1787 Federalist 34 · Founding Made Plain

11787 Federalist No. 34

2The Same Subject Continued

3Concerning the General Power of Taxation

4From the New York Packet.

5Friday, January 4, 1788.

6HAMILTON

7To the People of the State of New York:

8I FLATTER myself it has been clearly shown

9 in my last number

10 that the particular States,

11 under the proposed Constitution,

12 would have COEQUAL authority with the Union

13 in the article of revenue,

14 except as to duties on imports.

15As this leaves open to the States

16 far the greatest part of the resources

17 of the community,

18 there can be no color for the assertion

19 that they would not possess means as abundant

20 as could be desired

21 for the supply of their own wants,

22 independent of all external control.

23That the field is sufficiently wide

24 will more fully appear

25 when we come to advert

26 to the inconsiderable share

27 of the public expenses

28 for which it will fall to the lot

29 of the State governments to provide.

30To argue upon abstract principles

31 that this co-ordinate authority cannot exist,

32 is to set up supposition and theory

33 against fact and reality.

34However proper such reasonings might be

35 to show that a thing OUGHT NOT TO EXIST,

36 they are wholly to be rejected

37 when they are made use of to prove

38 that it does not exist

39 contrary to the evidence of the fact itself.

40It is well known that in the Roman republic

41 the legislative authority, in the last resort,

42 resided for ages in two different political bodies

43 not as branches of the same legislature,

44 but as distinct and independent legislatures,

45 in each of which an opposite interest prevailed:

46 in one the patrician; in the other, the plebian.

47Many arguments might have been adduced

48 to prove the unfitness

49 of two such seemingly contradictory authorities,

50 each having power to ANNUL or REPEAL

51 the acts of the other.

52But a man would have been regarded as frantic

53 who should have attempted at Rome

54 to disprove their existence.

55It will be readily understood

56 that I allude to the COMITIA CENTURIATA

57 and the COMITIA TRIBUTA.

58The former, in which the people voted by centuries,

59 was so arranged as to give a superiority

60 to the patrician interest;

61 in the latter, in which numbers prevailed,

62 the plebian interest had an entire predominancy.

63And yet these two legislatures coexisted for ages,

64 and the Roman republic attained

65 to the utmost height of human greatness.

66In the case particularly under consideration,

67 there is no such contradiction

68 as appears in the example cited;

69 there is no power on either side

70 to annul the acts of the other.

71And in practice there is little reason

72 to apprehend any inconvenience;

73 because, in a short course of time,

74 the wants of the States

75 will naturally reduce themselves

76 within A VERY NARROW COMPASS;

77 and in the interim, the United States will,

78 in all probability, find it convenient

79 to abstain wholly from those objects

80 to which the particular States

81 would be inclined to resort.

82To form a more precise judgment

83 of the true merits of this question,

84 it will be well to advert to the proportion

85 between the objects

86 that will require a federal provision

87 in respect to revenue,

88 and those which will require a State provision.

89We shall discover

90 that the former are altogether unlimited,

91 and that the latter are circumscribed

92 within very moderate bounds.

93In pursuing this inquiry,

94 we must bear in mind

95 that we are not to confine our view

96 to the present period,

97 but to look forward to remote futurity.

98Constitutions of civil government

99 are not to be framed

100 upon a calculation of existing exigencies,

101 but upon a combination of these

102 with the probable exigencies of ages,

103 according to the natural and tried course

104 of human affairs.

105Nothing, therefore, can be more fallacious

106 than to infer the extent of any power,

107 proper to be lodged in the national government,

108 from an estimate of its immediate necessities.

109There ought to be a CAPACITY

110 to provide for future contingencies

111 as they may happen;

112 and as these are illimitable in their nature,

113 it is impossible safely to limit that capacity.

114It is true, perhaps,

115 that a computation might be made

116 with sufficient accuracy

117 to answer the purpose of the quantity of revenue

118 requisite to discharge

119 the subsisting engagements of the Union,

120 and to maintain those establishments

121 which, for some time to come,

122 would suffice in time of peace.

123But would it be wise,

124 or would it not rather be the extreme of folly,

125 to stop at this point,

126 and to leave the government

127 intrusted with the care of the national defense

128 in a state of absolute incapacity

129 to provide for the protection of the community

130 against future invasions of the public peace,

131 by foreign war or domestic convulsions?

132If, on the contrary, we ought to exceed this point,

133 where can we stop,

134 short of an indefinite power

135 of providing for emergencies as they may arise?

136Though it is easy to assert, in general terms,

137 the possibility of forming a rational judgment

138 of a due provision against probable dangers,

139 yet we may safely challenge those

140 who make the assertion

141 to bring forward their data,

142 and may affirm that they would be found

143 as vague and uncertain

144 as any that could be produced

145 to establish the probable duration of the world.

146Observations confined to the mere prospects

147 of internal attacks

148 can deserve no weight;

149 though even these will admit

150 of no satisfactory calculation:

151 but if we mean to be a commercial people,

152 it must form a part of our policy

153 to be able one day to defend that commerce.

154The support of a navy and of naval wars

155 would involve contingencies

156 that must baffle all the efforts

157 of political arithmetic.

158Admitting that we ought to try

159 the novel and absurd experiment in politics

160 of tying up the hands of government

161 from offensive war founded upon reasons of state,

162 yet certainly we ought not to disable it

163 from guarding the community

164 against the ambition or enmity of other nations.

165A cloud has been for some time hanging

166 over the European world.

167If it should break forth into a storm,

168 who can insure us

169 that in its progress a part of its fury

170 would not be spent upon us?

171No reasonable man would hastily pronounce

172 that we are entirely out of its reach.

173Or if the combustible materials

174 that now seem to be collecting

175 should be dissipated without coming to maturity,

176 or if a flame should be kindled

177 without extending to us,

178 what security can we have

179 that our tranquillity will long remain undisturbed

180 from some other cause or from some other quarter?

181Let us recollect

182 that peace or war will not always be left

183 to our option;

184 that however moderate or unambitious we may be,

185 we cannot count upon the moderation,

186 or hope to extinguish the ambition of others.

187Who could have imagined at the conclusion

188 of the last war

189 that France and Britain,

190 wearied and exhausted as they both were,

191 would so soon have looked

192 with so hostile an aspect upon each other?

193To judge from the history of mankind,

194 we shall be compelled to conclude

195 that the fiery and destructive passions of war

196 reign in the human breast

197 with much more powerful sway

198 than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace;

199 and that to model our political systems

200 upon speculations of lasting tranquillity,

201 is to calculate on the weaker springs

202 of the human character.

203What are the chief sources of expense

204 in every government?

205What has occasioned that enormous accumulation of debts

206 with which several of the European nations

207 are oppressed?

208The answers plainly is, wars and rebellions;

209 the support of those institutions

210 which are necessary to guard the body politic

211 against these two most mortal diseases of society.

212The expenses arising from those institutions

213 which are relative to the mere domestic police

214 of a state,

215 to the support of its legislative, executive,

216 and judicial departments,

217 with their different appendages,

218 and to the encouragement

219 of agriculture and manufactures

220 (which will comprehend almost all the objects

221 of state expenditure),

222 are insignificant in comparison

223 with those which relate to the national defense.

224In the kingdom of Great Britain,

225 where all the ostentatious apparatus of monarchy

226 is to be provided for,

227 not above a fifteenth part

228 of the annual income of the nation

229 is appropriated to the class of expenses

230 last mentioned;

231 the other fourteen fifteenths are absorbed

232 in the payment of the interest of debts

233 contracted for carrying on the wars

234 in which that country has been engaged,

235 and in the maintenance of fleets and armies.

236If, on the one hand, it should be observed

237 that the expenses incurred

238 in the prosecution of the ambitious enterprises

239 and vainglorious pursuits of a monarchy

240 are not a proper standard

241 by which to judge of those

242 which might be necessary in a republic,

243 it ought, on the other hand, to be remarked

244 that there should be as great a disproportion

245 between the profusion and extravagance

246 of a wealthy kingdom

247 in its domestic administration,

248 and the frugality and economy

249 which in that particular become

250 the modest simplicity of republican government.

251If we balance a proper deduction from one side

252 against that which it is supposed

253 ought to be made from the other,

254 the proportion may still be considered

255 as holding good.

256But let us advert to the large debt

257 which we have ourselves contracted in a single war,

258 and let us only calculate on a common share

259 of the events

260 which disturb the peace of nations,

261 and we shall instantly perceive,

262 without the aid of any elaborate illustration,

263 that there must always be

264 an immense disproportion

265 between the objects of federal

266 and state expenditures.

267It is true that several of the States, separately,

268 are encumbered with considerable debts,

269 which are an excrescence of the late war.

270But this cannot happen again,

271 if the proposed system be adopted;

272 and when these debts are discharged,

273 the only call for revenue of any consequence,

274 which the State governments

275 will continue to experience,

276 will be for the mere support

277 of their respective civil list;

278 to which, if we add all contingencies,

279 the total amount in every State

280 ought to fall considerably short

281 of two hundred thousand pounds.

282In framing a government for posterity

283 as well as ourselves,

284 we ought, in those provisions

285 which are designed to be permanent,

286 to calculate, not on temporary,

287 but on permanent causes of expense.

288If this principle be a just one

289 our attention would be directed

290 to a provision in favor of the State governments

291 for an annual sum

292 of about two hundred thousand pounds;

293 while the exigencies of the Union

294 could be susceptible of no limits,

295 even in imagination.

296In this view of the subject,

297 by what logic can it be maintained

298 that the local governments ought to command,

299 in perpetuity,

300 an EXCLUSIVE source of revenue

301 for any sum beyond the extent

302 of two hundred thousand pounds?

303To extend its power further,

304 in EXCLUSION of the authority of the Union,

305 would be to take the resources of the community

306 out of those hands

307 which stood in need of them

308 for the public welfare,

309 in order to put them into other hands

310 which could have no just or proper occasion

311 for them.

312Suppose, then, the convention had been inclined

313 to proceed upon the principle of a repartition

314 of the objects of revenue,

315 between the Union and its members,

316 in PROPORTION to their comparative necessities;

317 what particular fund could have been selected

318 for the use of the States,

319 that would not either have been

320 too much or too little

321 too little for their present,

322 too much for their future wants?

323As to the line of separation

324 between external and internal taxes,

325 this would leave to the States,

326 at a rough computation,

327 the command of two thirds

328 of the resources of the community

329 to defray from a tenth to a twentieth part

330 of its expenses;

331 and to the Union,

332 one third of the resources of the community,

333 to defray from nine tenths

334 to nineteen twentieths of its expenses.

335If we desert this boundary

336 and content ourselves with leaving to the States

337 an exclusive power of taxing houses and lands,

338 there would still be a great disproportion

339 between the MEANS and the END;

340 the possession of one third

341 of the resources of the community

342 to supply, at most, one tenth of its wants.

343If any fund could have been selected and appropriated,

344 equal to and not greater than the object,

345 it would have been inadequate

346 to the discharge of the existing debts

347 of the particular States,

348 and would have left them dependent on the Union

349 for a provision for this purpose.

350The preceding train of observation

351 will justify the position

352 which has been elsewhere laid down,

353 that "A CONCURRENT JURISDICTION

354 in the article of taxation

355 was the only admissible substitute

356 for an entire subordination,

357 in respect to this branch of power,

358 of State authority to that of the Union."

359Any separation of the objects of revenue

360 that could have been fallen upon,

361 would have amounted to a sacrifice

362 of the great INTERESTS of the Union

363 to the POWER of the individual States.

364The convention thought the concurrent jurisdiction

365 preferable to that subordination;

366 and it is evident that it has at least the merit

367 of reconciling an indefinite constitutional power

368 of taxation in the Federal government

369 with an adequate and independent power

370 in the States

371 to provide for their own necessities.

372There remain a few other lights,

373 in which this important subject of taxation

374 will claim a further consideration.

375PUBLIUS.