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to the railings which have been so copiously vented against this part of the plan, without emotions that disturb its equanimity.

What is a power, but the ability or faculty of doing a thing? What is the ability to do a thing, but the power of employing the means necessary to its execution? What is a LEGISLATIVE power, but a power of making LAWS?

execute a LEGISLATIVE power, but LAWS?

What are the means to

What is the power

of laying and collecting taxes, but a legislative power, or a power of making laws, to lay and collect taxes?

What are the proper means of executing such a power, but necessary and proper laws?

This simple train of inquiry furnishes us at once with a test of the true nature of the clause complained of. It conducts us to this palpable truth, that a power to lay and collect taxes, must be a power to pass all laws necessary and proper for the execution of that power: and what does the unfortunate and calumniated provision in question do, more than declare the same truth; to wit, that the national legislature, to whom the power of laying and collecting taxes had been previously given, might, in the execution of that power, pass all laws necessary and proper to carry it into effect? I have applied these observations thus particularly to the power of taxation; because it is the immediate subject under consideration, and because it is the most important of the authorities proposed to be conferred upon the union. But the same process will lead to the same result, in relation to all other powers declared in the constitution. And it is expressly to execute these powers, that the sweeping clause, as it has been affectedly called, authorizes the national legislature to pass all necessary and proper laws. If there be any thing exceptionable, it must be sought for in the specific powers, upon which this general declaration is predicated. The declaration itself, though it may be chargeable with tautology or redundancy, is at least perfectly harmless.

The

But SUSPICION may ask, why then was it introduced? answer is, that it could only have been done for greater caution, and to guard against all cavilling refinements in those who might hereafter feel a disposition to curtail and evade the legitimate authorities of the union. The convention probably

foresaw, what it has been a principle aim of these papers to inculcate, that the danger which most threatens our political welfare is, that the state governments will finally sap the foundations of the union; and might therefore think it necessary, in so cardinal a point, to leave nothing to construction. Whatever may have been the inducement to it, the wisdom of the precaution is evident from the cry which has been raised against it; as that very cry betrays a disposition to question the great and essential truth which it is manifestly the object of that provision to declare.

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But it may be again asked, who is to judge of the necessity and propriety of the laws to be passed for executing the powers of the union? I answer, first, that this question arises as well and as fully upon the simple grant of those powers, as upon the declaratory clause and I answer, in the second place, that the national government, like every other, must judge, in the first instance, of the proper exercise of its powers; and its constituents in the last. If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority, and make a tyrannical use of its powers; the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the constitution, as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify. The propriety of a law, in a constitutional light, must always be determined by the nature of the powers upon which it is founded. Suppose, by some forced construction of its authority, (which indeed cannot easily be imagined,) the federal legislature should attempt to vary the law of descent in any state; would it not be evident, that in making such an attempt, it had exceeded its jurisdiction, and infringed upon that of the state? Suppose, again, that upon the pretence of an interference with its revenues, it should undertake to abrogate a land tax imposed by the authority of a state; would it not be equally evident, that this was an invasion of that concurrent jurisdiction in respect to this species of tax, which the constitution plainly supposes to exist in the state governments? If there ever should be a doubt on this head, the credit of it will be entirely due to those reasoners, who, in the imprudent zeal of their animosity to the plan of the convention, have laboured to envelop it in a cloud, calculated to obscure the plainest and simplest truths.

But it is said, that the laws of the union are to be the su→ preme law of the land. What inference can be drawn from this, or what would they amount to, if they were not to be supreme? It is evident they would amount to nothing. A LAW, by the very meaning of the term, includes supremacy. It is a rule, which those to whom it is prescribed are bound to observe. This results from every political association. If individuals enter into a state of society the laws of that society, must be the supreme regulator of their conduct. If a number of political societies enter into a larger political society, the laws which the latter may enact, pursuant to the powers entrusted to it by its constitution, must necessarily be supreme over those societies, and the individuals of whom they are composed. It would otherwise be a mere treaty, dependent on the good faith of the parties, and not a government; which is only another word for POLITICAL POWER AND SUPREMACY. But it will not follow from this doctrine, that acts of the larger society, which are not pursuant to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies, will become the supreme law of the land. These will be merely acts of usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as such. Hence we perceive, that the clause which declares the supremacy of the laws of the union, like the one we have just before considered, only declares a truth, which flows immediately and necessarily from the institution of a federal government. 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 controled; yet a law abrogating or preventing the collection of a tax laid by the authority of a state, (unless upon imports and exports,) would not be the supreme law of the land, but an usurpation of a 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 any 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. The inference from the whole is....that the individual states would, under the proposed constitution, retain an independent and uncontrolable authority to raise revenue to any extent of which they may stand in need, by every kind of taxation, except duties on imports and exports. It will be shown in the next paper, that this concurrent jurisdiction in the article of taxation, was the only admissible substitute for an entire subordination, in respect to this branch of power, of state authority to that of the union. PUBLIUS.

No. XXXIV.

BY ALEXANDER HAMILTON.

The same subject continued.

I FLATTER myself it has been clearly shown in my last number, that the particular states, under the proposed constitution, would have COEQUAL authority with the union in the article of revenue, except as to duties on imports. As this leaves open to the states far the greatest part of the resources of the community, there can be no colour for the assertion, that they would not possess means as abundant as could be desired, for the supply of their own wants, independent of all external control. That the field is sufficiently wide, will more fully appear, when we come to develop the inconsiderable share of the public expenses, for which it will fall to the lot of the state governments to provide.

Το argue upon abstract principles, that this coordinate authority cannot exist, would be to set up theory and supposition against fact and reality. However proper such reasonings might be, to show that a thing ought not to exist, they are wholly to be rejected, when they are made use of to prove that it does not exist, contrary to the evidence of the fact itself. It is well known, that in the Roman republic, the legislative authority in the last resort resided for ages in two different political bodies....not as branches of the same legislature, but as distinct and independent legislatures; in each of which an opposite

interest prevailed: in one, the patrician; in the other, the plebeian. Many arguments might have been adduced, to prove the unfitness of two such seemingly contradictory authorities, each having power to annul or repeal the acts of the other. But a man would have been regarded as frantic, who should have attempted at Rome to disprove their existence. It will readily be understood, that I allude to the COMITIA CENTURIATA and the COMITIA TRIBUTIA. The former, in which the people voted by centuries, was so arranged as to give a superiority to the patrician interest. In the latter, in which numbers prevailed, the plebeian interest had an entire predominancy. And yet these two legislatures coexisted for ages, and the Roman republic attained to the pinnacle of human greatness.

In the case particularly under consideration, there is no such contradiction as appears in the example cited: there is no power on either side to annul the acts of the other. And in practice, there is little reason to apprehend any inconvenience; because, in a short course of time, the wants of the states will naturally reduce themselves within a very narrow compass; and in the interim, the United States will, in all probability, find it convenient to abstain wholly from those objects to which the particular states would be inclined to resort.

To form a more precise judgment of the true merits of this question, it will be well to advert to the proportion between the objects that will require a federal provision in respect to revenue, and those which will require a state provision. We shall discover that the former are altogether unlimited: and that the latter are circumscribed within very moderate bounds. In pursuing this inquiry, we must bear in mind, that we are not to confine our view to the present period, but to look forward to remote futurity. Constitutions of civil government are not to be framed upon a calculation of existing exigencies; but upon a combination of these, with the probable exigencies of ages, according to the natural and tried course of human affairs. Nothing, therefore, can be more fallacious, than to infer the extent of any power proper to be lodged in the national government, from an estimate of its immediate necessities. There ought to be a CAPACITY to provide for future contingencies, as they may happen; and as these are illimitable in their nature, so it is impossible safely to limit that capacity. It is

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