Federalist Papers
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NO. 1    General Inroduction
NO. 2    Concerning Dangers from Foreign Force and Influence
NO. 3    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning Dangers From Foreign Force and Influence
NO. 4    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning Dangers From Foreign Force and Influence
NO. 5    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning Dangers from Foreign Force and Influence.
NO. 6    Concerning Dangers from Dissensions Between the States
NO. 7    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning Dangers from Dissensions Between the States.
NO. 8    The Consequences of Hostilities Between the States
NO. 9    The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection.
NO. 10    The Same Subject Continued: The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection.
NO. 11    The Utility of the Union in Respect to Commercial Relations and a Navy
NO. 12    The Utility of the Union In Respect to Revenue.
NO. 13    Advantage of the Union in Respect to Economy in Government.
NO. 14    Objections to the Proposed Constitution From Extent of Territory Answered.
NO. 15    The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union.
NO. 16    The Same Subject Continued: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union
NO. 17    The Same Subject Continued: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union
NO. 18    The Same Subject Continued: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union
NO. 19    The Same Subject Continued: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union
NO. 20    The Same Subject Continued: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union.
NO. 21    Other Defects of the Present Confederation
NO. 22    The Same Subject Continued: Other Defects of the Present Confederation
NO. 23    The Necessity of a Government as Energetic as the One Proposed to the Preservation of the Union
NO. 24    The Powers Necessary to the Common Defense Further Considered
NO. 25    The Same Subject Continued: The Powers Necessary to the Common Defense Further Considered
NO. 26    The Idea of Restraining the Legislative Authority in Regard to the Common Defense Considered
NO. 27    The Same Subject Continued: The Idea of Restraining the Legislative Authority in Regard to the Common Defense Considered
NO. 28    The Same Subject Continued: The Idea of Restraining the Legislative Authority in Regard to the Common Defense Considered
NO. 29    THE power of regulating the militia, and of commanding its services in times of insurrection and invasion are natural incidents to the duties of superintending the common defense, and of watching over the internal peace of the Confederacy
NO. 30    Concerning the General Power of Taxation
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End of Federalist Paper No. 30
FEDERALIST NO. 30
Concerning the General Power of Taxation
From the New York Packet     Friday December 28, 1787
Author: Alexander Hamilton
To the People of New York


DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=30- ParaX=1- XthisXParaX=1-
DeB 131 -1-IT HAS been already observed that the federal government ought to possess the power of providing for the support of the national forces; in which proposition was intended to be included the expense of raising troops, of building and equipping fleets, and all other expenses in any wise connected with military arrangements and operations. DeB 131 -2-But these are not the only objects to which the jurisdiction of the Union, in respect to revenue, must necessarily be empowered to extend. DeB 131 -3-It must embrace a provision for the support of the national civil list; for the payment of the national debts contracted, or that may be contracted; and, in general, for all those matters which will call for disbursements out of the national treasury. DeB 131 -4-The conclusion is, that there must be interwoven, in the frame of the government, a general power of taxation, in one shape or another.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=30- ParaX=2- XthisXParaX=2-
DeB 131 -1-Money is, with propriety, considered as the vital principle of the body politic; as that which sustains its life and motion, and enables it to perform its most essential functions. DeB 131 -2-A complete power, therefore, to procure a regular and adequate supply of it, as far as the resources of the community will permit, may be regarded as an indispensable ingredient in every constitution. DeB 131 -3-From a deficiency in this particular, one of two evils must ensue; either the people must be subjected to continual plunder, as a substitute for a more eligible mode of supplying the public wants, or the government must sink into a fatal atrophy, and, in a short course of time, perish.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=30- ParaX=3- XthisXParaX=3-
DeB 131 -1-In the Ottoman or Turkish empire, the sovereign, though in other respects absolute master of the lives and fortunes of his subjects, has no right to impose a new tax. DeB 131 -2-The consequence is that he permits the bashaws or governors of provinces to pillage the people without mercy; and, in turn, squeezes out of them the sums of which he stands in need, to satisfy his own exigencies and those of the state. DeB 131 -3-In America, from a like cause, the government of the Union has gradually dwindled into a state of decay, approaching nearly to annihilation. DeB 131 -4-Who can doubt, that the happiness of the people in both countries would be promoted by competent authorities in the proper hands, to provide the revenues which the necessities of the public might require?

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=30- ParaX=4- XthisXParaX=4-
DeB 131 -1-The present Confederation, feeble as it is intended to repose in the United States, an unlimited power of providing for the pecuniary wants of the Union. DeB 131 -2-But proceeding upon an erroneous principle, it has been done in such a manner as entirely to have frustrated the intention. DeB 131 -3-Congress, by the articles which compose that compact (as has already been stated), are authorized to ascertain and call for any sums of money necessary, in their judgment, to the service of the United States; and their requisitions, if conformable to the rule of apportionment, are in every constitutional sense obligatory upon the States. DeB 131 -4-These have no right to question the propriety of the demand; no discretion beyond that of devising the ways and means of furnishing the sums demanded. DeB 131 -5-But though this be strictly and truly the case; though the assumption of such a right would be an infringement of the articles of Union; though it may seldom or never have been avowedly claimed, yet in practice it has been constantly exercised, and would continue to be so, as long as the revenues of the Confederacy should remain dependent on the intermediate agency of its members. DeB 131 -6-What the consequences of this system have been, is within the knowledge of every man the least conversant in our public affairs, and has been amply unfolded in different parts of these inquiries. DeB 131 -7-It is this which has chiefly contributed to reduce us to a situation, which affords ample cause both of mortification to ourselves, and of triumph to our enemies.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=30- ParaX=5- XthisXParaX=5-
DeB 131 -1-What remedy can there be for this situation, but in a change of the system which has produced it in a change of the fallacious and delusive system of quotas and requisitions? DeB 131 -2-What substitute can there be imagined for this ignis fatuus in finance, but that of permitting the national government to raise its own revenues by the ordinary methods of taxation authorized in every well-ordered constitution of civil government? DeB 131 -3-Ingenious men may declaim with plausibility on any subject; but no human ingenuity can point out any other expedient to rescue us from the inconveniences and embarrassments naturally resulting from defective supplies of the public treasury.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=30- ParaX=6- XthisXParaX=6-
DeB 131 -1-The more intelligent adversaries of the new Constitution admit the force of this reasoning; but they qualify their admission by a distinction between what they call INTERNAL and EXTERNAL taxation. DeB 131 -2-The former they would reserve to the State governments; the latter, which they explain into commercial imposts, or rather duties on imported articles, they declare themselves willing to concede to the federal head. DeB 131 -3-This distinction, however, would violate the maxim of good sense and sound policy, which dictates that every POWER ought to be in proportion to its OBJECT; and would still leave the general government in a kind of tutelage to the State governments, inconsistent with every idea of vigor or efficiency. DeB 131 -4-Who can pretend that commercial imposts are, or would be, alone equal to the present and future exigencies of the Union? DeB 131 -5-Taking into the account the existing debt, foreign and domestic, upon any plan of extinguishment which a man moderately impressed with the importance of public justice and public credit could approve, in addition to the establishments which all parties will acknowledge to be necessary, we could not reasonably flatter ourselves, that this resource alone, upon the most improved scale, would even suffice for its present necessities. DeB 131 -6-Its future necessities admit not of calculation or limitation; and upon the principle, more than once adverted to, the power of making provision for them as they arise ought to be equally unconfined. DeB 131 -7-I believe it may be regarded as a position warranted by the history of mankind, that, IN THE USUAL PROGRESS OF THINGS, THE NECESSITIES OF A NATION, IN EVERY STAGE OF ITS EXISTENCE, WILL BE FOUND AT LEAST EQUAL TO ITS RESOURCES.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=30- ParaX=7- XthisXParaX=7-
DeB 131 -1-To say that deficiencies may be provided for by requisitions upon the States, is on the one hand to acknowledge that this system cannot be depended upon, and on the other hand to depend upon it for every thing beyond a certain limit. DeB 131 -2-Those who have carefully attended to its vices and deformities as they have been exhibited by experience or delineated in the course of these papers, must feel invincible repugnancy to trusting the national interests in any degree to its operation. DeB 131 -3-Its inevitable tendency, whenever it is brought into activity, must be to enfeeble the Union, and sow the seeds of discord and contention between the federal head and its members, and between the members themselves. DeB 131 -4-Can it be expected that the deficiencies would be better supplied in this mode than the total wants of the Union have heretofore been supplied in the same mode? DeB 131 -5-It ought to be recollected that if less will be required from the States, they will have proportionably less means to answer the demand. DeB 131 -6-If the opinions of those who contend for the distinction which has been mentioned were to be received as evidence of truth, one would be led to conclude that there was some known point in the economy of national affairs at which it would be safe to stop and to say: Thus far the ends of public happiness will be promoted by supplying the wants of government, and all beyond this is unworthy of our care or anxiety. DeB 131 -7-How is it possible that a government half supplied and always necessitous, can fulfill the purposes of its institution, can provide for the security, advance the prosperity, or support the reputation of the commonwealth? DeB 131 -8-How can it ever possess either energy or stability, dignity or credit, confidence at home or respectability abroad? DeB 131 -9-How can its administration be any thing else than a succession of expedients temporizing, impotent, disgraceful? DeB 131 -10-How will it be able to avoid a frequent sacrifice of its engagements to immediate necessity? DeB 131 -11-How can it undertake or execute any liberal or enlarged plans of public good?

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=30- ParaX=8- XthisXParaX=8-
DeB 131 -1-Let us attend to what would be the effects of this situation in the very first war in which we should happen to be engaged. DeB 131 -2-We will presume, for argument's sake, that the revenue arising from the impost duties answers the purposes of a provision for the public debt and of a peace establishment for the Union. DeB 131 -3-Thus circumstanced, a war breaks out. DeB 131 -4-What would be the probable conduct of the government in such an emergency? DeB 131 -5-Taught by experience that proper dependence could not be placed on the success of requisitions, unable by its own authority to lay hold of fresh resources, and urged by considerations of national danger, would it not be driven to the expedient of diverting the funds already appropriated from their proper objects to the defense of the State? DeB 131 -6-It is not easy to see how a step of this kind could be avoided; and if it should be taken, it is evident that it would prove the destruction of public credit at the very moment that it was becoming essential to the public safety. DeB 131 -7-To imagine that at such a crisis credit might be dispensed with, would be the extreme of infatuation. DeB 131 -8-In the modern system of war, nations the most wealthy are obliged to have recourse to large loans. DeB 131 -9-A country so little opulent as ours must feel this necessity in a much stronger degree. DeB 131 -10-But who would lend to a government that prefaced its overtures for borrowing by an act which demonstrated that no reliance could be placed on the steadiness of its measures for paying? DeB 131 -11-The loans it might be able to procure would be as limited in their extent as burdensome in their conditions. DeB 131 -12-They would be made upon the same principles that usurers commonly lend to bankrupt and fraudulent debtors, with a sparing hand and at enormous premiums.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=30- ParaX=9- XthisXParaX=9-
DeB 131 -1-It may perhaps be imagined that, from the scantiness of the resources of the country, the necessity of diverting the established funds in the case supposed would exist, though the national government should possess an unrestrained power of taxation. DeB 131 -2-But two considerations will serve to quiet all apprehension on this head: one is, that we are sure the resources of the community, in their full extent, will be brought into activity for the benefit of the Union; the other is, that whatever deficiences there may be, can without difficulty be supplied by loans.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=30- ParaX=10- XthisXParaX=10-
DeB 131 -1-The power of creating new funds upon new objects of taxation, by its own authority, would enable the national government to borrow as far as its necessities might require. DeB 131 -2-Foreigners, as well as the citizens of America, could then reasonably repose confidence in its engagements; but to depend upon a government that must itself depend upon thirteen other governments for the means of fulfilling its contracts, when once its situation is clearly understood, would require a degree of credulity not often to be met with in the pecuniary transactions of mankind, and little reconcilable with the usual sharp-sightedness of avarice.

DeB 128 C 18Mod=18- FP2View=30- ParaX=11- XthisXParaX=11-
DeB 131 -1-Reflections of this kind may have trifling weight with men who hope to see realized in America the halcyon scenes of the poetic or fabulous age; but to those who believe we are likely to experience a common portion of the vicissitudes and calamities which have fallen to the lot of other nations, they must appear entitled to serious attention. DeB 131 -2-Such men must behold the actual situation of their country with painful solicitude, and deprecate the evils which ambition or revenge might, with too much facility, inflict upon it.

Beginning of Federalist Paper No. 30

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NO. 31    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the General Power of Taxation
NO. 32    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the General Power of Taxation
NO. 33    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the General Power of Taxation
NO. 34    The Same Subject Continued Concerning the General Power of Taxation
NO. 35    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the General Power of Taxation
NO. 36    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the General Power of Taxation
NO. 37    Concerning the Difficulties of the Convention in Devising a Proper Form of Government
NO. 38    The Same Subject Continued, and the Incoherence of the Objections to the New Plan Exposed
NO. 39    The Conformity of the Plan to Republican Principles
NO. 40    The Powers of the Convention to Form a Mixed Government Examined and Sustained
NO. 41    General View of the Powers Conferred by the Constitution
NO. 42    The Powers Conferred by the Constitution Further Considered
NO. 43    The Same Subject Continued: The Powers Conferred by the Constitution Further Considered
NO. 44    Restrictions on the Authority of the Several States
NO. 45    The Alleged Danger From the Powers of the Union to the State Governments Considered
NO. 46    The Influence of the State and Federal Governments Compared
NO. 47    The Particular Structure of the New Government and the Distribution of Power Among Its Different Parts
NO. 48    These Departments Should Not Be So Far Separated as to Have No Constitutional Control Over Each Other
NO. 49    Method of Guarding Against the Encroachments of Any One Department of Government by Appealing to the People Through a Convention
NO. 50    Periodic Appeals to the People Considered
NO. 51    The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances Between the Different Departments
NO. 52    The House of Representatives
NO. 53    The Same Subject Continued: The House of Representatives
NO. 54    The Apportionment of Members Among the States
NO. 55    The Total Number of the House of Representatives
NO. 56    The Total Number of the House of Representatives
NO. 57    The Alleged Tendency of the New Plan to Elevate the Few at the Expense of the Many Considered in Connection with Representation
NO. 58    Objection That The Number of Members Will Not Be Augmented as the Progress of Population Demands Considered
NO. 59    Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate the Election of Members
NO. 60    The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate the Election of Members
NO. 61    The Same Subject Continued (Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate the Election of Members)
NO. 62    The Senate
NO. 63    The Senate Continued
NO. 64    The Powers of the Senate
NO. 65    The Powers of the Senate Continued
NO. 66    Objections to the Power of the Senate To Set as a Court for Impeachments Further Considered
NO. 67    The Executive Department
NO. 68    The Mode of Electing the President
NO. 69    The Real Character of the Executive
NO. 70    The Executive Department Further Considered
NO. 71    The Duration in Office of the Executive.
NO. 72    The Same Subject Continued, and Re-Eligibility of the Executive Considered
NO. 73    The Provision For The Support of the Executive, and the Veto Power
NO. 74    The Command of the Military and Naval Forces, and the Pardoning Power of the Executive
NO. 75    The Treaty Making Power of the Executive
NO. 76    The Appointing Power of the Executive
NO. 77    The Appointing Power Continued and Other Powers of the Executive Considered
NO. 78    The Judiciary Department
NO. 79    The Judiciary Department Continued
NO. 80    The Powers of the Judiciary
NO. 81    The Judiciary Continued, and the Distribution of the Judicial Authority
NO. 82    The Judiciary Continued
NO. 83    The Judiciary Continued in Relation to Trial by Jury
NO. 84    Certain General and Miscellaneous Objections to the Constitution Considered and Answered.
NO. 85    Concluding Remarks
NO. 449   
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