The popular system of administration inherent in the nature of
popular government, coinciding with the real scarcity of money incident
to a languid and mutilated state of trade, has hitherto defeated every
experiment for extensive collections, and has at length taught the
different legislatures the folly of attempting them.
No person acquainted with what happens in other countries will be
surprised at this circumstance. In so opulent a nation as that of
Britain, where direct taxes from superior wealth must be much more
tolerable, and, from the vigor of the government, much more practicable,
than in America, far the greatest part of the national revenue is
derived from taxes of the indirect kind, from imposts, and from excises.
Duties on imported articles form a large branch of this latter
description.
In America, it is evident that we must a long time depend for the means
of revenue chiefly on such duties. In most parts of it, excises must be
confined within a narrow compass. The genius of the people will ill
brook the inquisitive and peremptory spirit of excise laws. The pockets
of the farmers, on the other hand, will reluctantly yield but scanty
supplies, in the unwelcome shape of impositions on their houses and
lands; and personal property is too precarious and invisible a fund to
be laid hold of in any other way than by the inperceptible agency of
taxes on consumption.
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