The State Legislatures Would
Become Inquisitive, Opinionative, And Probably Factious.
They would
be unwilling to act, in so great a matter, under the dictation of
the Federal Congress; and, by degrees, one and then another would
decline to give its aid to the central government.
However broadly
the acknowledgment may have been made that the levying of direct
taxes was necessary for the nation, each State would be tempted to
argue that a wrong mode and a wrong rate of levying had been
adopted, and words would be forthcoming instead of money. A resort
to such a mode of taxation would be a bad security for government
stock.
All matters of taxation, moreover, should be free from any taint of
generosity. A man who should attempt to lessen the burdens of his
country by gifts of money to its exchequer would be laying his
country under an obligation for which his country would not thank
him. The gifts here would be from States, and not from individuals
but the principle would be the same. I cannot imagine that the
United States government would be willing to owe its revenue to the
good-will of different States, or its want of revenue to their
caprice. If under such an arrangement the Western States were to
decline to vote the quota of income tax or property tax to which the
Eastern States had agreed - and in all probability they would
decline - they would in fact be seceding. They would thus secede
from the burdens of their general country; but in such event no one
could accuse such States of unconstitutional secession.
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