The Statesman's Manual

commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states and with the Indian tribes." The reasoning applicable to the preceding claims is equally so to this. The mischief complained of was, that this power could not be exercised with advantage by the individual states, and the object was to transfer it to the United States. The sense in which the power was understood and exercised by the states, was doubtless that in which it was transferred to the United States. The policy was the same as to three branches of this grant, and it is scarcely possible to separate the first two from each of the other, in any view which may be taken of the subject. The last, relating to the Indian tribes, is of a nature distinct from the others, for reasons too well known to require explanation. Commerce between independent powers or communities is universally regulated by duties and imposts. It was so regulated by the states before the adoption of this constitution, equally in respect to each other and to foreign powers. The goods and vessels employed in the trade are the only subjects of regulation. It can act on none other. A power then to impose such duties and imposts, in regard to foreign nations, and to prevent any on the trade between the states, was the only power granted.

If we recur to the causes which produced the adoption of this constitution, we shall find that injuries, resulting from the regulation of trade by the states, respectively, and the advantages anticipated from the transfer of the power to Congress, were among those which had the most weight. Instead of acting as a nation in regard to foreign powers, the states, individually, had commenced a system of restraint on each other, whereby the interests of foreign powers were promoted at their expense. If one state imposed high duties on the goods or vessels of a foreign power, to countervail the regulations of such power, the next adjoining states imposed lower duties, to invite those articles into their ports, that they might be transferred thence into the other states, securing the duties to themselves. This contracted policy in some of the states was soon counteracted by others. Restraints were immediately laid on such commerce by the suffering states, and thus had grown up a state of affairs, disorderly and unnatural, the tendency of which was, to destroy the Union itself, and with it, all hope of realizing those blessings which we had anticipated from the glorious revolution which had been so recently achieved. From this deplorable dilemma, or rather certain ruin, we were happily rescued by the adoption of the constitution.

Among the first and most important effects of this great revolution, was the complete abolition of this pernicious policy. The states were brought together by the constitution, as to commerce, into one community, equally, in regard to foreign nations and each other. The regulations that were adopted, regarded us, in both respects, as one people. The duties and imposts that were laid on the vessels and merchandise of foreign nations, were all uniform throughout the United States, and, in the intercourse between the states themselves, no duties of any kind were imposed, other than between different ports and counties within the same state.

This view is supported by a series of measures, all of a marked character, preceding the adoption of the constitution. As early as the year 1781, Congress recommended it to the states to vest in the United States a power to levy a duty of five per cent. on all goods imported from foreign countries into the United States, for the term of fifteen years. In 1783, this recommendation, with alterations as to the kind of duties, and an extension of this term to twenty-five years, was repeated, and more earnestly

urged. In 1784, it was recommended to the states to authorize Congress to prohibit, under certain modifications, the importation of goods from foreign powers into the United States for fifteen years. In 1785, the consideration of the subject was resumed, and a proposition presented in a new form, with an address to the states, explaining fully the principles on which a grant of the power to regulate trade was deemed indispensable. In 1786, a meeting took place at Annapolis, of delegates from several of the states, on this subject, and, on their report, a convention was formed at Philadelphia, the ensuing year, from all the states, to whose deliberations we are indebted for the present constitution.

In none of these measures was the subject of internal improvement mentioned, or even glanced at. Those of 1784, '5, '6, and '7, leading, step 'by step, to the adoption of the constitution, had in view, only, the obtaining of a power to enable Congress to regulate trade with foreign powers. It is manifest that the regulation of trade with the several states, was altogether a secondary object, suggested by and adopted in connexion with the other. If the power necessary to this system of improvement is incided under either branch of this grant, I should suppose that it was the first, rather than the second. The pretension to it, however, under that branch, has never been set up. In support of the claim, under the second, no reason has been assigned which appears to have the least weight.

The fourth claim is founded on the right of Congress to "pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare" of the United States. This claim has less reason on its side, than either of those which we have already examined. The power of which this forms a part is expressed in the following words: "Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises; to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts, and excises, shall be uniform throughout the United States."

That the second part of this grant gives a right to appropriate the public money, and nothing more, is evident from the following considerations: First, if the right of appropriation is not given by this clause, it is not given at all, there being no other grant in the constitution which gives it directly, or which has any bearing on the subject, even by implication, except the two following: first, the prohibition, which is contained in the eleventh of the enumerated powers, not to appropriate money for the support of armies for a longer term than two years; and, secondly, the declaration in the sixth member or clause of the ninth section of the first article, that no money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law. Secondly, this part of the grant has none of the characteristics of a distinct and original power. It is manifestly incidental to the great objects of the first branch of the grant, which authorizes Congress to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises; a power of vast extent, not granted by the confederation, the grant of which formed one of the principal inducements to the adoption of this constitution. If both parts of the grant are taken together, as they must be, for the one follows immediately after the other in the same sentence, it seems to be impossible to give to the latter any other construction than that contended for. Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises. For what purpose? To pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States-an arrange

ment and phraseology which clearly show that the latter part of the clause was intended to enumerate the purposes to which the money thus raised might be appropriated. Thirdly, if this is not the real object and fair construction of the second part of this grant, it follows either that it has no import or operation whatever, or one of much greater extent than the first part. This presumption is evidently groundless in both instances; in the first, because no part of the constitution can be considered as useless; no sentence or clause in it without a meaning. In the second, because such a construction as made the second part of the clause an original grant, embracing the same object with the first, but with much greater power than it, would be in the highest degree absurd. The order generally observed in grants, an order founded in common sense, since it promotes a clear understanding of their import, is to grant the power intended to be conveyed in the most full and explicit manner, and then to explain or qualify it, if explanation or qualification should be necessary. This order has, it is believed, been invariably observed, in all the grants contained in the constitution. In the second, because, if the clause in question is not construed merely as an authority to appropriate the public money, it must be obvious that it conveys a power of indefinite and unlimited extent; that there would have been no use for the special powers to raise and support armies and a navy; to regulate commerce; to call forth the militia; or even to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises. An unqualified power to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare, as the second part of this clause would be, if considered as a distinct and separate grant, would extend to every object in which the public could be interested. A power to provide for the common defence would give to Congress the command of the whole force, and of all the resources of the Union; but a right to provide for the general welfare would go much further. It would, in effect, break down all the barriers between the states and the general government, and consolidate the whole under the latter.

The powers specifically granted to Congress, are what are called the enumerated powers, and are numbered in the order in which they stand, among which that contained in the first clause holds the first place in point of importance. If the power created by the latter part of the clause is considered an original grant, unconnected with, and independent of, the first, as in that case it must be, then the first part is entirely done away, as are all the other grants in the constitution, being completely absorbed in the transcendant power granted in the latter part. But if the clause be construed in the sense contended for, then every part has an important meaning and effect; not a line, a word, in it is superfluous. A power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, subjects to the call of Congress every branch of the public revenue, internal and external; and the addition, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare, gives the right of applying the money raised, that is, of appropriating it to the purposes specified, according to a proper construction of the terms. Hence it follows, that it is the first part of the clause only, which gives a power which affects in any manner the power remaining to the states; as the power to raise money from the people, whether it be by taxes, duties, imposts, or excises, though concurrent in the states, as to taxes and excises, must necessarily do. But the use or application of the money, after it is raised, is a power altogether of a different character. It imposed no burden on the people, nor can it act on them in a sense

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