The laws cannot, therefore, in a legal sense,
interfere with each other; and it is far from impossible to avoid an
interference even in the policy of their different systems. An effectual
expedient for this purpose will be, mutually, to abstain from those
objects which either side may have first had recourse to. As neither can
CONTROL the other, each will have an obvious and sensible interest in
this reciprocal forbearance. And where there is an IMMEDIATE common
interest, we may safely count upon its operation. When the particular
debts of the States are done away, and their expenses come to be limited
within their natural compass, the possibility almost of interference
will vanish. A small land tax will answer the purpose of the States, and
will be their most simple and most fit resource.
Many spectres have been raised out of this power of internal taxation,
to excite the apprehensions of the people: double sets of revenue
officers, a duplication of their burdens by double taxations, and the
frightful forms of odious and oppressive poll-taxes, have been played
off with all the ingenious dexterity of political legerdemain.
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