" 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.
Pages:
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320