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Let us proceed now to enquire, what modification of
these claims has been wrought by the adoption of the fede-
ral constitution. By the 8th section of the 1st article, it is
declared, "that Congress shall have power to levy and col-
lect 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. "
Here, then, is the power of raising money for the ex-
penses of the government, and we should search in vain
the terms of this power, for the idea, even, by implication,
that the public lands were included within the subjects lia-
ble to be taxed for the general objects specified, or applied
for that purpose. So far as this power extends to the pub-
lic national debt then existing, it afforded an aid to the use
of the proceeds of the public lands, willingly acknowledg-
ed then, and now liable for the extinction of the debt incur-
red in "acquiring and maintaining them. " The unoccupied
lands could not, in the nature of things, be operated on by
a tax — and taxes upon the agricultural interest in the set-
tled States, were looked to with great caution and limited
as far as practicable, by the trainers of the constitution.
Commerce and indirect taxation, in the shape of duties on
imposts, were regarded as the important source of revenue.
It is in this clause of the constitution, that the subjects of
general government, are to be found — and by no construc-
tion, even the most liberal, could the application of the pro-
ceeds of the sale of public lands, to these general purposes,
be predicated upon the terms of this power.
The power to tax, is certainly not the power to raise
funds by sale, nor the power to levy duties for the specific
objects contained in this clause, the power to apply funds,
the proceeds of sales, to these objects. The whole autho-
rity given to Congress to raise revenue, is embraced in this
clause, and in the further right to borrow money on the
credit of the United States; neither of which clothes them
with the power to apply the proceeds of the public lands
to the purpose for which either the tax is laid or the money
borrowed. Men of every political party admit, that no
district right or claim of the States was conferred by im-
plication upon the general government, and that the powers
not delegated by the constitution, to the United States, nor
prohibited by it, to the States, were reserved to the States,
respectively, or to the people. The power, then, to apply
the proceeds of the public lands to defraying the expenses
of the general government, " not being delegated by this ar-
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