eposit or loan, subject to the demand of the Government.

If it was proposed to raise by assessment upon the people the sum
necessary to refund the money collected upon this direct tax, I am
sure many who are now silent would insist upon the limitations of the
Constitution in opposition to such a scheme. A large surplus in the
Treasury is the parent of many ills, and among them is found a tendency
to an extremely liberal, if not loose, construction of the Constitution.
It also attracts the gaze of States and individuals with a kind of
fascination, and gives rise to plans and pretensions that an uncongested
Treasury never could excite.

But if the constitutional question involved in the consideration of this
bill should be determined in its favor, there are other objections
remaining which prevent my assent to its provisions.

There should be a certainty and stability about the enforcement of
taxation which should teach the citizen that the Government will only
use the power to tax in cases where its necessity and justice are not
doubtful, and which should also discourage the disturbing idea that the
exercise of this power may be revoked by reimbursement of taxes once
collected. Any other theory cheapens and in a measure discredits a
process which more than any other is a manifestation of sovereign
authority.

A government is not only kind, but performs its highest duty when it
restores to the citizen taxes unlawfully collected or which have been
erroneously or oppressively extorted by its agents or officers; but
aside from these incidents, the people should not be familiarized with
the spectacle of their Government repenting the collection of taxes and
restoring them.

The direct tax levied in 1861 is not even suspected of invalidity. There
never was a tax levied which was more needed, and its justice can not be
questioned. Why, then, should it be returned?

The fact that the entire tax was not paid furnishes no reason that would
not apply to nearly every case where taxes are laid. There are always
delinquents, and while the more thorough and complete collection of
taxes is a troublesome problem of government, the failure to solve the
problem has never been held to call for the return of taxes actually
collected.

The deficiency in the collection of this tax is found almost entirely in
the insurrectionary States, while the quotas apportioned to the other
States were, as a general rule, fully paid; and three-four