Turning from the consideration of this question in its
sectional aspect, I now invite attention to its general effect upon the
character of our institutions. If the common Treasury of the States had,
as under the Confederation, been supplied by direct taxation, who can
doubt that a rigid economy would have been the rule of the Government;
that representatives would have returned to their tax-paying
constituents to justify appropriations for which they had voted by
showing that they were required for the general welfare, and were
authorized by the Constitution under which they were acting? When the
money was obtained by indirect taxation, so that but few could see the
source from which it was derived, it readily followed that a
constituency would ask, not why the representative had voted for the
expenditure of money, but how much he had got for his own district, and
perhaps he might have to explain why he did not get more. Is it doubtful
that this would lead to extravagance, if not to corruption? Nothing
could be more fatal to the independence of the people and the liberties
of the States than dependence for support upon the public Treasury,
whether it be in the form of subsidies, of bounties, or restrictions on
trade for the benefit of special interests. In the decline of the Roman
Empire, the epoch in which the hopelessness of renovation was made
manifest was that in which the people accepted corn from the public
granaries: it preceded but a little the time when the post of emperor
became a matter of purchase.
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