It will not, I presume, have escaped observation, that it
EXPRESSLY confines this supremacy to laws made PURSUANT TO THE
CONSTITUTION; which I mention merely as an instance of caution in the
convention; since that limitation would have been to be understood,
though it had not been expressed.
Though a law, therefore, laying a tax for the use of the United States
would be supreme in its nature, and could not legally be opposed or
controlled, yet a law for abrogating or preventing the collection of a
tax laid by the authority of the State, (unless upon imports and
exports), would not be the supreme law of the land, but a usurpation of
power not granted by the Constitution. As far as an improper
accumulation of taxes on the same object might tend to render the
collection difficult or precarious, this would be a mutual
inconvenience, not arising from a superiority or defect of power on
either side, but from an injudicious exercise of power by one or the
other, in a manner equally disadvantageous to both. It is to be hoped
and presumed, however, that mutual interest would dictate a concert in
this respect which would avoid any material inconvenience.
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