A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 2, part 1: James Monroe
History
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 2, part 1: James Monroe
Monroe, James, 1758-1831; Presidents -- United States; United States -- History -- Sources; United States -- Politics and government
It imposes no burden on the people, nor can it act on them in a sense
to take power from the States or in any sense in which power can be
controverted, or become a question between the two Governments. The
application of money raised under a lawful power is a right or grant
which may be abused. It may be applied partially among the States, or
to improper purposes in our foreign and domestic concerns; but still
it is a power not felt in the sense of other power, since the only
complaint which any State can make of such partiality and abuse is
that some other State or States have obtained greater benefit from the
application than by a just rule of apportionment they were entitled to.
The right of appropriation is therefore from its nature secondary and
incidental to the right of raising money, and it was proper to place
it in the same grant and same clause with that right. By rinding them,
then, in that order we see a new proof of the sense in which the grant
was made, corresponding with the view herein taken of it.
The last part of this grant, which provides that all duties, imposts,
and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States, furnishes
another strong proof that it was not intended that the second part
should constitute a distinct grant in the sense above stated, or
convey any other right than that of appropriation. This provision
operates exclusively on the power granted in the first part of the
clause. It recites three branches of that power--duties, imposts, and
excises--those only on which it could operate, the rule by which the
fourth--that is, taxes--should be laid being already provided for in
another part of the Constitution. The object of this provision is to
secure a just equality among the States in the exercise of that power
by Congress. By placing it after both the grants--that is, after that
to raise and that to appropriate the public money--and making it apply
to the first only it shows that it was not intended that the power
granted in the second should be paramount to and destroy that granted in
the first. It shows also that no such formidable power as that suggested
had been granted in the second, or any power against the abuse of which
it was thought necessary specially to provide. Surely if it was deemed
proper to guard a specific power of limited extent and well-known
import against injustice and abuse, it would have been much more so
to have guarded against the abuse of a power of such vast extent and so
indefinite as would have been granted by the second part of the clause
if considered as a distinct and original grant.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account