could be placed on the steadiness of its measures for
paying? The loans it might be able to procure would be as limited in
their extent as burdensome in their conditions. They would be made
upon the same principles that usurers commonly lend to bankrupt and
fraudulent debtors, with a sparing hand and at enormous premiums.

It may perhaps be imagined that, from the scantiness of the resources
of the country, the necessity of diverting the established funds in the
case supposed would exist, though the national government should possess
an unrestrained power of taxation. But two considerations will serve
to quiet all apprehension on this head: one is, that we are sure the
resources of the community, in their full extent, will be brought into
activity for the benefit of the Union; the other is, that whatever
deficiences there may be, can without difficulty be supplied by loans.

The power of creating new funds upon new objects of taxation, by its own
authority, would enable the national government to borrow as far as
its necessities might require. Foreigners, as well as the citizens of
America, could then reasonably repose confidence in its engagements; but
to depend upon a government that must itself depend upon thirteen other
governments for the means of fulfilling its contracts, when once its
situation is clearly understood, would require a degree of credulity
not often to be met with in the pecuniary transactions of mankind, and
little reconcilable with the usual sharp-sightedness of avarice.

Reflections of this kind may have trifling weight with men who hope to
see realized in America the halcyon scenes of the poetic or fabulous
age; but to those who believe we are likely to experience a common
portion of the vicissitudes and calamities which have fallen to the lot
of other nations, they must appear entitled to serious attention. Such
men must behold the actual situation of their country with painful
solicitude, and deprecate the evils which ambition or revenge might,
with too much facility, inflict upon it.

PUBLIUS

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: In this paper, Hamilton defends the constitution's provisions authorizing the national government to impose taxes on the people directly. Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress could only request funds from the states. Although the states were legally obligated to submit the funds, they often failed to do so, leaving the national government, according to Hamilton, unable to govern effectively. Hamilton argues that the national government must have sufficient resources to govern the country. He further warns that if the national government cannot raise revenue in a reliable fashion, then the national credit will suffer, since lenders will not trust the US government to pay back its loans. Unable to borrow money in times of crisis, especially wartime, the government would be unable to protect the interests of the United States.


prompt:
Chapter: The Same Subject Continued (Concerning the General Power of Taxation)

From the New York Packet. Tuesday, January 1, 1788.

HAMILTON

To the People of the State of New York:

IN DISQUISITIONS of every kind, there are certain primary truths, or
first principles, upon which all subsequent reasonings must depend.
These contain an internal evidence which, antecedent to all reflection
or combination, commands the assent of the mind. Where it produces not
this effect, it must proceed either from some defect or disorder in the
organs of perception, or from the influence of some strong interest, or
passion, or prejudice. Of this nature are the maxims in geometry, that
"the whole is greater than its part; things equal to the same are equal
to one another; two straight lines cannot enclose a space; and all right
angles are equal to each other." Of the same nature are these other
maxims in ethics and politics, that there cannot be an effect without
a cause; that the means ought to be proportioned to the end; that every
power ought to be commensurate with its object; that there ought to be
no limitation of a power destined to effect a purpose which is itself
incapable of limitation. And there are other truths in the two latter
sciences which, if they cannot pretend to rank in the class of axioms,
are yet such direct inferences from them, and so obvious in themselves,
and so agreeable to the natural and unsophisticated dictates of
common-sense, that they challenge the assent of a sound and unbiased
mind, with a degree of force and conviction almost equally irresistible.

The objects of geometrical inquiry are so entirely abstracted from those
pursuits which stir up and put in motion the unruly passions of the
human heart, that mankind, without difficulty, adopt not only the more
simple theorems of the science, but even those abstruse paradoxes which,
however they may appear susceptible of demonstration, are at variance
with the natural conceptions which the mind, without the aid of
philosophy, would be led to entertain upon the subject. The INFINITE
DIVISIBILITY of matter, or, in other words, the INFINITE divisibility of
a FINITE thing, extending even to the minutest atom, is a point agreed
among geometricians, though not less incomprehensible to common-sense
than any of those mysteries in religion, against which the batteries of
infidelity have been so industriously leveled.

But in the sciences of morals and politics, men are found far less
tractable. To a certain degree, it is right and useful that this should
be the case. Caution and investigation are a necessary armor against
error and imposition. But this untractableness may be carried too far,
and may degenerate into obstinacy, perverseness, or disingenuity.
Though it cannot be pretended that the principles of moral and political
knowledge have, in general, the same degree of certainty with those of
the mathematics, yet they have much better claims in this respect than,
to judge from the conduct of men in particular situations, we should be
disposed to allow them. The obscurity is much oftener in the passions
and prejudices of the reasoner than in the subject. Men, upon too many
occasions, do not give their own understandings fair play; but, yielding
to some untoward bias, they entangle themselves in words and confound
themselves in subtleties.

How else could it happen (if we admit the objectors to be sincere in
their opposition), that positions so clear as those which manifest the
necessity of a general power of taxation in the government of the Union,
should have to encounter any adversaries among men of discernment?
Though these positions have been elsewhere fully stated, they will
perhaps not be improperly recapitulated in this place, as introductory
to an examination of what may have been offered by way of objection to
them. They are in substance as follows:

A government ought to contain in itself every power requisite to the
full accomplishment of the objects committed to its care, and to the
complete execution of the trusts for which it is responsible, free from
every other control but a regard to the public good and to the sense of
the people.

As the duties of superintending the national defense and of securing the
public peace against foreign or domestic violence involve a provision
for casualties and dangers to which no possible limits can be assigned,
the power of making that provision ought to know no other bounds than
the exigencies of the nation and the resources of the community.

As revenue is the essential engine by which the means of answering
the national exigencies must be procured, the power of procuring that
article in its full extent must necessarily be comprehended in that of
providing for those exigencies.

As theory and practice conspire to prove that the power of procuring
revenue is unavailing when exercised over the States in their collective
capacities, the federal government must of necessity be invested with an
unqualified power of taxation in the ordinary modes.

Did not experience evince the contrary, it would be natural to conclude
that the propriety of a general power of taxation in the national
government might safely be permitted to rest on the evidence of these
propositions, unassisted by any additional arguments or illustrations.
But we find, in fact, that the antagonists of the proposed Constitution,
so far from acquiescing in their justness or truth, seem to make their
principal and most zealous effort against this part of the plan. It
may therefore be satisfactory to analyze the arguments with which they
combat it.

Those of them which have been most labored with that view, seem in
substance to amount to this: "It is not true, because the exigencies of
the Union may not be susceptible of limitation, that its power of laying
taxes ought to be unconfined. Revenue is as requisite to the purposes of
the local administrations as to those of the Union; and the former are
at least of equal importance with the latter to the happiness of the
people. It is, therefore, as necessary that the State governments should
be able to command the means of supplying their wants, as that the
national government should possess the like faculty in respect to the
wants of the Union. But an indefinite power of taxation in the LATTER
might, and probably would in time, deprive the FORMER of the means of
providing for their own necessities; and would subject them entirely to
the mercy of the national legislature. As the laws of the Union are to
become the supreme law of the land, as it is to have power to pass all
laws that may be NECESSARY for carrying into execution the authorities
with which it is proposed to vest it, the national government might at
any time abolish the taxes imposed for State objects upon the pretense
of an interference with its own. It might allege a necessity of doing
this in order to give efficacy to the national revenues. And thus
all the resources of taxation might by degrees become the subjects of
federal monopoly, to the entire exclusion and destruction of the State
governments."

This mode of reasoning appears sometimes to turn upon the supposition
of usurpation in the national government; at other times it seems to be
designed only as a deduction from the constitutional operation of its
intended powers. It is only in the latter light that it can be
admitted to have any pretensions to fairness. The moment we launch into
conjectures about the usurpations of the federal government, we get into
an unfathomable abyss, and fairly put ourselves out of the reach of all
reasoning. Imagination may range at pleasure till it gets bewildered
amidst the labyrinths of an enchanted castle, and knows not on which
side to turn to extricate itself from the perplexities into which it has
so rashly adventured. Whatever may be the limits or modifications of the
powers of the Union, it is easy to imagine an endless train of possible
dangers; and by indulging an excess of jealousy and timidity, we may
bring ourselves to a state of absolute scepticism and irresolution. I
repeat here what I have observed in substance in another place, that all
observations founded upon the danger of usurpation ought to be referred
to the composition and structure of the government, not to the nature
or extent of its powers. The State governments, by their original
constitutions, are invested with complete sovereignty. In what does our
security consist against usurpation from that quarter? Doubtless in the
manner of their formation, and in a due dependence of those who are to
administer them upon the people. If the proposed construction of the
federal government be found, upon an impartial examination of it, to be
such as to afford, to a proper extent, the same species of security, all
apprehensions on the score of usurpation ought to be discarded.

It should not be forgotten that a disposition in the State governments
to encroach upon the rights of the Union is quite as probable as a
disposition in the Union to encroach upon the rights of the State
governments. What side would be likely to prevail in such a conflict,
must depend on the means which the contending parties could employ
toward insuring success. As in republics strength is always on the side
of the people, and as there are weighty reasons to induce a belief that
the State governments will commonly possess most influence over them,
the natural conclusion is that such contests will be most apt to end to
the disadvantage of the Union; and that there is greater probability of
encroachments by the members upon the federal head, than by the federal
head upon the members. But it is evident that all conjectures of this
kind must be extremely vague and fallible: and that it is by far the
safest course to lay them altogether aside, and to confine our attention
wholly to the nature and extent of the powers as they are delineated in
the Constitution. Every thing beyond this must be left to the prudence
and firmness of the people; who, as they will hold the scales in their
own hands, it is to be hoped, will always take care to preserve
the constitutional equilibrium between the general and the State
governments. Upon this ground, which is evidently the true one, it will
not be difficult to obviate the objections which have been made to an
indefinite power of taxation in the United States.

PUBLIUS

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Hamilton defends the authority of the federal government to impose taxes "in the ordinary modes," as opposed to taxing the states in their collective capacities, with reference to three principles. First, a government ought to have enough power to fulfill its responsibilities. Second, since it is impossible to predict what problems the US government will face in the future, its ability to confront these challenges must not be unduly limited. Third, since all governments require money to fulfill their responsibilities, it must be granted the ability to generate revenue. Hamilton furthermore dismisses the conspiracy theories of the constitution's opponents who allege that granting the government the authority to tax the people directly will enable the national government to become tyrannical and leave state governments at "the mercy of the national legislature." Hamilton argues that the structure and composition of the government, rather than the excessive limitation of its powers, must be relied upon to guard against such usurpations.


prompt:
Chapter: The Same Subject Continued (Concerning the General Power of Taxation)

From The Independent Journal. Wednesday, January 2, 1788.

HAMILTON

To the People of the State of New York:

ALTHOUGH I am of opinion that there would be no real danger of the
consequences which seem to be apprehended to the State governments from
a power in the Union to control them in the levies of money, because
I am persuaded that the sense of the people, the extreme hazard of
provoking the resentments of the State governments, and a conviction of
the utility and necessity of local administrations for local purposes,
would be a complete barrier against the oppressive use of such a power;
yet I am willing here to allow, in its full extent, the justness of the
reasoning which requires that the individual States should possess an
independent and uncontrollable authority to raise their own revenues for
the supply of their own wants. And making this concession, I affirm that
(with the sole exception of duties on imports and exports) they would,
under the plan of the convention, retain that authority in the most
absolute and unqualified sense; and that an attempt on the part of the
national government to abridge them in the exercise of it, would be a
violent assumption of power, unwarranted by any article or clause of its
Constitution.

An entire consolidation of the States into one complete national
sovereignty would imply an entire subordination of the parts; and
whatever powers might remain in them, would be altogether dependent
on the general will. But as the plan of the convention aims only at
a partial union or consolidation, the State governments would clearly
retain all the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which
were not, by that act, EXCLUSIVELY delegated to the United States. This
exclusive delegation, or rather this alienation, of State sovereignty,
would only exist in three cases: where the Constitution in express terms
granted an exclusive authority to the Union; where it granted in one
instance an authority to the Union, and in another prohibited the States
from exercising the like authority; and where it granted an authority
to the Union, to which a similar authority in the States would be
absolutely and totally CONTRADICTORY and REPUGNANT. I use these terms to
distinguish this last case from another which might appear to resemble
it, but which would, in fact, be essentially different; I mean where the
exercise of a concurrent jurisdiction might be productive of occasional
interferences in the POLICY of any branch of administration, but
would not imply any direct contradiction or repugnancy in point of
constitutional authority. These three cases of exclusive jurisdiction
in the federal government may be exemplified by the following instances:
The last clause but one in the eighth section of the first article
provides expressly that Congress shall exercise "EXCLUSIVE LEGISLATION"
over the district to be appropriated as the seat of government. This
answers to the first case. The first clause of the same section empowers
Congress "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises"; and
the second clause of the tenth section of the same article declares
that, "NO STATE SHALL, without the consent of Congress, lay any imposts
or duties on imports or exports, except for the purpose of executing its
inspection laws." Hence would result an exclusive power in the Union
to lay duties on imports and exports, with the particular exception
mentioned; but this power is abridged by another clause, which declares
that no tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any State;
in consequence of which qualification, it now only extends to the DUTIES
ON IMPORTS. This answers to the second case. The third will be found in
that clause which declares that Congress shall have power "to establish
an UNIFORM RULE of naturalization throughout the United States." This
must necessarily be exclusive; because if each State had power to
prescribe a DISTINCT RULE, there could not be a UNIFORM RULE.

A case which may perhaps be thought to resemble the latter, but which
is in fact widely different, affects the question immediately under
consideration. I mean the power of imposing taxes on all articles other
than exports and imports. This, I contend, is manifestly a concurrent
and coequal authority in the United States and in the individual States.
There is plainly no expression in the granting clause which makes that
power EXCLUSIVE in the Union. There is no independent clause or sentence
which prohibits the States from exercising it. So far is this from being
the case, that a plain and conclusive argument to the contrary is to be
deduced from the restraint laid upon the States in relation to duties on
imports and exports. This restriction implies an admission that, if it
were not inserted, the States would possess the power it excludes;
and it implies a further admission, that as to all other taxes, the
authority of the States remains undiminished. In any other view it would
be both unnecessary and dangerous; it would be unnecessary, because if
the grant to the Union of the power of laying such duties implied the
exclusion of the States, or even their subordination in this particular,
there could be no need of such a restriction; it would be dangerous,
because the introduction of it leads directly to the conclusion which
has been mentioned, and which, if the reasoning of the objectors be
just, could not have been intended; I mean that the States, in all cases
to which the restriction did not apply, would have a concurrent power
of taxation with the Union. The restriction in question amounts to what
lawyers call a NEGATIVE PREGNANT that is, a NEGATION of one thing, and
an AFFIRMANCE of another; a negation of the authority of the States
to impose taxes on imports and exports, and an affirmance of their
authority to impose them on all other articles. It would be mere
sophistry to argue that it was meant to exclude them ABSOLUTELY from the
imposition of taxes of the former kind, and to leave them at liberty
to lay others SUBJECT TO THE CONTROL of the national legislature.
The restraining or prohibitory clause only says, that they shall not,
WITHOUT THE CONSENT OF CONGRESS, lay such duties; and if we are to
understand this in the sense last mentioned, the Constitution would then
be made to introduce a formal provision for the sake of a very absurd
conclusion; which is, that the States, WITH THE CONSENT of the national
legislature, might tax imports and exports; and that they might tax
every other article, UNLESS CONTROLLED by the same body. If this was the
intention, why not leave it, in the first instance, to what is alleged
to be the natural operation of the original clause, conferring a general
power of taxation upon the Union? It is evident that this could not
have been the intention, and that it will not bear a construction of the
kind.

As to a supposition of repugnancy between the power of taxation in the
States and in the Union, it cannot be supported in that sense which
would be requisite to work an exclusion of the States. It is, indeed,
possible that a tax might be laid on a particular article by a State
which might render it INEXPEDIENT that thus a further tax should be
laid on the same article by the Union; but it would not imply a
constitutional inability to impose a further tax. The quantity of the
imposition, the expediency or inexpediency of an increase on either
side, would be mutually questions of prudence; but there would be
involved no direct contradiction of power. The particular policy of
the national and of the State systems of finance might now and then not
exactly coincide, and might require reciprocal forbearances. It is not,
however a mere possibility of inconvenience in the exercise of powers,
but an immediate constitutional repugnancy that can by implication
alienate and extinguish a pre-existing right of sovereignty.

The necessity of a concurrent jurisdiction in certain cases results from
the division of the sovereign power; and the rule that all authorities,
of which the States are not explicitly divested in favor of the Union,
remain with them in full vigor, is not a theoretical consequence of that
division, but is clearly admitted by the whole tenor of the instrument
which contains the articles of the proposed Constitution. We there find
that, notwithstanding the affirmative grants of general authorities,
there has been the most pointed care in those cases where it was deemed
improper that the like authorities should reside in the States, to
insert negative clauses prohibiting the exercise of them by the States.
The tenth section of the first article consists altogether of such
provisions. This circumstance is a clear indication of the sense of the
convention, and furnishes a rule of interpretation out of the body of
the act, which justifies the position I have advanced and refutes every
hypothesis to the contrary.

PUBLIUS

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: This paper discusses the powers of the states and the federal government to impose taxes on the people. It discusses the notion of concurrent powers and exclusive powers as they relate to taxation. Concurrent powers are those that both the states and federal government share. Exclusive powers are those that only the states or the federal government can exercise. In the case of taxes, the authority of the federal government to levy taxes does not preclude the state governments from doing the same thing since taxation is a concurrent power. The only restriction on the authority of the state governments to levy taxes relates to duties on imports and exports. Congress can levy such taxes, but state governments can only do so with the consent of Congress. Hamilton acknowledges that the concurrent power of taxation could lead to situations in which state governments and the national government impose taxes on the same item, a situation that might be "inexpedient." However, Hamilton asserts that the prudence of governments can be relied on to avoid such situations. It is not necessarily a "direct contradiction of power" for a state government and Congress to impose the same tax.


prompt:
Chapter: The Same Subject Continued (Concerning the General Power of Taxation)

From The Independent Journal. Wednesday, January 2, 1788.

HAMILTON

To the People of the State of New York:

THE residue of the argument against the provisions of the Constitution
in respect to taxation is ingrafted upon the following clause. The last
clause of the eighth section of the first article of the plan under
consideration authorizes the national legislature "to make all laws
which shall be NECESSARY and PROPER for carrying into execution THE
POWERS by that Constitution vested in the government of the United
States, or in any department or officer thereof"; and the second clause
of the sixth article declares, "that the Constitution and the laws of
the United States made IN PURSUANCE THEREOF, and the treaties made by
their authority shall be the SUPREME LAW of the land, any thing in the
constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."

These two clauses have been the source of much virulent invective and
petulant declamation against the proposed Constitution. They have been
held up to the people in all the exaggerated colors of misrepresentation
as the pernicious engines by which their local governments were to be
destroyed and their liberties exterminated; as the hideous monster whose
devouring jaws would spare neither sex nor age, nor high nor low, nor
sacred nor profane; and yet, strange as it may appear, after all this
clamor, to those who may not have happened to contemplate them in
the same light, it may be affirmed with perfect confidence that the
constitutional operation of the intended government would be precisely
the same, if these clauses were entirely obliterated, as if they were
repeated in every article. They are only declaratory of a truth which
would have resulted by necessary and unavoidable implication from the
very act of constituting a federal government, and vesting it with
certain specified powers. This is so clear a proposition, that
moderation itself can scarcely listen to the railings which have been
so copiously vented against this part of the plan, without emotions that
disturb its equanimity.

What is a power, but the ability or faculty of doing a thing? What
is the ability to do a thing, but the power of employing the MEANS
necessary to its execution? What is a LEGISLATIVE power, but a power of
making LAWS? What are the MEANS to execute a LEGISLATIVE power but LAWS?
What is the power of laying and collecting taxes, but a LEGISLATIVE
POWER, or a power of MAKING LAWS, to lay and collect taxes? What are the
proper means of executing such a power, but NECESSARY and PROPER laws?

This simple train of inquiry furnishes us at once with a test by which
to judge of the true nature of the clause complained of. It conducts us
to this palpable truth, that a power to lay and collect taxes must be
a power to pass all laws NECESSARY and PROPER for the execution of
that power; and what does the unfortunate and calumniated provision in
question do more than declare the same truth, to wit, that the national
legislature, to whom the power of laying and collecting taxes had been
previously given, might, in the execution of that power, pass all laws
NECESSARY and PROPER to carry it into effect? I have applied these
observations thus particularly to the power of taxation, because it is
the immediate subject under consideration, and because it is the most
important of the authorities proposed to be conferred upon the Union.
But the same process will lead to the same result, in relation to
all other powers declared in the Constitution. And it is EXPRESSLY to
execute these powers that the sweeping clause, as it has been affectedly
called, authorizes the national legislature to pass all NECESSARY and
PROPER laws. If there is any thing exceptionable, it must be sought
for in the specific powers upon which this general declaration is
predicated. The declaration itself, though it may be chargeable with
tautology or redundancy, is at least perfectly harmless.

But SUSPICION may ask, Why then was it introduced? The answer is, that
it could only have been done for greater caution, and to guard
against all cavilling refinements in those who might hereafter feel
a disposition to curtail and evade the legitimate authorities of the
Union. The Convention probably foresaw, what it has been a principal aim
of these papers to inculcate, that the danger which most threatens our
political welfare is that the State governments will finally sap the
foundations of the Union; and might therefore think it necessary, in so
cardinal a point, to leave nothing to construction. Whatever may have
been the inducement to it, the wisdom of the precaution is evident from
the cry which has been raised against it; as that very cry betrays
a disposition to question the great and essential truth which it is
manifestly the object of that provision to declare.

But it may be again asked, Who is to judge of the NECESSITY and
PROPRIETY of the laws to be passed for executing the powers of the
Union? I answer, first, that this question arises as well and as fully
upon the simple grant of those powers as upon the declaratory clause;
and I answer, in the second place, that the national government, like
every other, must judge, in the first instance, of the proper exercise
of its powers, and its constituents in the last. If the federal
government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make
a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must
appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to
redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest
and prudence justify. The propriety of a law, in a constitutional light,
must always be determined by the nature of the powers upon which it is
founded. Suppose, by some forced constructions of its authority (which,
indeed, cannot easily be imagined), the Federal legislature should
attempt to vary the law of descent in any State, would it not be evident
that, in making such an attempt, it had exceeded its jurisdiction, and
infringed upon that of the State? Suppose, again, that upon the pretense
of an interference with its revenues, it should undertake to abrogate
a landtax imposed by the authority of a State; would it not be equally
evident that this was an invasion of that concurrent jurisdiction in
respect to this species of tax, which its Constitution plainly supposes
to exist in the State governments? If there ever should be a doubt on
this head, the credit of it will be entirely due to those reasoners who,
in the imprudent zeal of their animosity to the plan of the convention,
have labored to envelop it in a cloud calculated to obscure the plainest
and simplest truths.

But it is said that the laws of the Union are to be the SUPREME LAW of
the land. But what inference can be drawn from this, or what would they
amount to, if they were not to be supreme? It is evident they would
amount to nothing. A LAW, by the very meaning of the term, includes
supremacy. It is a rule which those to whom it is prescribed are
bound to observe. This results from every political association. If
individuals enter into a state of society, the laws of that society
must be the supreme regulator of their conduct. If a number of political
societies enter into a larger political society, the laws which
the latter may enact, pursuant to the powers intrusted to it by its
constitution, must necessarily be supreme over those societies, and
the individuals of whom they are composed. It would otherwise be a mere
treaty, dependent on the good faith of the parties, and not a government,
which is only another word for POLITICAL POWER AND SUPREMACY. But it
will not follow from this doctrine that acts of the large society which
are NOT PURSUANT to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions
of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies, will become the
supreme law of the land. These will be merely acts of usurpation, and
will deserve to be treated as such. Hence we perceive that the clause
which declares the supremacy of the laws of the Union, like the one
we have just before considered, only declares a truth, which flows
immediately and necessarily from the institution of a federal
government. It will not, I presume, have escaped observation, that
it EXPRESSLY confines this supremacy to laws made PURSUANT TO THE
CONSTITUTION; which I mention merely as an instance of caution in the
convention; since that limitation would have been to be understood,
though it had not been expressed.

Though a law, therefore, laying a tax for the use of the United States
would be supreme in its nature, and could not legally be opposed or
controlled, yet a law for abrogating or preventing the collection of
a tax laid by the authority of the State, (unless upon imports and
exports), would not be the supreme law of the land, but a usurpation
of power not granted by the Constitution. As far as an improper
accumulation of taxes on the same object might tend to render
the collection difficult or precarious, this would be a mutual
inconvenience, not arising from a superiority or defect of power on
either side, but from an injudicious exercise of power by one or the
other, in a manner equally disadvantageous to both. It is to be hoped
and presumed, however, that mutual interest would dictate a concert in
this respect which would avoid any material inconvenience. The inference
from the whole is, that the individual States would, under the proposed
Constitution, retain an independent and uncontrollable authority to
raise revenue to any extent of which they may stand in need, by every
kind of taxation, except duties on imports and exports. It will be shown
in the next paper that this CONCURRENT JURISDICTION in the article of
taxation was the only admissible substitute for an entire subordination,
in respect to this branch of power, of the State authority to that of
the Union.

PUBLIUS

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Hamilton defends Article 1, Section 8, Clause 18 of the Constitution granting Congress authority to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying out its powers, and Article 6, Clause 2 which declares national law the supreme law of the land. Opponents of the constitution claimed that these clauses granted too much power to the national government. Hamilton responds that both clauses are common-sense provisions necessary for any functioning government. If Congress is entrusted with certain tasks, such as raising taxes and maintaining an Army, it must be allowed to do what is "necessary and proper" to fulfill those tasks. Having a power implies being able to do what is necessary to use that power. Similarly, the very nature of law implies supremacy: "A law, by the very meaning of the term, includes supremacy. It is a rule, which those to whom it is prescribed are bound to observe." If the national government did not have the power to enact binding legislation, then the states would essentially be bound together by treaty rather than government. Hamilton asserts that granting this authority to the national government does not allow it to enact laws that violate the constitution. Rather, it merely enables it to perform the basic functions of any government. If the national government were to enact a law that violates the rights of the states--such as deny them the ability to levy taxes--then that law could be justly resisted and the national government held accountable by the people for attempting an usurpation of their rights.


prompt:
Chapter: The Same Subject Continued (Concerning the General Power of Taxation)

From The Independent Journal. Saturday, January 5, 1788.

HAMILTON

To the People of the State of New York:

I FLATTER myself it has been clearly shown in my last number that the
particular States, under the proposed Constitution, would have COEQUAL
authority with the Union in the article of revenue, except as to duties
on imports. As this leaves open to the States far the greatest part of
the resources of the community, there can be no color for the assertion
that they would not possess means as abundant as could be desired for
the supply of their own wants, independent of all external control. That
the field is sufficiently wide will more fully appear when we come to
advert to the inconsiderable share of the public expenses for which it
will fall to the lot of the State governments to provide.

To argue upon abstract principles that this co-ordinate authority cannot
exist, is to set up supposition and theory against fact and reality.
However proper such reasonings might be to show that a thing OUGHT NOT
TO EXIST, they are wholly to be rejected when they are made use of
to prove that it does not exist contrary to the evidence of the fact
itself. It is well known that in the Roman republic the legislative
authority, in the last resort, resided for ages in two different
political bodies not as branches of the same legislature, but as
distinct and independent legislatures, in each of which an opposite
interest prevailed: in one the patrician; in the other, the plebian.
Many arguments might have been adduced to prove the unfitness of two
such seemingly contradictory authorities, each having power to ANNUL
or REPEAL the acts of the other. But a man would have been regarded as
frantic who should have attempted at Rome to disprove their existence.
It will be readily understood that I allude to the COMITIA CENTURIATA
and the COMITIA TRIBUTA. The former, in which the people voted by
centuries, was so arranged as to give a superiority to the patrician
interest; in the latter, in which numbers prevailed, the plebian
interest had an entire predominancy. And yet these two legislatures
coexisted for ages, and the Roman republic attained to the utmost height
of human greatness.

In the case particularly under consideration, there is no such
contradiction as appears in the example cited; there is no power on
either side to annul the acts of the other. And in practice there is
little reason to apprehend any inconvenience; because, in a short course
of time, the wants of the States will naturally reduce themselves within
A VERY NARROW COMPASS; and in the interim, the United States will, in
all probability, find it convenient to abstain wholly from those objects
to which the particular States would be inclined to resort.

To form a more precise judgment of the true merits of this question, it
will be well to advert to the proportion between the objects that will
require a federal provision in respect to revenue, and those which
will require a State provision. We shall discover that the former are
altogether unlimited, and that the latter are circumscribed within very
moderate bounds. In pursuing this inquiry, we must bear in mind that we
are not to confine our view to the present period, but to look forward
to remote futurity. Constitutions of civil government are not to be
framed upon a calculation of existing exigencies, but upon a combination
of these with the probable exigencies of ages, according to the natural
and tried course of human affairs. Nothing, therefore, can be more
fallacious than to infer the extent of any power, proper to be lodged in
the national government, from an estimate of its immediate necessities.
There ought to be a CAPACITY to provide for future contingencies as
they may happen; and as these are illimitable in their nature, it is
impossible safely to limit that capacity. It is true, perhaps, that a
computation might be made with sufficient accuracy to answer the
purpose of the quantity of revenue requisite to discharge the subsisting
engagements of the Union, and to maintain those establishments which,
for some time to come, would suffice in time of peace. But would it be
wise, or would it not rather be the extreme of folly, to stop at this
point, and to leave the government intrusted with the care of the
national defense in a state of absolute incapacity to provide for the
protection of the community against future invasions of the public
peace, by foreign war or domestic convulsions? If, on the contrary, we
ought to exceed this point, where can we stop, short of an indefinite
power of providing for emergencies as they may arise? Though it is
easy to assert, in general terms, the possibility of forming a rational
judgment of a due provision against probable dangers, yet we may safely
challenge those who make the assertion to bring forward their data, and
may affirm that they would be found as vague and uncertain as any that
could be produced to establish the probable duration of the world.
Observations confined to the mere prospects of internal attacks can
deserve no weight; though even these will admit of no satisfactory
calculation: but if we mean to be a commercial people, it must form
a part of our policy to be able one day to defend that commerce. The
support of a navy and of naval wars would involve contingencies that
must baffle all the efforts of political arithmetic.

Admitting that we ought to try the novel and absurd experiment in
politics of tying up the hands of government from offensive war founded
upon reasons of state, yet certainly we ought not to disable it from
guarding the community against the ambition or enmity of other nations.
A cloud has been for some time hanging over the European world. If it
should break forth into a storm, who can insure us that in its progress
a part of its fury would not be spent upon us? No reasonable man would
hastily pronounce that we are entirely out of its reach. Or if
the combustible materials that now seem to be collecting should be
dissipated without coming to maturity, or if a flame should be kindled
without extending to us, what security can we have that our tranquillity
will long remain undisturbed from some other cause or from some other
quarter? Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to
our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot
count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others.
Who could have imagined at the conclusion of the last war that France
and Britain, wearied and exhausted as they both were, would so soon
have looked with so hostile an aspect upon each other? To judge from the
history of mankind, we shall be compelled to conclude that the fiery
and destructive passions of war reign in the human breast with much more
powerful sway than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace; and
that to model our political systems upon speculations of lasting
tranquillity, is to calculate on the weaker springs of the human
character.

What are the chief sources of expense in every government? What has
occasioned that enormous accumulation of debts with which several of
the European nations are oppressed? The answers plainly is, wars and
rebellions; the support of those institutions which are necessary
to guard the body politic against these two most mortal diseases of
society. The expenses arising from those institutions which are
relative to the mere domestic police of a state, to the support of its
legislative, executive, and judicial departments, with their different
appendages, and to the encouragement of agriculture and manufactures
(which will comprehend almost all the objects of state expenditure),
are insignificant in comparison with those which relate to the national
defense.

In the kingdom of Great Britain, where all the ostentatious apparatus of
monarchy is to be provided for, not above a fifteenth part of the annual
income of the nation is appropriated to the class of expenses last
mentioned; the other fourteen fifteenths are absorbed in the payment of
the interest of debts contracted for carrying on the wars in which that
country has been engaged, and in the maintenance of fleets and armies.
If, on the one hand, it should be observed that the expenses incurred in
the prosecution of the ambitious enterprises and vainglorious pursuits
of a monarchy are not a proper standard by which to judge of those which
might be necessary in a republic, it ought, on the other hand, to be
remarked that there should be as great a disproportion between the
profusion and extravagance of a wealthy kingdom in its domestic
administration, and the frugality and economy which in that particular
become the modest simplicity of republican government. If we balance a
proper deduction from one side against that which it is supposed ought
to be made from the other, the proportion may still be considered as
holding good.

But let us advert to the large debt which we have ourselves contracted
in a single war, and let us only calculate on a common share of the
events which disturb the peace of nations, and we shall instantly
perceive, without the aid of any elaborate illustration, that there must
always be an immense disproportion between the objects of federal and
state expenditures. It is true that several of the States, separately,
are encumbered with considerable debts, which are an excrescence of
the late war. But this cannot happen again, if the proposed system be
adopted; and when these debts are discharged, the only call for revenue
of any consequence, which the State governments will continue to
experience, will be for the mere support of their respective civil list;
to which, if we add all contingencies, the total amount in every State
ought to fall considerably short of two hundred thousand pounds.

In framing a government for posterity as well as ourselves, we ought, in
those provisions which are designed to be permanent, to calculate, not
on temporary, but on permanent causes of expense. If this principle be a
just one our attention would be directed to a provision in favor of
the State governments for an annual sum of about two hundred thousand
pounds; while the exigencies of the Union could be susceptible of no
limits, even in imagination. In this view of the subject, by what logic
can it be maintained that the local governments ought to command, in
perpetuity, an EXCLUSIVE source of revenue for any sum beyond the
extent of two hundred thousand pounds? To extend its power further, in
EXCLUSION of the authority of the Union, would be to take the resources
of the community out of those hands which stood in need of them for the
public welfare, in order to put them into other hands which could have
no just or proper occasion for them.

Suppose, then, the convention had been inclined to proceed upon the
principle of a repartition of the objects of revenue, between the Union
and its members, in PROPORTION to their comparative necessities; what
particular fund could have been selected for the use of the States, that
would not either have been too much or too little too little for their
present, too much for their future wants? As to the line of separation
between external and internal taxes, this would leave to the States, at
a rough computation, the command of two thirds of the resources of the
community to defray from a tenth to a twentieth part of its expenses;
and to the Union, one third of the resources of the community, to defray
from nine tenths to nineteen twentieths of its expenses. If we desert
this boundary and content ourselves with leaving to the States an
exclusive power of taxing houses and lands, there would still be a great
disproportion between the MEANS and the END; the possession of one third
of the resources of the community to supply, at most, one tenth of its
wants. If any fund could have been selected and appropriated, equal to
and not greater than the object, it would have been inadequate to the
discharge of the existing debts of the particular States, and would have
left them dependent on the Union for a provision for this purpose.

The preceding train of observation will justify the position which has
been elsewhere laid down, that "A CONCURRENT JURISDICTION in the
article of taxation was the only admissible substitute for an entire
subordination, in respect to this branch of power, of State authority to
that of the Union." Any separation of the objects of revenue that could
have been fallen upon, would have amounted to a sacrifice of the great
INTERESTS of the Union to the POWER of the individual States. The
convention thought the concurrent jurisdiction preferable to that
subordination; and it is evident that it has at least the merit of
reconciling an indefinite constitutional power of taxation in the
Federal government with an adequate and independent power in the States
to provide for their own necessities. There remain a few other lights,
in which this important subject of taxation will claim a further
consideration.

PUBLIUS

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Hamilton returns to the concept of co-equal authority, or concurrent powers, shared by the state and national governments. He defends the constitution's provision for such powers, particularly as they relate to taxation. He argues that the national government's power to tax must not be limited, since it is impossible to know what will be required by future crises and challenges. Hamilton asserts that wars and rebellions will inevitably threaten the US just as they do every other country. Therefore, the national government must have wide powers to tax the people in order to have sufficient funds to provide for the nation's defense. Hamilton contends that the concurrent power to tax will not be a problem since the needs of the states will be relatively limited. If the constitution were to limit what the national government can tax in order to secure greater taxation powers for the states, as some opponents of the constitution advocated, then that "would have amounted to a sacrifice of the great interests of the union to the power of the individual states."